Adaptation to Life

by George E. Vaillant

Between 1939 and 1942, one of America's leading universities recruited 268 of its healthiest and most promising undergraduates to participate in a revolutionary new study of the human life cycle. The originators of the program, which came to be known as the Grant Study, felt that medical research was too heavily weighted in the direction of disease, and their intent was to chart the ways in which a group of promising individuals coped with their lives over the course of many years.

Nearly forty years later, George E. Vaillant, director of the Study, took the measure of the Grant Study men. The result was the compelling, provocative classic, Adaptation to Life , which poses fundamental questions about the individual differences in confronting life's stresses. Why do some of us cope so well with the portion life offers us, while others, who have had similar advantages (or disadvantages), cope badly or not at all? Are there ways we can effectively alter those patterns of behavior that make us unhappy, unhealthy, and unwise?

George Vaillant discusses these and other questions in terms of a clearly defined scheme of "adaptive mechanisms" that are rated mature, neurotic, immature, or psychotic, and illustrates, with case histories, each method of coping.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychiatry, Self Help

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

George Eman Vaillant, M.D., born 1934, is an American psychiatrist and Professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of Research for the Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Vaillant has spent his research career charting adult development and the recovery process of schizophrenia, heroin addiction, alcoholism, and personality disorder. Through 2003, he spent 30 years as Director of the Study of Adult Development at the Harvard University Health Service. The study has prospectively charted the lives of 824 men and women for over 60 years.

A major focus of his work in the past has been to develop ways of studying defense mechanisms empirically; more recently, he has been interested in successful aging and human happiness.

Villant has received the Foundations Fund Prize for Research in Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association, the Strecker Award from The Pennsylvania Hospital, the Burlingame Award from The Institute for Living, and the Jellinek Award for research on alcoholism. In 1995 he received the research prize of the International Psychogeriatric Society.

- summarised from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a like a wide-lens biography. There are dozens of men we learn about and we see them live and change over decades. With the breadth of characters it was not hard to see myself in many of them and begin to wonder about the influences that were shaping me, right here, in real time. It was deeply confronting to stare this in the face. Without ever giving any direct life advice, this book was the best of self-help books because it lets you to take from it what particular wisdom you need and will teach different people in different ways.

The main lesson I found in the book is that character is not formed by large isolated events but the slow, steady effect of relationships. Freud’s idea of mental health as the ability to love and work is found to be true, but deeper than that. By loving and working we find it ever easier to love and work, or by falling out of this positive cycle, we become more isolated and selfish and ever more unable to join it. Life builds on momentum. Experiences in childhood and temperament may create the outline of a person but it is how the world acts upon that person that moulds them slowly, over decades. Friendships, relationships and worthwhile work are the benevolent winds that gently steer a happy course. Someone without them increasingly turns inwards to seek comfort and that source is shallow and will soon be propped up by fickle, destructive pleasures which can quickly slide into addictions.

There is much in this book which supports traditional values as the best way to live. A stable and faithful marriage, for example, is crucial to a good life; solid, honest friendships as well. The evidence illuminates why these ancient codes are the way they are. Honesty, for example, is a mysterious virtue which at first glance seems to have no clear benefit for the person who has it. Yet when we look closer we see that honesty is the gateway to close relationships. Without it, a person can never truly share and blend with another and so they remain cut off and alone, isolated from the engines of life which shape a good and happy character.

These are the main conclusions that leap from the pages to me, but someone else will draw something else from these men’s lives. In a curious aside, one of the men studied is JFK, so he must be hidden in the pages somewhere. I found myself looking for hints for him. He might be there with his name and details changed but character intact, or he may have faded into the statistics, just a number in a column somewhere. That thought however was enough to remind me that these were real men with real lives and I should certainly be able to learn something from them.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read after 32 years. Did not duplicate the sense of revelation I had reading it at the age of 24, but that’s a measure of how deep the imprint was left.

[Alexei G · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first opened the book and read the first couple of chapters, I was initially stunned by the parochial narrow-mindedness of the notions and judgements the author passes upon his subjects. I was about to skim the rest of the book and was already gearing myself up to writing a scathing review.
And yet. As I read further and further on, I realised that the book is indeed very valuable. The simple access to a very unique and undervalued study gave the man insight and material to work with few others could ever hope to acquire.

Along the way , the author started introducing many notions and adaptation tactics that people use to deal with crises and problems, and explained relative maturity of each style. While the examples he uses in his case studies are not brilliantly portrayed, and way too short to get a real sense of the character of the men, they do sink in after a while, perhaps their very simplicity (or simplification perhaps?), helps us understand the reactions they experienced very clearly.

Undoubtedly, we judge all judges through the prism of our own morality. We have changed since the time when the book was written. I think the author may have changed as well. I look forward to reading his “triumphs of experience”, not only to find out how the men have changed further with age, but also to see how the writer’s prism has evolved.

[Ariadna73 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adaptation to life
Little Brown USA ISBN 031689520-2
Following 268 of the healthiest college students through all their lives.
Study conceived in 1937.
The author joined the staff in 1967.
Part I the study of mental health Introduction
1937 Philanthropist William T. Grant.
Previous study Frank Barron.
Conclusion -> problems exist always. The difference is how do we react to them.
The hypothesis was that health had a lot to do with success.
Ego mechanisms = keep affects, restore emotional balance, master changes in self-image, handle conflicts, survive major conflicts.
Author bias -> the experiment had too much candor.
Mental Health
How you adapt to life.
What do we do to make lite tolerable? -> Sublimation, altruism (Makes you warm).
Dissociation and Projection (make, you cold)
Thesis of the book: “A man's adaptative devices are as important in determining the course of his life as are his heredity, his upbringing, his social position, or his access to psychiatric help"
Five ideas:
1. Not the isolated traumas of childhood shape our future, but the quality of sustained relationships with important people.
2. Lives change and life is discontinuous
3. Key = understand adaptative mechanism. One defensive style can evolve into another.
4. Humans evolve. Truths are always relative.
5. Health exists and can be discussed.

Chapter 3 HTWS Six considerations on how small the sample was.
The men of the Grant study
This, book describes 95/268.
Many biases.
Did not pretend to be representative.
Kind of stoic. Kind of privileged.
How they were studied
We cannot be taught self-esteem. We absorb it
Sublimating the conflicts and wishes.
Forget or "Repress" passions.
Health redefined-sex-anger.
Questions about the mechanisms
How to identify them?
Defenses are a major means of Managing instinct and affect.
Do they exist?
They are unconscious.
How many are there?
Discrete from one another
Dynamic and reversible s.
They can be adaptative or pathologic.

The mechanisms 4 levels.
Level 1
Psychotic (childhood)
Denial
Distortion
Projection
Level II
Immature (Adolescents or people with personality disorders)
Fantasy
Projection
Hypochondriasis
Passive aggressive (masochism)
Acting out.
Level III
Neurotic
Intellectualization
Repression
Reaction formation
Displacement
Dissociation
Level IV Mature
Sublimation
Altruism
Suppression
Anticipation
Humor

What is the diff. between pathological defense Mech. and adaptive coping Mech?
Practical consequences?
Are they immutable through life?
What to do when seeing one?
Since these mechanisms are unconscious we can try to make the person shift to another one, but having the time and love to do it.
Part two Basic style, of adaptation
Adaptative ego mechanisms: A hierarchy
Sublimation
Makes instinct acceptable, makes ideas fun.
Every failure bring, something new and exciting.
Suppression, Anticipation, Altruism, and humor
Anticipation-Attenuates anxiety
Suppression-Always seeing the bright side.
Humor: elegant defense
Sup or Ant. = Positive
Sublim and Altruism = Poorly adapted
The neurotic defenses
Freud contribution.
Unusual human behavior could be Compensatory and adaptative. rather than immoral or derranged.
Repression = Prototype "Just forget it"
Suppression' Element of choice that differentiates it from repression
Intelectualization = Most clearly relates to the OCD
Displacement -> displace sexual arguments with money arguments.
Reaction formation Rigidity, change the perception. For example start hating the smell of cigarettes.
Dissociation = More dramatic Drugs, alcohol, Stanislavski method of acting
Important = The defense mechanism affect the interior of the user these neurotic mechanisms are the most widely used.
The immature defenses
Character disorders never learn
Projection -> Assign our own responsibilities to someone else.
Paranoia. Men who used it were terrified of intimacy.
Obsessive over involvement with the enemy.
Fantasy: Making events alight in our head
Acting out Giving in to impulses permits to express avoiding control drinking, killing, etc.
Hypochondria-Accuses and punishes others. Conversion of affect into a somatic equivalent.
Can't show hurt, so they sommatize it.
Masochism: Gandhi was a bad husband and a bad father
Guilty and paranoids are two ends of the same circle.
Part THREE Developmental consequence) of adaptation
The adult lifecycle: in one culture.
Caterpillars and butterflies
The passage of time renders truth itself relative.
Opinions change with aging.
Maturation makes liars of all of us.
There are patterns and rhythms in life. Not easy to discover, but they are the answer.
Adult development is still a mystery.
Adult life patterns outlined by Erik Erikson in "Childhood and society"
Basic trust
Autonomy + Initiative
Industry
Identity
Intimacy (40)
At 10 we pay attention to what our parents say. At 16 to what they do.
Adolescence- the first time around
Real responsibility -> after consolidation the career.
Parents are very important to achieve maturity.
By nature they are spontaneous, gregarious and idealistic
Intimacy and career consolidation
Marriage, before 30 (intimacy age) are more likely to fail.
Important change in Career consolidation> Acquisition, assimilation and finally casting aside of mentors.
Generativity-A second adolescence
At 40 extramarital affairs reach their peak.
Some fathers are more rigid.
At 55 one can only do 60% of watt could do at 40.
Implies responsibility for fellow creatures.
The keepers of the meanings
50 s are quieter than 40
50 sound terrifying for the younger readers.
However, don't forget that this is a limited study. .
Paths into health
Actors are masters al disociation
Hypocondriacs rarely connect their disease to emotions but theydo with maturity and dissociation from the parent-like figures.
Successful adjustment
"Occasionally, I would start thinking how such dull people could make money. I should have known that money making has more to do with emotional stability than intellect."
JP Marqland "Women and Thomas Harrow"
Blanche is sick. Stanley is healthy
It seems that people that don't self analize much, are happier.
Defense, of the best outcomes: Chanel rather than block inner life = suppression, anticipation, altruism, displacement
Poor outcomes = Defenses that remove, denies. Reaction formation, disociation, immature defenses.
P. 277 Photo Mental health is not predictable
The child is father to the man.
Selfishness occurs in people that got too little when children.
Children with less love grow into men that have 10 times prescription meds and spend 5 times more hours with the phyisichiatric.
Friends, wives and children.
Mental health and the capacity to love are linked.
In our era emotional attachments are overrated
Friends
Lives of friendly and lonely are very different.
Lonely are more frightened-more likely to feel nervous.
Friendly took full vacations.
Fatherhood
Family is a treasure for the successful.
Marriage
Less successful = Reaction formation = substitute happy myths to deny sadness.
More successful: supression
Fear of sex is linked with mistrust of the universe.
Love and the capacity to love is KEY
Part Four: Conclusions
The maturing Ego
Maturation of mind cannot be separated from maturation of body.
Criminals mysteriously reform between 25 and 40
The evolution of mature defenses is shockingly independent of social and genetic good fortune.
Evolution is independent of good fortune.
Biological maturity is necessary but not sufficient.
Maturity is accompanied with deeper relationships and love.
Environment influences
Suppression, anticipation and altruism are enhanced by apprenticeship
Defenses cannot be taught. They can be absorbed.
Adaptational maturity and ego are the agents of morality.
Belief in the species without generativity is impossible.
The ethical rule of adulthood is to do to others what will help them, even as it helps you to grow.
Association between maturation and external adjustment
Trust, autonomy and initiative are the most important tasks of childhood.
Pessimism, self-doubt and fear of sex are features of the worst lives.
What is mental health
Important = Internalize fathers as role models.
Master intimacy for good outcomes
Worst outputs gave less back.
Working and loving are still the goals of our society.
Health is success at living know when to stop.
Summary
Isolated traumatic events rarely mold individual lives.
Breaks of luck = interaction between our choice of adaptative mechanisms and our sustained relationships with other people.
Mental illness is more like the red tender swelling around a fracture that immobilizes so that it may heal.
Mental health exists.
Those who pay their internists the most visits are also most likely to visit psychiatrists.
Individual capable of homeostasis survive.
It is not stress what kills us. It is effective adaptation to stress that permits us to live.

[Douglass Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read Adaptation to Life shortly after its publication in 1977. I chose to read it because it was based upon the prospective, longitudinal study of a cohort who were initially free of diagnosed mental illness, as opposed to much of psychiatry, which was based on the study of subjects suffering from mental illness. As the author put it, the study goal was to learn some of the Do’s, as opposed to only the Don’ts. I see it as analogous to prospective, longitudinal studies of cardiac risk factors among initially healthy subjects some of whom subsequently developed cardiac disease, such as the Framingham Study.
Adaptation to Life is a progress report of one of the longest longitudinal studies of 'psychologically healthy' adults. Based on serial questionnaires and interviews over the years, the Grant study is an ongoing study of members of a 1940s class of Harvard College graduates. Although it purports to study healthy normals as opposed to psychiatry patients, the interviewers are primarily psychiatrists; the questionnaires and interviews are largely psychologic; and the outcomes of 'positive' work, family, physical health, and psychologic health, are based upon cultural norms rich with psycho-social constructs. It is dense with data, making it the kind of book I have had to study rather than simply read. For example, this book helped me learn to define and apply many of the psychologic (Freudian) ego defenses to my reading and to my own life.
The main premise of this report was that 'the maturity of ego defenses was important to the mental health and other positive outcomes, of the study subjects. George Vaillant drew upon the work of Heinz Hartmann’s Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation, to emphasize that ‘soundness is a way of reacting to problems’. He suggests that the data from his volunteer subjects demonstrate conflict resolution between four factors: their instincts, the world in which the subjects lived, important people in their lives, and their consciences.
Dr. Vaillant specified five motifs from which to review his data and interpretations of those data:
• Isolated childhood traumas appeared to be less important than sustained relationships with important people in the subjects’ lives. Importantly, the author specified isolated trauma as opposed to repeated traumas.
• Lives changed over time.
• The key to understanding the subjects’ psychology or psychopathology was to understand the subjects’ adaptive mechanisms.
• Human development continues throughout one’s life.
• Mental health can be considered largely independent of moral and cultural values. I am skeptical of the generalizability of this assertion.
Longitudinal studies are a form of epidemiologic study; they can also be called cohort or registry studies. As such, the Grant study is subject to the same kinds of internal validity limitations as any cohort study. Among the most important biases which can limit the interpretations of these kinds of studies are selection bias, confounding, and information bias.
This study of wellness is limited to a relatively homogeneous group of white males of considerable socioeconomic privilege, who have access to a good education. These selection factors do not simply limit the generalizability, or external validity, of the conclusions. They likely also limit the internal validity of many of the observations or results such as the types of ego defenses used and outcomes such as career success.
One of the epidemiologic principles used to try to infer causation is that cause must precede effect. Prospective longitudinal studies, like the Grant study, can allow for the recognition of sequence, for example between documented use of particular adaptive defenses and subsequent outcomes such as maintained and satisfying marriage.
Confounding or mixing of effects is among the most common and most important causes of errors in the interpretation of cohort studies. Most of the results reported in the Grant study are in the form of associations, such as ‘mature defenses are more common among the subjects with good outcomes than those with bad outcomes’. The various ego defenses listed on a continuum of maturity, and the outcome variables such as physical health, are derived from the same interviews and questionnaires. In this example, did a group who tended to use sublimation more than repression have better physical health because of their collective use of more mature defenses or is better physical health and regular exercise leading to the use of more mature defenses?
The definitions of good versus bad outcomes and the maturity of defenses are all subject to information biases. Not everyone would agree that enduring a painful marriage for >10 years is indicative of a good family outcome, for either the partners or their offspring.
Implicit in the reservations expressed in the previous several paragraphs is the implication that I have studied, pondered, and often disagreed with much of Adaptation to Life. But I have learned, reconsidered, and relearned a lot from studying this book. As I have evolved over my life, my interpretations of this book have evolved as well. These are among the characteristics of the books I love to read and reread. I do not attempt to read such books without a highlighter, pens, and paper.
I acknowledge that some of my particular interest in the Grant study relates to the fact that I graduated from Harvard. It’s akin to being more interested in the Framingham study if you grew up in Framingham, MA. But I also like to read books written by authors with different experiences and different perspectives. For example, I have learned from both Tara Westover’s Educated and JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy (reviewed for chapter 9). It is interesting to consider how many of the generalizations from Adaptation to Life might apply to either Tara Westover’s or JD Vance’s life stories.
I think Adaptation to Life, and the Grant study, on which it rests, are important parts of the contemporary emphasis on wellness and health. I see it as analogous to Martin E. Seligman studying learned helplessness before refocusing on positive psychology. Or Brené Brown’s studies of shame before developing a perspective from which to consider resilience, vulnerability, and imperfection. I recommend Adaptation to Life to readers who would like to be challenged and are willing to do the work of reading it.

[Jedidiah Ng · Rating 3 out of 5]

good but the second half was too long-winded, but basically life has painful, suffering and traumatic events and that occurs for literally everybody even if we determine them as privilege, thus the only thing we can do is how we react to such events and whether we can develop intimate relationships with people

[Koen Raijer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taught me a lot about the way ego mechanisms of defence were understood in a time where psychoanalysis was still in its prime. Because of its many examples it provides a rich background against which these often so abstract ideas can be understood. It shed light on part of psychiatry-specific terminology by defining several concepts that can be fit onto concepts still in use today. “ego-sparing interventions” is one such concept in use today that got more body because of this book. At the same time it is hopelessly dated, has very rigid and absolutist views on health and does not properly disentangle health from morality. The book is riddled by WASP-coded value judgements. The fact that this goes largely unacknowledged is annoying at best.

[Michaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

A longitudinal study of adults, of what constitutes mental health. Fascinating, terrifying, freeing, what other adjectives can I throw at it? I am now slightly more apprehensive of middle age, when apparently both my children and I will be going through adolescence at the same time. But there is also incredible relief for a parent when he claims that single traumatic events are unlikely to result in poor development. As long as I am not subjecting them to ongoing trauma for decades, my children should turn out ok… Maybe I should classify this book as parenting… ;)

In all seriousness, this book was eye-opening and useful. The criticisms I could hurl at it the author has anticipated (showing great adaptive maturity?) and acknowledged. The biggest being that it is so very biased by the selection process of the study: privilege, college-educated white males born after WWI. There were paragraphs where I ached as he described a level of mental health based on criteria I can (still!) only imagine. In curiosity I longed to also know the mental health of the wives of some of the mentally healthy men, suspicious of what I would find. And yet. You won't be disappointed in Vaillant's treatment of that shortcoming. And the majority of his findings and conclusions I think do apply to humanity, not just a subset. So much in here to learn, even with the timeliness of some of the theories. (Those too, the author acknowledges)

[Alex Ball · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adaptation to Life provides an insightful look into the maturing ego defenses of a group of well-adjusted young men studied from the early 20th century through their later years ending in 1977. Vaillant, a psychologist, expands on Freud's (Anna's and Sigmund's) and Erikson's development theories, defining and illustrating such mechanisms as neurotic denial, suppression and altruism and how these mechanisms, or adaptive styles, impact the objective qualities of the men's adult lives.

Vaillant, writing in a clinically accurate but friendly style, makes some interesting points backed by extensive anecdotes and statistical data. For instance, a childhood characterized by stable but distant or immature parenting can in fact be more harmful in the long run than one traumatized by the death of a mother or father. Mental health, as defined by impartial professionals blind to particular variables, was not significantly correlated to socioeconomic stratum. Finally, a man's adaptive style (essentially, his ability and fashion of realistically (stoically?) facing and overcoming long-term personal challenges) predicts a vast number of variables, including career, social and marital success.

Adaptation to Life is really unique in that its longitudinal approach trumps all the snake oil and cross-sectional preaching you might hear from shrinks of one life-coaching camp or another. Great read if you're into psychology.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two quotes from the Conclusion sum up this book quite well:

"Neither a sextant nor a celestial map can predict where we should go; but both are invaluable in letting us identify where we are."

"Contrary to popular belief, lucky at work means lucky in love; lack of overt emotional distress does not lead to headache and high blood pressure but to robust physical health; and those who pay their internist the most visits are also most likely to visit psychiatrists. Inner happiness, external play, objective vocational success, mature inner defenses, good outward marriage, all correlate highly - not perfectly, but at least as powerfully as height correlates with weight." Though there is the occasional (1 in 1000) exception.

Fantastic insight into how we tick and where we, as individuals, are currently ticking. The book acknowledges its weaknesses (mostly in its cohort selection), but it provides some very useful broad swaths. The second to last chapter is also incredibly heartening. It should almost be read first, but acts as a sort of tension release valve for the rest of the book.

Highly recommended.

[Pepe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Awesome book. A longitudinal, scientific study of the factors that make people happy, healthy, and useful to society.

Answer: Close personal relationships make a person good at everything in life. Happiness, job success, devotion to home environment and personal relationships, health, maturity, and enjoyable leisure activities are all positively correlated.

Disclaimer: This is a study of WHITE, MALE, college graduates from a respectable university. The study also started before World War II, and the book is 25 years out of date.

Some interesting data from the book:
The best outcomes
had a good relationship with their parents
participated in *competitive* leisure activities
married between 23 and 27 (inclusive)

Disruptive teenage years did NOT correlate.
Divorce sort of? did NOT correlate.
The best outcomes made a career transition around 50. However, the Vaillant also talks about midlife crises, saying these transitions were not really crises and that true crises were more correlated with poor outcomes.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book George Vaillant analyzes adaptation techniques (aka coping strategies aka defense mechanisms) using the lives of men in the Grant Study (the Grant Study undertook the task of profiling 250+ male college graduates in the United States from 1940 to the end of their lives; this book was written in the 1970s, when the men were in their fifties). He covers 14 adaptation techniques, from altruism and sublimation to delusional projection and denial. The really fascinating aspect of this book is the author's ability to show how one defense can evolve into another one, for better or worse. He also gives a good picture of how different defenses work within the same person simultaneously. This book is an introduction to the defenses, so you don't need to know much about psychology to get into it. Vaillant cites Anna Freud and Sigmund Freud throughout the text, but also indicates that he is influenced by the writings of Harry Stack Sullivan, Erik Erikson, and Adolf Meyer.

[Dede · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting in if put in the contex of broader psychological theory about masculine cognitive and emotional development over the lifespan. But the reserach premise relied heavily on Freud's defense mechanism-based theories which is pretty limiting. The punchline is that mature defense mechanisms are important for overall healthful functioning and to enable good relationships. And quality relationships and the ability to love, attach and commit, make the happiest and most succesful man. And I say 'man' because women were not included in this longitudinal study. The researcher does acknowledge the limitations of the study. I am glad to have read it, but I am not sure that I would recommend it unless you are a psychology junky like myself.

[Jim Angstadt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a topic that should be a some concern to all of us. How do we adapt to the curve-balls that life throws up? What are the important factors that point to successful adaptation? Or un-successful adaptation?

The author has a very organized approach to evaluation of a longitudinal study of some young men.

For me, the author's approach seems scientific and realistic. And yet, that was not my take-away learning.

My bottom-line was that we are all thrown curve-balls. The difference is our adaptability. Are we reasonable, or something else? Is our adaptability of a healthy kind or an unhealthy kind?

I bailed early, but this topic is still in my mind.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

LIFE-CHANGING. I beg you to read it! Rarely has a book affected my view of the human condition so profoundly, and never so precisely. It approaches perfection; not for universality or omniscience, but because it shines within the acknowledged limits of the study. Erudition and grace transform what could have been a dull academic text into something approaching a novel. I felt both highly vulnerable and hopeful while reading it, and I doubt anyone could finish without becoming a more complete person.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book adhering to outdated Freudian analysis, where you can feel how the author manipulates /misrepresents characters in order to fit his overarching theme - positive coping mechanisms (defined rigidly) trump bad ones. Okay, after 50 pages we already get the idea, but the whole book repeats it over and over again, using caricatures, so one-dimensional it is like reading a horrible teen novel.
The idea is worth knowing, an excerpt/ review is all you need. With the advent of more scientific psychology theories, the ideas proposed here seem increasingly simplistic, sometimes laughable.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. I was more interested in immature and mature adaptation styles than neurotic so skimmed through a few sections. Reading about the men in the study, with the deft use of contrast and comparison, was enlightening. The conclusions resonated and are held up but what we have since learned about mental health, imho. Nothing mind-blowing here except for the depth and breadth of the study, which is remarkable.

[Kristie Castellini · Rating 5 out of 5]

The detailed history behind my favorite article in years: What Makes Us Happy? It's a 72-year longitudinal study of Harvard grads and the long-term drivers for health & happiness.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/a...
This book is a skimmer but great detail behind the article if you get as interested in it as I did.

[Andrew Pace · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best non fiction book I have ever read. Covers key events in the lives of dozens of intelligent, successful Harvard graduates. Describes the ways even the best of them manage to make themselves miserable, or how those who started with so little build rich, fulfilling lives.

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interim analysis of a very interesting longitudinal study

[Adrian Herbez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be fascinating- great take on what really matters in life, and what contributes to success and happiness.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

A genius longitudinal study that created a very effective way at viewing defenses. The taxonomy of defenses is fascinating. I have to go look at this again.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one talks a lot more about their quasiFreudian theories of how humans adapt than the follow up Triumphs of Experience.