Product reviews for Adventures in Human Understanding

Adventures in Human Understanding is a collection of vignettes, short stories, poems, and essays with the common thread of advancing the understanding of human nature. Jack Watkins explains that these events are true, partially true, and fictional. The stories were based on events from his own experiences or were observed or told to him by high school, college and graduate students, friends, colleagues, and patients. He stated that his aim was, "...to stress a sense of values, one that upholds the essential dignity of mankind" (p. viii). Each entry is followed by a section entitled "Thoughts of a Therapist: Analysis and Content." These sections provide evaluation of the characters, their situations and both conscious and unconscious motivations. Jack Watkins gives considerable acknowledgement to the assistance and skills of his wife, Helen Watkins, a highly esteemed therapist, who died not long after the book was published.

The book is divided into three sections representing adolescence, adulthood, and old age, aptly entitled the springtime, summer, and autumn of life. As such, the book focuses on the developmental tasks of each of these transitional areas of maturation describing the kinds of problems encountered and solutions attempted. Not all of the stories have happy endings. The reader can be moved to tears by a tragic episode that feels familiar and is often encountered during our own journeys through life. The reader senses the author's values and respect for all human experiences as individuals strive to develop their identities and potentials while struggling with their relationships and inescapable environmental constraints. The author sees life as continual exploration and adventure from "Startin Time" to "Quitten Time" (sic).

The characters in the stories and ballads tend to be ordinary people, many in small towns, who especially in adolescence and adulthood are yearning for love and acceptance. For most of these "heroes" and "heroines", life spans the earlier years of the twentieth century so that the stories evoke nostalgia for a bygone era when life was simpler and more innocent.

For this reviewer, the most compelling chapters were those in Part III, the Autumn of Life. "Andrew and his Old Sheep Dog" was touching and memorable. "Buddies" was heartwarming with an interesting twist. "Dao-Tsai and the White Marble Image" was suspenseful, charming and well-written.

It's possible that this book could be used in college classes in developmental psychology as well as in graduate school in clinical psychology classes. The "Thoughts of a Therapist" at the end of each story, poem, or essay could be valuable in helping students and beginning therapists learn to evaluate and analyze individuals and their psychodynamics. For more experienced clinicians, the book is a nostalgic read and provides a good review of the developmental tasks of maturation.

Shirley A. McNeal, Ph.D., San Francisco, CA, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis