INTRODUCTION

This is the second edition of this book.   I probably should have called the first book, --- Understanding Human Behavior also, but alas I did not.  There is no sense crying over spilled milk.  Let’s get on with it as it is.  I believed that when people read the first edition of this book the truth that is represented therein would become self-evident and the rest would become history.  Obviously I was wrong.

Unfortunately telling the truth is not always the best approach.   When I said that I drove a taxi for 32 years, most people wrote me off as someone who is suffering from delusions of grandeur.   From this particular vantage point I cannot blame them.  As I have stated elsewhere, I went to a University of my own choosing at my local libraries and I have no credentials to provide to you to prove that I have done so.

Only if you ignore your preconceptions and read the entire book will you have the chance to conclude that I indeed know what I am writing about and indeed ---I have discovered, by hook or by crook, a deeper level of understanding about how the human mind functions.  While the above words are true, under no circumstances does this mean that I understand all human behavior.  It means exactly what I have written above. This second edition will provide even more evidence to prove that my above hypotheses is correct and that represents the sum total of the motivation for writing this book.  Now back to the words that I wrote in the first edition of this book.

Since the human race began, we have all been amateur psychologists trying to understand why human beings behave the way they do.  Although we know that understanding fear is extremely important, we have failed to realize that it is actually at the very core of the question.  The ultimate purpose of this book is to set aside much of what the psychological profession now considers to be the very bedrock of their understanding in their chosen field.  

Specifically, the accepted belief that most forms of mental illness are caused by either genetic damage or a chemical imbalance inside the human brain, --- will be shown to be false in many or most cases.  As a result of this book, many of those people who were told that they are mentally ill, will in the future be recognized as suffering from a conglomeration of distorted fears  which manifest themselves in the adverse reactions and irrational behavior that such fears can cause to happen.

Numerous examples will be given to show that such distorted fears have succeeded in deflecting the individual’s behavior so drastically that a Psychiatrist has labeled the individual in question as being mentally ill.  This book will prove that at all times, these deflections are all negotiable and as a result, the individual in question can be successfully returned to an accepted level of behavior that the Psychiatric profession and the public at large has determined to be rational and normal. 

If this was the extent of the value that this book has to offer to the human race, that in itself would be incredibly important; however the increased illumination that this book has to offer concerning the manner in which the human mind functions, will also allow those of us who are considered to be “normal”, to embrace life more abundantly than ever before.

With more than 7 billion people on the face of the earth, what is required more than anything else at this time, is more people who can involve themselves in more achievements without unnecessarily damaging their physical, emotional and mental well-being.  Although it would be tantalizing to believe that such incredible changes could be realized almost immediately, reality dictates otherwise. The collective fear of change inside the human mind is such that old ideas, no matter how archaic, continue to receive acclaim far beyond the time when they should have been discarded in favor of better and more realistic ideas.

The writing of this book and its subsequent publication is in my confident opinion, one of many important steps that must be taken if a deeper level of understanding about how the human mind functions is ever to replace the partial understanding that now prevails.   Of course this new level of understanding that I wish to put forward is partial in nature also.   Future generations may well look upon it as a miniscule step in our attempts to understand the incredible complexities of the human mind.

We are creatures of trial and error and as such we can develop distorted fears about making mistakes which cause us to fail at whatever we are trying to achieve.  This is a perfectly natural and realistic fear for under certain circumstances, a mistake could cost someone his or her life as well as others also.

This book with its new ideas will contain many mistakes.   But the psychiatric profession is making millions of mistakes, --- many of which they are not even aware of.  When the ideas in this book are accepted for the truth that they represent, it will result in a virtual “Recall To Life” for many people who have been unnecessarily set aside as being defective and dependent, rather than perfectly normal and productive.

It will also see those who have spent their entire lives studying psychology being able to help people with problems that I will be unable to fathom simply because they will be more in tune with the basic requirements needed to help that person. Of course this will all be dependent upon the willingness of such a person to give up their old ideas for the new and improved ideas that I am trying to put forward. The following paraphrased quote from Winston Churchill will appropriately bring this introduction to an end: “Let us therefore conduct ourselves in such a manner so that if the human race should continue to exist for another million years, men and women will still say --- this was their finest hour.”