preface to the english edition - Social Psychology Network

Preface to the English edition I'LL START MY PREFACE WITH A THANK YOU TO THE "PHOENIX" PUBLISHING HOUSE,
WHICH VENTURED TO PUBLISH MY BOOK "PSYCHOLOGICAL AIKIDO" IN ENGLISH. AFTER
ALL, MY BOOKS (THERE HAVE BEEN ALREADY MORE THAN 20 OF THEM) PUBLISHED IN
RUSSIAN, ARE SUCCESSFULLY SOLD IN MANY COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD, INCLUDING
BOTH DISTANT FOREIGN COUNTRIES (THE USA, GERMANY) AND "NEAR ABROAD" (FORMER
SOVIET REPUBLICS: LATVIA, LITHUANIA, KAZAKHSTAN, UZBEKISTAN, ETC.).
Thanks to my books I was invited to the above-named countries, where I
successfully (as they have repeatedly invited me) conducted seminars
devoted to communication and management psychology, oratoric skills, etc.
Nevertheless, those seminars were attended mainly by the people who have
perfectly mastered Russian, because I was conducting the seminars in
Russian.
I can't say whether this book will be successful when published in
English.
The participants of my seminars who didn't understand Russian were
content with the translation and expressed their wish to have my books in
their native languages. So far, this has only been realized in Latvia. Now
it will be published in English.
This publication is especially pleasant for me as I consider myself to be
the follower of such outstanding psychologists as Berne, Rodgers, Maslow
and James, whose books I had to translate on my own because they hadn't yet
been published in our country in the 1980s. Naturally, my teachers were
Freud, Adler, Horney and many others, whose books I also had to read in
English or use, as I found out later, not quite a qualitative translation.
Nowadays all these books, and the books of the authors I haven't
mentioned, are published in many copies.
So why did I venture to write my books and outline my methods? Simply
put, the western methods outlined by my predecessors did not always work
well in Russia, and the problems described in their books were not always
comprehensive to our readers.
I had to adapt western methods to our environment. That is why there is
an element of novelty in my works. Several methods are quite original.
Besides, I have worked out my conceptual apparatus, which suits my readers
quite well. I don't claim to have invented something principally new, but I
think it was Nizamy who said a very long time ago that all ideas are as old
as the sea, only the terms have their exciting novelty. That is why I hope
to interest English-speaking people with my book, both native speakers and
those who speak English as a second language. It might help them to put
their lives right.
At least my book can be used for studying English in our country and
Russian abroad, as "Psychological Aikido" is quite accessible in Russian,
both in Russia and foreign countries. Besides, while studying a foreign
language people will be able to acquaint themselves with some psychological
methods which have already helped several million readers. After all, the
number of copies of my books sold exceeded a million a long time ago.
Present-day science shows that neurosis is rooted in infancy, when the
neurotic relations system and neurotic character are formed. It brings a
person to living in a constant state of emotional tension (often
unconscious) and makes him vulnerable to difficult conflict situations.
Neurosis also triggers as psychosomatic diseases such as bronchial
asthma, gastritis, stomach ulcer, hypertension, colitis etc. Immunity is
destroyed when a person is under stress or emotional tension. Neurotic
individuals are more disposed to infections, malignant tumors and
accidents. Thus, the saying "All diseases are rooted in nerves" has been
scientifically proven.
But why should a person wait until he or she falls ill or makes someone
else unhappy? Isn't it better to start work before falling ill?
Thus the club of psychopreventive and psychocorrection direction was
founded. We call it CROSS (Club of the Resolute to Overcome Stressful
Situations). Here, people who have psychological problems in the family or
at work, come to us for guidance. We try to help them regulate
communication instead of prescribing medicine.
During the lectures and psychology group training we master what is
already known and work out new ways and rules of psychological fight. More
than 85% of the listeners say they have managed to improve their family and
business relations using the psychological aikido skills. Some of our
students have been promoted in their careers. Many students have chosen to
carry out much more difficult tasks than they have done before.
While our earlier classes were limited to the questions of conflict and
the rules of getting out of it, later on our listeners were interested in
destiny problems and re-education methods aimed at personal scenery
correction.
Later on my attention was focused on the social psychology theses.
The need to master oratorical skills has become of current importance.
Interest in the problem of sexual relations and sexual upbringing has
appeared.
The lectures and trainings turned out to be not enough. Both listeners
and trainers needed to come back to the schooled material, think it over
again, and refresh their memory. At first we would refer to our readers
books by Dale Carnegie, V. Levi, A. Dobrovich, E. Berne, etc. for those
purposes. Good books! There are many rules and some sensible pieces of
advice there.
They say WHAT to do, but it isn't always easy to find HOW to do it.
Sometimes the listeners couldn't use those recommendations because they
found it difficult to choose in accordance with the concrete situation. But
I have my own approaches. Thus the idea to write a manual on psychological
fight was born. It's main content is shock absorption technique, which was
worked out by me on the basis of communication laws. Later on a number of
books, where I am going to develop and deepen this topic, will be
published.
I have kept my promise.
To my students and patients who have taught me
psychological aikido I dedicate this book.
M. Litvak Preface to the second edition THIS BOOK IS VERY DEAR TO ME FOR A NUMBER OF REASONS. PRIMARILY, IT'S MY
FIRST REAL BOOK. FORMERLY, I HAD ONLY LITTLE BROCHURES, MADE IN A SMALL
VOLUME BY REQUEST OF THE "ZNANIJE" ("KNOWLEDGE") SOCIETY. THERE WAS SUCH A
SOCIETY ONCE. THEY WERE MANUALS FOR THE LECTURERS, WHO READ LECTURES TO THE
POPULATION ABOUT THE HARM OF ALCOHOL, DRUG ADDICTION AND SMOKING. BUT THEY
ALSO PASSED THROUGH THE SEVERE HAND OF AN "OBLLIT" (REGIONAL LITERATURE
ORGANIZATION) MEMBER. THE DESIRE TO WRITE FELL AWAY AFTER THAT.
"Psychological aikido" was written in 1990 and published by a rotaprint
method. 100 copies were printed. All of them were quickly bought up. Then I
issued 1000 copies at my own expense by the typographical method in 1991.
But it was not a book yet. An editor didn't make his remarks on it. The
typesetter was illiterate; there were just a lot of orthographic mistakes.
Nevertheless, those thousand copies somehow quickly disappeared from my
house, though I think I mainly presented them. Within a year and a half,
the book had been printed by Rostov Pedagogical university publishing house
(it was still institute at that time) with an enormous circulation of 50
thousand copies. It had all the attributes of a book (editor's work,
correction, ISBN, BBK, index card, annotation, publishing house requisites,
etc). I was making a fuss of it. The publishing house paid in kind with me.
The books occupied my entire flat. I expected people would stand in a long
line to buy my book and it would be sold out in a moment, bringing profit
to the publishing house and glory to the author.
How amazed I was when the book fell like a heavy load on the publishing
house and nearly evicted me out of my flat. It chased me everywhere: at
home, at work, in my bag; it lay motionless, unwrapped, on the desks of
many bosses of mine, acquaintances, friends and neighbors, whom I presented
that book, sometimes two or three times because of my forgetfulness, and I
couldn't get rid of it. I presented my copies to whoever I could. To my
mind I bothered many people with my offers. There and then I felt bitter
disappointment. "The wise, the kind and the eternal" was getting dusty in
my flat and in the storehouse of the publishers. I overheard conversations
like "If I wanted to, I could have written a better book. Why is he making
such a fuss about it?"
But... my desire to write didn't disappear, and the next year I wrote the
books "Psychological Diet", "Neuroses", "The Algorithm of luck". But nobody
wanted to publish my works then. I had to organize my own publishing house,
where I published my books in a rather bloody way. When a little pile was
stored, with the total volume of 300 pages, I suddenly noticed, that my
books started running away from me much more merrily. "Phoenix" publishing
house ordered me a 600-page book, in which all four above-named books
should be included. I had to urgently write 300 pages more, and I did it.
In 1995 the book "If You Want to Be Happy" was published. "Psychological
Aikido" and all the other books were parts of this "brick", and I didn't
have a thought of republishing it. Later on, there were about 15 books,
which quickly spread all over the world.
Nowadays I am pleased to realize that "Psychological Aikido" costs two-
three times more than my big books at the rare-books market.