Product Description

Clinical psychologist Oliver James demonstrates that who we are is largely the result of the way we were cared for during our first six years, rather than our genes and other environmental factors. The particular way we were treated in these earliest months and years explains why siblings can be so different. They may have been raised in the same family, but their mother and father related so differently to each of them that they might as well had a different parents. These early experiences affect our choices of friends and lovers, define our interests and professional drives, make us more or less prone to mental illness. James illustrates a vast body of startling new scientific evidence with detailed clinical case histories and those of prominent interviewees as diverse as Jeffrey Archer and Stephen Fry, along with revealing psychobiographies of the likes of Woody Allen, Mia Farrow and Prince Charles. Each chapter also includes a straightforward questionnaire that allows you to complete an 'emotional audit' so that you can be more aware of your role in the family script. "They F**k You Up" is a vital, challenging book offering compelling insights into how childhood experience provides the key to personality.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84630 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
'A classic. An absolute, slam-dunk tour-de-force guaranteed to make you think more deeply than ever about what made you who you are. Oliver James gets us to prise open all the cobwebbed cupboards of our lives and teaches us how to dust down and tidy up the mess we find inside ... It may be the most frightening book since The Shining, but it's also the most helpful since the Highway Code' Jeremy Vine 'With fascinating case studies from Prince Charles to Jeffrey Archer, this accessible book explains how our childhood experiences dramatically shape our lives' Daily Mail 'He presents some compelling evidence for his case in this popular examination of recent research into how we develop ... An interesting read' Irish Times 'Taking Larkin's words as a starting point, psychologist Oliver James looks at what makes us what we are and argues forcibly in favour of nurture, claiming that how we are cared for during early childhood is the fundamental factor' Daily Express

Irish Times
`He presents some compelling evidence for his case in this popular
examination of recent research into how we develop'

From the Publisher
By the author of Britain on the Couch

Customer Reviews

Don't bother
I found this book extremely disappointing. Despite the regular references to research, these were highly selective towards James' polemic and rambled all over the place. Of obvious dubiousness were the references to gay men's sexuality stemming from family order and relationship with their mother, particularly because I could find nothing in the index which would "explain" lesbians as well. I couldn't finish the book.

From the shallow end of the gene pool
This one is a bit of a let-down. Oliver James’s 'Britain on the Couch' was an important and intelligent look at why so many of us are depressed in Western cultures, but 'They F*** You Up' is muddled and unconvincing, not sure whether it is a serious study or a self-help manual and not succeeding in either.

James tries to get away from the default idea that there is a balance between nature and nurture in determining personal identity, thinking it’s a cop-out, arguing instead that by far the most determinant factor is upbringing before the age of six. It’s all very well to escape the scientism that says everything we are is dictated by genes, but James runs wildly in the other direction and is far too schematic in his isolation of various types of person that ‘result’ from different family contexts. As a psychologist, he falls into the classic trap of extrapolating from the kind of extremes he sees in his patients to general statements about the bulk of the population, whose indistinct neuroses and general ability to muddle along won’t fit his fixed patterns of ‘punitive’ or ‘benign consciences', etc. Trying to answer his questionnaires at the end of each chapter, I never identified with any of the types he thought I must belong to.

As well as failing to take proper account of life-events in later childhood and adulthood, James also seems too influenced in his argument by what he sees as the effect of his own upbringing, and pays too much attention to celebrities, never good case studies for making judgements about people in general. He uses Elton John, for example, to back-up the old chestnut about men being made gay by over-protective mothers and emotionally distant fathers: he doesn’t consider that these characteristics could be the result rather than the cause of having a gay child; he makes no attempt to explain the enormous amount of gay people whose parents aren’t like this; and he ignores lesbians completely.

The book does have some interesting things to say, but you have to wade through a lot of waffle and skewed logic to find it.

How Could It get More Biased?
The title is taken from a Philip Larkin poem that makes the brief point that our parents can be a negative influence on our own development - not so much by intention but because they pass on the ideas and actions of their own parents.

Oliver James, a child psychologist and sometime TV presenter/producer/etc. takes this basic idea and puts some flesh on the bones. The big problem is that when he's finished he still only has a corpse rather than a living being.

When it comes to research, James is the original busy bee. The Bibliography of this book is 24 (twenty-four) pages long, whilst the Notes & References are another 18 pages long.
In fact James provides research evidence for every key point he makes.

Impressive?

Actually, no. Because James is very careful that the points he makes, and the evidence he quotes is all aimed to prove one point: You wanna get your head straight? Then you gotta go to a "psychoanalyst". He does seem to qualify this in a couple of places, but a statement like:

"For all their shortcomings, I do believe that psychoanalytic treatments remain the ones most likely to produce enduring and profound change." page 255

Just two points here that potential readers might want to consider:

1. Numerous surveys, over many years, have shown that ALL forms of non-physical mental therapy as more or less equivalent in their effectiveness. What counts, it seems, is not so much the methodology as the relationship between the therapist and the client. I wondered how this author, having done so much research, managed to overlook THAT piece of evidence. But only for a page or so.

2. Although the whole of this book encourages the reader to delve into their own childhood experiences to understand their current behaviour, and to free themselves to feel OK about having opinions of their own, the author shows that he has not necessarily gained any such freedom for himself. On the contrary, he writes:

"Whilst I would like to think that I have managed to make their interest my own, my desire to persuade you of the importance of parenting for your own mental health and for that of our society as a whole is the direct consequence of their having been psychoanalysed. It was this which enabled them to parent me in such a loving way that I have pursued what mattered so much to them." page 256

If we take these words literally, our "guide" has based his own opinions primarily, and largely uncritically, on the opinions of his own parents. He is doing what he is doing, first and foremost, not for himself but for them!

We know this because he tells us that both parents were psychoanalysed before he was born, and therefore he cannot have made any first hand assessment of what sort of people they were before and after the psychoanalysis.

This claim that psychoanalysis is THE reason for the quality of his own parenting is, I'm afraid, pure flim flam, and we have to ask why, in advocating self-awareness in his readers the author didn't first try it out on himself.

But does it really matter? I might give you a tip on a certain horse, and you could still make a profit if it wins, even if I change my mind and back something else, or don't have a bet at all.

True. Unfortunately that doesn't apply here.
For example, because the author has such strong views about psychoanalysis he omits important evidence from other areas. Thus he talks about the comparative value of IQ in the business world, yet doesn't mention a single thing about Daniel Goleman or Emotional Intelligence. Not one word. On the contrary, according to James:

"Far more important than a gargantuan IQ score are Machiavellianism and being prepared to work hard" page 275

Well, hard work certainly helps, but "Machiavellianism"? According to Daniel Goleman ("Emotional Intelligence", etc.) - also an expert collector of supporting evidence - what really counts are positive social/communication skills, NOT deviousness and back stabbing.

Regardless of the extent to which either writer is correct, that James would venture into this area without even a brief consideration of Goleman's work suggests a serious case of tunnel vision, and calls the objectivity of the whole book into question.
Which is a real shame, because I think James does have some important points to make.