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Strangers to Ourselves

Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious

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Strangers to Ourselves

By: Timothy D. Wilson
Narrated by: Joe Barrett
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About this listen

In an eye-opening tour of the unconscious, as contemporary psychological science has redefined it, Timothy D. Wilson introduces us to a hidden mental world of judgments, feelings, and motives that introspection may never show us. This is not your psychoanalyst's unconscious. The adaptive unconscious that empirical psychology has revealed, and that Wilson describes, is much more than a repository of primative drives and conflict-ridden memories. It is a set of pervasive, sophisticated mental processes that size up our worlds, set goals, and initiate action, all while we are consciously thinking about something else. If we don't know ourselves -- our potentials, feelings, or motives -- it is most often, Wilson tells us, because we have developed a plausible story about ourselves that is out of touch with our adaptive unconscious. Citing evidence that too much introspection can actually do damage, Wilson makes the case for better ways of discovering our unconscious selves. If you want to know who you are or what you feel or what you're like, Wilson advises, pay attention to what you actually do and what other people think about you. Showing us an unconscious more powerful that Freud's, and even more pervasive in our daily life, Strangers to Ourselves marks a revolution in how we know ourselves. The book is published by Harvard University Press.

©2002 the President and Fellows of Harvard College (P)2011 Redwood Audiobooks
Psychology Mental Health

Critic Reviews

"[Wilson's] book is what popular psychology ought to be (and rarely is): thoughtful, beautifully written, and full of unexpected insights." (Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker)

What listeners say about Strangers to Ourselves

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Why do I do what I do and why I should know.

Where does Strangers to Ourselves rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

nothing like Freud or other pyschology books I've read so far. It gives you the evidence, gives you the theory, opposing arguments, how it can apply to you and situations where it works and doesnt work.

What did you like best about this story?

learning about why i thought that why and how i can change that and in turn change what i do subconsciously.

What three words best describe Joe Barrett’s performance?

old school. scientific. matter of fact

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

who are you really

Any additional comments?

If you journal, think you're introvert or confused to about who you are, where you came fromand ask why you do things even though you know bettem. this is for you

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Our Subconscious knows more

It was enlightening to hear how our subconscious is doing more than we realise but is like how a complex piece of machinery works, we don’t need to know each piece of a computer operates we just need to input information and expect the output similar to our subconscious (CPU,RAM) conscious (keyboard, monitor). I feel smarter :)

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