Introduction to Psycho-Cybernetics

Hello and welcome to my blog about the book, Psycho-Cybernetics written by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon. In this blog, I will go over the book chapter by chapter for my own self-discovery and I will share with you important teachings of this book.

Let us begin with a bit of background on the book itself. In his practice, Dr. Maltz noted that although plastic surgery was meant to give people a boost of self-confidence and a positive change of behavior, there were some cases where after the surgery was complete and the face was altered to be more physically attractive, the patient still felt inadequate and had "feelings of inferiority". As he began to explore the human personality Dr. Maltz concluded that altering one's physical appearance was not truly what changes ones behavior and self-esteem, rather it is the self-image or one's mental and spitual concept of oneself that is the dermining factor of personality and behavior.

Dr. Maltz was largely influenced by a new form of science called "Cybernetics". Cybernetics is a science that was developed by physicists and mathmeticians that focused on goal-orientation. It explains how things came to be and what must take place physically to achieve a certain goal. This, Dr. Maltz, felt was something missing in psychology as it fails to describe how one can improve one's self-image. How Cybernetics applies to humans is that the brain and the nervous system together, according to Dr. Maltz, is a "goal-striving mechanism". Thus the term and the title of the book, "Psycho-Cybernetics" can be defined as psychology applied with goal-oriented Cybernetics. If one has a success mechanism or a failure mechanism, the brain and the nervous system will automatically follow.

With Pyscho-Cybernetics, one can create his or her own success mechanism by having a clear understanding of how the human brain functions and how to strive goals that will improve one's life.