2 Answers

  1. I, like most, know Shostrom only from his book “The Manipulative Man”, or”Anti-Carnegie”.

    I read it a long time ago, about 15 years ago, or more. But then it is clear that he does not oppose Carnegie's views at all, but writes about the same thing, only from a different point of view. Perhaps the pathos of what he somehow understood Carnegie in his own way.

    This is exactly the same as when, in classic negotiation books, Jim Camp (“Say no first”) or Gavin Kennedy (“Negotiations, the complete course”) brutally criticize the even more classic Fischer and Urey (“Harvard Negotiations” and so on).-The form is a fierce criticism, the essence is the same things, only in profile, the most valuable additions from a different angle.�

    Shostrom's opposition to Carnegie amusingly reflects the opposition of many humanist psychotherapists and the gestalt approach to training sessions that teach communication techniques.

    Like, sincerely it should be, serdeshno, soul-with-soul, I-You and other Buber.

    Not to use each other, but to be together, and all sorts of Heidegger, not by the night be a Nazi mentioned.

    In fact, the opposition is not only imaginary, it is dialectical. Carnegie wrote about SINCERITY, and – the forerunner of NLP – showed you how to do it step by step. Achieve your goals by forming alliances with other people, sincere unions, while not simulating love passionately, – a clear and honest combination of business and personal, – creating close business relationships, – Carnegie is about this. Close people in the same sense that Bern gives us with his transactional analysis: open, sincere, built on mutual benefit.

    Quite simply: Shostrom seems to consider any conscious directed influence that works past the awareness of the interlocutor to be a filthy manipulation.

    And Carnegie, NLP-ist, behavioral psychologists of various strains, etc. consider such manipulation only influence that goes without taking into account the interests of the interlocutor. Well, that's what they teach, Carnegie knows, about the win-win effect. And they laugh, ” oh my God, we still influence each other, whether we want to or not, so it's better to understand exactly what you're doing, and consciously choose.

    Another example: a humanistic psychotherapist may believe that he “does not influence” the client's decisions and choices, but only accompanies them. A less-than-pretty psychologist chuckles: aha, aha, the hell with it, it's simply impossible – you, brother, influence and don't notice how – it's up to you, but I prefer to notice what I'm doing. Then I can do it more accurately, and pass this ability to influence others.

    Well, this is the essence, as I see it, of the difference between the views of Shostrom and Carnegie.

  2. The topic is covered by Evgeny Yakovlev. I can only add that the conclusions of Carnegie and Shostrom follow opposite behavioral strategies. Carnegie suggests reaching out to other people's interests as you understand them. And Shostrom suggests reaching other people's interests as they understand them.

    Agree, the prospects open up very different: especially in connection with the need to achieve your own interests as well )

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