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. It’s a pity I haven’t saved a number of copies.
My fame was growing. My books were already sold abroad. After that I was also invited there. I met Russian-speaking people and those who didn’t speak Russian, and I presented them with my books. But those books were useless literary trash for those who didn’t understand Russian. And I decided to publish at least one book in English, so that I could present it to a foreigner. Of course it was “Psychological Aikido”. And to make it look more respectful I published its Russian text at the same time. It was in 2001. The publishing house didn’t risk printing it in that form. So I published it myself, at my own expense. Unexpectedly it turned out that people started buying it with pleasure. New examples of shock absorption principle use appeared. Thus the idea to print the second edition was born. The idea was pale and unstable. And it would hardly ever have been realized but for one circumstance.
Once I was working on the Internet. I typed the word “psychological aikido” to find everything that was given on that topic. It turned out that psychological aikido was mentioned on 772 websites and 8 thousand pages. I was pleased to read about myself. Many sites published an electronic variant of this book. I was in a good mood, though none of the people who published my book found the time to ask my permission. But at least they spread my book for Art’s sake. I welcomed it. But they were also selling the electronic version of my book on several sites. I was doubly revolted. On the one hand, I objected to the fact that they had started selling my book without my permission. But on the other hand I was even more angered that they were selling it very cheaply, for $0.1. I am not against charity, moreover, I am even for it. You can work either free or for good money. When you work free, you know how much you give to your fellow creature. And it warms you somehow. I won’t appeal to the court unless my publisher insists. After all, “Psychological Aikido” is issued by the publishing house. But I’ll put out the second edition of this book, revised and supplemented a lot. That’s what I’m doing now, thus depreciating everything that was displayed in the Internet without my knowledge.
While writing the second edition of this book, I took a number of essential ideas and many striking examples from the practice of my son Boris M. Litvak and the reports of my students who have successfully used psychological aikido to improve the quality of their lives. I was told that I should publish the book in the same form as it was issued in 1992. After all, writers don’t change their novels when reprinting them. Hereto I have my own reasons. I am not a writer, but a doctor, a pedagogue, maybe a psychologist. And what I write is not a work of art but a manual. And it can’t be published in the same form. After all, many facts, permissive to improve the manual, have appeared in 13 years.
As in the first edition, the book has 4 chapters. All of them are expanded and supplemented with examples, as well as theoretical considerations. There is an appendix at the end of the book, where I have included the part “Shock absorption letters”. This part was included in the book “Spermatozoon Principle”, but I’ll evidently exclude this part in the next editions of “Spermatozoon Principle”. It is also published with some changes here. Besides, the appendix contains a story about the genii of communication. I’d like you to enjoy the book in its modified form.
Preface to the first edition
The happy ones! Do not buy this book. You are perfect Aikido fighters as you are. The possessors of impudence as “the second happiness” don’t need to buy it either. This book is written for the people who suffer from neuroses and psychosomatic diseases (hypertension, stomach ulcer, myocardial infarction, gastritis, colitis, dermatitis, bronchial asthma, etc) because of their disability to communicate with people.
There are recommendations here about how to tame an abundantly strong-willed boss, get on with your children or mother-in-law, and succeed in business debate without losing your mental energy. That’s why I guess the book will be useful for smart tactful people suffering from the impudence of those who surround them and have not yet fallen ill. Leaders, managers and those who want to become them will find useful advice in it. The book will help to regulate family relations, raise children and achieve success in a chosen business. I hope psychotherapists will also purchase it.
The method described here has no analogues, though I have used the ideas of transaction analysis, gestalt-therapy, behavioral and cognitive therapy, Dale Carnegie’s ideas, etc. But you may consider the brave soldier Shweik to be the forefather of this system. He didn’t answer the insults of his offenders, but agreed with them. “Shweik, you are an idiot!” – he was told. He didn’t argue but agreed at once – “Yes, I’m an idiot!” and gained a victory without touching his opponent, as in aikido. Maybe that kind of mental combat should be named “psychological shweikido” as one of my students suggested?
Introduction
Once during one of my lectures on personal communication problems I asked the audience: “Does any one of you love to have power over other people?” None of 450 answered affirmatively. But when I asked those people who wanted to be hypnotists to raise their hands, guess how many people did? You’re absolutely right – almost all of them.
What conclusions can be made?
No one admits he loves power.
No one admits he wants to be obeyed unquestionably (the hypnotist’s power over a person seems to be boundless).
Personally I think there is nothing horrible if one wishes to govern other people; the person usually acts from his good intentions.
However, the wish to rule, conscious or unconscious, rests on similar pretensions of the communication partner. A conflict arises, and there is a collision with no winners. Vexation, irritation, anger, depression, headache, heartache, etc. remain with the winner as well as with the one who had to obey. They both suffer from insomnia. The conflict situation is mentally rotated over and over again, it is difficult to concentrate on routine work. Blood pressure may rise. Some people soothe vexation by taking drinks or drugs; they give way to their bad temper on their family or subjects. A lot of people are tortured by pangs of remorse. They promise themselves that they’ll be more reserved and tolerant, but as time passes, everything is repeated. No, not repeated! Each next conflict arises over a more trivial situation lasts in a more violent way and the consequences become harder and last longer.
Nobody wants to have conflict with others. When conflicts take place often, people desperately look for a way out.
Some people begin to limit their communication. At first it seems to work. But that’s a temporary escape. The need for communication is as crucial as the need for water. If a person is isolated in absolute loneliness, in 5–6 days the symptoms of psychosis develop and are accompanied by acoustic and visual hallucinations. The person starts communicating with the hallucinations which in no circumstances can be productive. Over time, he is ruined.
Science has established that lonely people die earlier. Many people start suffering from restraint and shyness. Then you don’t choose – you are chosen. But it happens more often that the need to communicate prevails and a person gets in contact with whoever happens to be there, so as not to be lonely.
Some other people (usually those with very strong personalities, often bosses) demand unquestionable subordination at home and at work. They stop noticing a gradually growing discontent of the people depending on them. When all the means of suppression are exhausted, they notice with pain or surprise that everybody has left them. They consider themselves to be deceived.