Thinkers Whose Theories are Critical to Burkeman's The Antidote

Thinkers Whose Theories are Critical to Burkeman's The Antidote

This article relates to The Antidote

The Antidote introduces readers to numerous intriguing thinkers, past and present. Here is a short sampling with brief introductions:

Daniel Wegner – professor of psychology at Harvard and director of the Mental Control Laboratory at the University. Wegner's studies concentrate on what he calls "the precisely counterintuitive error," our propensity to do exactly the thing we're trying to avoid. A New York Times opinion piece by Wegner explores the Web's effect on human memory. He is also the author of the book, The Illusion of Conscious Will.

Albert Ellis – a non-traditional psychotherapist who began promoting tenets of Stoicism in the 1950s. He founded the Albert Ellis Institute and was the author of over 50 books. One of his primary goals was to show people the difference between the truly awful and the more common undesirable event. Encouraging people to directly confront their fears by experiencing them was one way he demonstrated and practiced this principle.

D. Christopher Kayes – professor of management science at George Washington University who coined the term "goalodicy" to describe the irrational pursuit of a goal. His study of goal setting and its pitfalls originated with a hiking trip to Nepal in 1996 which coincided with the disaster near Everest's peak that killed eight climbers. He is the author of Destructive Goal Pursuit: the Mount Everest Disaster.

Bruce Schneier - an anti-establishment security consultant and head of technology security at the British telecom, BT. He preaches the futility of using ineffective methods of protection to establish a feeling of security rather than the real thing. He is the author of numerous books on cryptology, security issues and fear. A New York Times article about him explores his take on trust in the digital world.

Filed under Books and Authors

This "beyond the book article" relates to The Antidote. It originally ran in January 2013 and has been updated for the November 2013 paperback edition. Go to magazine.