How Real is Real?—Communication, Disinformation, Confusion

• Date: 01 September 1976
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1976.349_1.x
• Published date: 01 September 1976
• Author: Carlos E. Sluzki

Fam Proc 15:349-353, 1976

BOOKS

How Real is Real?Communication, Disinformation, Confusion, by Paul Watzlawick, New York, Random House,

1976, 267 pp. $10.00 (cloth).

The interdisciplinary territory that many of us have chosen to live in is vaguely located on the map of scientific

knowledge (do not confuse it with the territory!) at the crossroads of several routes that lead from one traditional field to

another. That provides us with certain desirable vantage points. In fact, the further we move into one of the traditional

fields, the more substantive information we gain about that field, but the more we lose perspective about the others.

Watzlawick's book refers to that territorial issue or, rather, dramatizes it in a cool fashionthere is really no central

theme in the book in terms of content. He guides us through a gallery of impressionistic vignettes of many different themes,

from spy stories to extra-terrestial communication, from the language of the bees to the hijacking of planes. All this is

organized in a way that brings about in the reader, repeatedly, the notion that reality is a construct. However, that central

thread is not explicitly interwoven into a solid core. On the contrary, a good part of that task is left to the reader. It is like a

tour of an exploratorium: I can be amused by some of the experiences provided, and/or bored by the lack of structure of the

whole thing, and/or irritated by the amount of activity that is required from me, and/or charmed by the variety and intensity

and novelty, and/or awed about the implications of some concrete experiences, and/or illuminated by the overall impact,

and/or puzzled by it all. Whether I leave the exploratorium thinking about my sore knee or ruminating on some of the

discoveries, and whether there may be or may not be a qualitative change as a result of the experience is in part a

consequence of the wisdom with which the organizer may have structured the experience but mainly the result of my

greater or lesser ability to respond to my environment with more freedom than preconception. Which is, of course, just the

pragmatic outcome of my set of beliefs.

I am still ruminating on some of the concrete experiences provided by Watzlawick's exploratorium. I don't know whether

it will have a long-term impact in me. I know that I enjoyed it and that I will invite my friends to visit it. I will caution them

in advance, though, "If you expect scholarly stuff, don't enter. Watzlawick is a gentle host of that tour but will not digest

things for you. You will not find the clear, systematic, serious language of Pragmatics.... Visit this book on a weekend, not

at your office. It will take you easily through the matter, but it may spin some very unexpected wheels." which is more than

one can say about oh so many books.

Carlos E. Sluzki, M.D.

University of California, San Francisco

Woman's Orgasm, A Guide to Sexual Satisfaction

, by Georgia Kline-Graber and Benjamin Graber, Indianapolis/New

York, Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1975, 184 pp. $7.95 (cloth).

Despite the mass of publications about human sexuality over the past few years, there continues to be very little material

that deals adequately with female sexuality. Kline-Graber and Graber's book, Woman's Orgasm, provides an excellent

contribution both in the area of female sexuality and also as a self-help manual that may actually prove to be effective as

such. In addition to the usual previously published information on female anatomy and sexuality, physiological facts about

male and female responses, and the medical problems that interfere with female orgasm, this book outlines step-by-step

instructions a woman can follow at home to teach herself to have orgasms both alone and during intercourse.

The job of teaching about female orgasm is a difficult process at best because of the quantity of distortions and

misconceptions that have persisted and continue to prevail both in the medical community and in the popular media. This

task requires not only clarification of the facts about female arousal and orgasm, but equally important, a change in the

attitudes of women (and their partners) that would motivate them to pursue actively their own sexual satisfaction. As the

authors clearly state, we are born with sexual drive but not the knowledge of what to do with it. Despite romantic

mythology, sexual activity is dependent on learning. The passively receptive woman is frequently non-orgasmic because

she does not know how to use her body to enhance her experience. Thus her learnings can leave her with prohibitions that

block her or they can encourage her to learn about herself as a sexual person.

The theoretical rationale upon which this book is based is that of "implosive therapy." The way to overcome anxiety

accompanying an activity or behavior is to perform the behavior in many small, meticulously defined, sequential steps.

Each step is repeated until all accompanying anxiety has been extinguished before progressing to the next step. One might

visualize a dancer in training who, in order to dance with sureness and spontaneity, must first master the technique and gain

self-confidence.

Kline-Graber and Graber also draw primarily from two other important sources in formulating their program. First is the

work of Kegel who, in treating women with urinary stress incontinence, discovered that strengthening the pubococcygeus

muscle also tended to enhance orgasmic potential. Second is the pioneering work of Lobitz and LoPiccollo in outlining

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1