Although M. Scott Peck has produced more recent works (A Different Drum and People of the Lie), The Road Less Travelled is his seminal one. For those of you with spiritual convictions, you will find his views challenging and rewarding.

Coming from a psychotherapeutic tradition, Dr. Peck is adept at discussing and suggesting methods of confronting blocks (the grungies) that emerge when actualizing what we say we are committed to. One can look to problems of life as a series of burdens or a series of challenges. For him the only real value emerges in the latter perspective: that is, living from a stand of responsibility. This stand evokes committed action, hard work, effective communication, acceptance of risks, patience, self-esteem and a willingness to stand alone. This less traveled road, above all, requires a discipline and a set of tools for confronting the difficulties in life.

Peck's discussion of love is illuminating. He distinguishes responsible love from various illusions and fallacies like 'it is only a feeling', 'we fall into it' and 'there's only one right person in the world for us.' Or 'separate identities are not permitted,' we become dependent, and so on. By defining love as the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's transformation, it is clear that love is not wishful thinking, but action that entails open and honest communication, attention, work, and risk-taking.

Two kinds of potential problems emerge with all "self-help" books. One deals with hazards of the reader and the other with the ontological stance of the work. In the first case, as with any "self-help" work, it is easy to overread one's life into its context, falling prey to the right/wrong game and using the work as a checklist of one's assets or defects. For example, "I do this, therefore I'm right, but I don't do that, so therefore I am wrong." Or "What he is saying must be right and since I am failing in some categories, I must be wrong or a bad person." In the second case, most psychological works see life as a series of psychological problems which are to be solved psychologically. Psychology tends to be self-focused or inward-looking. The proper resolution of life is ontological, i.e., how one chooses to stand and take action in the world and how one actualizes one's commitments as a mode-of-being. Ontological resolution is outward-looking and self-transcending.

Insofar as Dr. Peck stresses the value of choice and action and the need for self-transcendence in one's commitments, he avoids these common psychological traps. Thus, given the readability of the material and the importance of its message, the book is well worth reading for anyone committed to personal development.

Review by Thomas J. Froehlich, Ph.D.