Before Differences Become Disagreements and Annoyances Turn Into Anger

About the Book

Forty years of research into human behavior have made it quite clear that those who achieve the highest levels of success and happiness in life do so not only by managing to avoid the three most common mistakes which people make in relating to one another (described below) but also by developing the little-known skills needed to build life-long, deeply-rewarding relationships with their spouse and children, as well as mutually satisfying relationships with their neighbors, co-workers and whoever else is among the most important persons in their lives.

Relationships are gradually destroyed when individuals get involved in more-and-more frequent and ever-more devastating arguments. The most frequent reason for such occurrences is that one party finds fault with the other and verbalizes it in the form of criticism, blame or complaint. A second contributing factor is that the target of the fault-finding almost always becomes defensive --- he or she offers an explanation, a justification, or an excuse for the offending behavior. The third component, and often the driving force behind the conflagration, is the belief on the part of each person that he or she is "right" and the other person is "wrong".

The lack of self understanding and self control implicit in such attitudes and behaviors can itself be traced back to the fact that they were never taught more appropriate responses during their growing-up period. Without even trying, they learned poor habits of communication from their parents who had in turn inherited them from their own parents.

The solution lies in their learning to become much more alert to their inner feelings (especially those of annoyance and anger), to learn how to exert control over them, and to learn what they should do differently in order to reduce or eliminate interpersonal problems. This book provides that learning.

About the Author

While in training for Radioman 3rd Class in the U. S. Navy, Charles Youngberg was transferred to the V-12 program at Vanderbilt University where he graduated with a B.A. degree in Sociology. Under the G.I. Bill, he went on to Columbia University for a Master's degree in Sociology and then completed a one-year residency as a Psychiatric Aide at a hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. Upon winning a four-year New York State War Veterans Scholarship, he went back to school and obtained a Master's degree in School Psychology at NYU's School of Education. Switching over to Industrial Psychology, he completed a one-year internship at a Psychological Consulting firm in Tampa Florida and was subsequently granted the Ph.D. degree at NYU's Graduate School of Arts and Science, accompanied by the Founder's Day Award for "having achieved a place in the highest bracket of scholastic preferment recognized by the University".

While employed full time as a Senior Research Consultant at The Prudential Insurance Company, Dr. Youngberg taught psychology part time at the Madison campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University where he later became a full-time faculty member. In addition to his main endeavors at FDU, he became the Executive Director of the Center for Research on Individual Behavior, a privately-held organization devoted mainly to human resources research, management consulting, and individual counseling in business and private practice.

A long-time member of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Youngberg was licensed as a Practicing Psychologist by the New Jersey State Board of Psychological Examiners. Among the firms for which he has served as an outside consultant and conducted research and training programs are Beneficial, Berg Enterprises, Ciba-Geigy, City Federal, Cryovac, Fuel Merchants, GPU, Howmet, JCP&L, Lockheed, Metropolitan Edison, Nabisco, Pennsylvania Electric, Picatinny Arsenal, Sandoz, Schering-Plough, Sentry Insurance, Summit Bancorp, Western Electric and Western Exterminating.