Psychology books are often better styled self-help or self-improvement books, and as such they fill arrays of shelves in airport bookshops. As a once frequent flyer I have even bought some. I have never found any of much use, nor have I ever heard from anyone else (except from an author's friends on the blurb pages) that they have any real effect. Or at least not the effect intended. They can perhaps work in more mysterious ways.
Training programmes in companies often follow a similar track, usually with an emphasis on PowerPoint graphics and acrostic lists, both death knells as far as I'm concerned. I much prefer the anecdotal style of self-help
books, but that's because I treat them just as entertainment.
In go, the example I remember best, simply because it was probably the first book on go psychology, came out in 1974. It was one of the Go Super Books of beloved memory:
Tanoshii Igo Shinrigaku (Go Psychology for Fun) by Mihori Sho, who was one of the main journalists covering Go Seigen's career. As evidence of how go psychology affects even pros, he mentioned the incident when Go Seigen put Kitani in a great tizzy by playing mimic go. There was a great deal of similar very entertaining stories, most ending with a granny's wisdom kind of advice: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
But the fact that I regard these books more as entertainment does not mean I despise them. In fact, one thing I am watching a lot of now, thanks to lockdown, is opera masterclasses. This has to be pure entertainment for me. I can't even sing in the shower, so I'm not looking for elf-improvement. And the part that entertains me the most is what might be considered the psychology of singing. All the best masters (who are usually "mistresses" actually, and that may be significant if we are in the realms of psychology
) deal more with the mind than the voice. Usually this tends to degenerate into a discussion of how to interpret a particular role or piece of music, but one expert who goes beyond that and stands out to me most has been he mezzo Joyce DiDonato. She tries to get her students to focus on a deep mindset rather than a superficial interpretation ("Don't act!"). This is more like what I consider the core of psychology. And the benefits are instantly obvious and huge - she is, admittedly dealing with very talented students, but still... I'm in wow mode.
DiDonato's success, though, in a way highlights the relative failure of other teachers - and by extension of self-help books. I was very surprised to learn last night that the masterclass process in her case is nothing like what I expected. My expectations were based simply on what I have read or heard before. The most typical process seems to be: hold a competition for young singers, give the winners a single masterclass. But in DiDonato's case the process was very, very different. Instead of a singing competition, ambitious singers had to write an essay. DiDonato read these and chose those she wished to work with. Then, before the programme we got to see on YouTube, she held about three workshops with the students. So she was able to apply great focus on the individual and give tailor-made advice.
Other masterclasses, like self-help books, rely instead on a scatter-gun approach. A few pellets will hit a random bird. It will fall to the earth. A seed in its gullet may find itself in fertile earth and may one day blossom to maturity. All quite opaque to the marksman.
With books this blind randomness is built into the system. Every reader is a different personality and had different needs.
It is my own experience that you cannot expect to guarantee getting help from self-help books, but you cannot rule out a random, though usually single, chance effect. To give my own example, most of Mihori's book has long been vast blur to me, but there was one example that caught my eye. He told the story of another go journalist, Mitani Suihei, who tried playing go with his left hand rather than his favourite right hand. There is an echo of this today in the shape of Iyama Yuta, of course. As I recall the story, in Mitani's case he claimed playing corrie dukit made him one stone stronger because he had to pause a fraction longer before making his move, and so noticed more. But he seems to have shifted back to his right hand eventually.
I did copy Mitani for a while and found sinistrality too irritating. But some time later I did try, by chance, a variation of the technique. When I sat down to play a tournament game I would put a few stones in a mnemonic shape on the table just in front of me. For example, three stones in an empty triangle, to remind me to look for good/bad shape, or four stones in a square, to help me remember not to end up overconcentrated. I don't think that ever had the slightest effect on my shape or overconcentration performance. But what it did do, and what was very definitely beneficial, was to slow ne down. It was like playing left handed but without the irritation. But then I got bored with doing that...
And that's where self-help most often falls down. That's why most attempts at dieting fail. The real help we need is not with advice on becoming self-aware or trying something different. We need rather to be shown how to stick to whatever change we have made. For that we most probably need either a strong motivation (you will die if you ...) or other-help: a teacher/personal trainer/lifestyle coach/devoted friend, preferably with a whip.
Other-help as opposed to self-help has worked in pro go even at the highest levels. There is a very common syndrome affecting pros who repeatedly make it to a title match but never seem able to win an actual title. They do occasionally, but that's probably because their opponent was likewise from the same permanent-loser mould. The best (maybe only?) case I know of where a player was able to shift moulds was Kato Masao. Being Mr Loser was really getting him down, not least because his fellow pupils such as Cho Chikun, Otake, Takemiya and Kobayashi Koichi were all gobbling up titles. Finally, in desperation, he turned to these friends and solicited their advice. The result (which they perhaps regretted) was a swathe of titles for him. That story is often told. But what is never told is what advice they gave him!
So, the field of go psychology remains largely unknown. But for that reason it also remains utterly fascinating. For that reason in turn we can also dream that Robert's book might also make it one day to the airport bookshelves. And that's a dream not a complete fantasy. Recall Kasparov's book: How life imitates chess.
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RobertJasiek
