Psycho-cybernetics

Psycho-Cybernetics

Cybernetics (loosely translated from the Greek): “a helmsman who steers his ship to port.” Psycho-Cybernetics is a term coined by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, which means, “steering your mind to a productive, useful goal so you can reach the greatest port in the world, peace of mind.”

Since its first publication in 1960, Maltz’s landmark bestseller has inspired and enhanced the lives of more than 30 million readers. In this updated edition, with a new introduction and editorial commentary by Matt Furey, president of the Psycho-Cybernetics Foundation, the original text has been annotated and amplified to make Maltz’s message even more relevant for the contemporary reader.

“Before the mind can work efficiently, we must develop our perception of the outcomes we expect to reach. Maxwell Maltz calls this Psycho-Cybernetics; when the mind has a defined target it can focus and direct and refocus and redirect until it reaches its intended goal.” —Tony Robbins (from Unlimited Power)

Maltz was the first researcher and author to explain how the self-image (a term he popularized) has complete control over an individual’s ability to achieve (or fail to achieve) any goal. And he developed techniques for improving and managing self-image—visualization, mental rehearsal, relaxation—which have informed and inspired countless motivational gurus, sports psychologists, and self-help practitioners for more than fifty years.

The teachings of Psycho-Cybernetics are timeless because they are based on solid science and provide a prescription for thinking and acting that lead to quantifiable results.


About author(s)
Dr. Maxwell Maltz (1889-1975) received his doctorate in medicine from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in 1923. After postgraduate work in plastic surgery in Europe, Maltz was appointed to head several departments of reparative surgery in New York hospitals over his long and distinguished career. He was a prominent international lecturer on the psychological aspects of plastic surgery. He published two books on the subject, New Faces, New Futures and Dr. Pygmalion. In the 1950s, Maltz became increasingly fascinated by the number of patients who came to him requesting surgery who had greatly exaggerated “mental pictures” of their physical deformities, and whose unhappiness and insecurities remained unchanged even after he gave them the new faces they desired. In 1960, after nearly a decade of counseling hundreds of such patients, extensive research, and testing his evolving theory of “success conditioning” on athletes, salespeople, and others, he published his findings — then radical ideas — in the first edition of Psycho-Cybernetics, which went on to sell millions of copies and to be translated in dozens of languages.

Alternative names:

• ISBN Psycho-Cybernetics