In David Brooks' accessible new 2023 book, he discusses Erikson's account of the eight stages of personal psychological development (pp. 191-192, 193, 195, 198, 204, and 207).
Now, in David Brooks' accessible new 2023 book, he does not refer to Pope Francis' repeated emphasis on encounter and dialogue. But I should call attention the pope's emphasis here because David Brooks' accessible new 2023 book would be instructive reading for those who want to respond to the pope's call for encounter and dialogue.
For incisive discussions of the related concepts of encounter and dialogue, see the essay on each concept in the helpful book A Pope Francis Lexicon, edited by Joshua J. McElwee and Cindy Wooden (Liturgical Press, 2018; "Encounter," pp. 61-64; "Dialogue," pp. 40-43).
Now, because David Brooks is known as a political commentator, I should note that his accessible new 2023 book is free of political commentary - which should be welcome news for liberal and progressive OEN readers. However, he occasionally refers to well-known political figures to illustrate something that he is discussing. For example, he refers to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to illustrate what he refers to as "men who experienced an imperial consciousness in childhood, and then never moved beyond it" (p. 194).
For a perceptive discussion of Trump's psychodynamics, see the American psychiatrist Justin A. Frank's book Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (Avery/ Penguin Random House, 2018).
But also see my OEN review of it titled "His Majesty, Baby Donald!" (dated October 1, 2018):
David Brooks also refers to John F. Kennedy to illustrate a person "high in openness" (p. 186) and to Franklin D. Roosevelt to illustrate someone "who sees into the core of another" as he credits Roosevelt with doing in the 1930s when he hosted "a twenty-eight-year-old congressman named Lyndon Baines Johnson in the White House" and afterward told Harold Ickes, "'that kid Lyndon Johnson could well be the first southern President'" (p. 247).
According to David Brooks, the characteristic of openness that John F. Kennedy illustrated is one of five core personality traits known as the Big Five (pp. 178-186): extroversion [pp. 179-181], conscientious [pp. 181-182], neuroticism [pp. 182-183], agreeableness [pp. 183-185], and openness [pp. 185-186].
Now, because Ong never tired of touting Martin Buber's classic book I and Thou, I would be remiss if I did not mention that David Brooks also refers to Buber's classic book in his accessible new 2023 book (pp. 134-135 and 283).
Now, perhaps the most efficient way for me to provide you with an overview of David Brooks' accessible new 2023 book is to give you its table of contents. The book is divided into three major parts, covering seventeen chapters.
Part 1: "I See You"
Chapter 1: "The Power of Being Seen" (pp. 3-17);
Chapter 2: "How Not to See a Person" (pp. 18-27);
Chapter 3: "Illumination" (pp. 28-42);
Chapter 4: "Accompaniment" (pp. 43-54);
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