Linda Elder
Author and Educational Psychologist
DR. LINDA ELDER is an educational psychologist and internationally-recognized authority on critical thinking who has taught both psychology and critical thinking at the college level. She has been president of the Foundation for Critical Thinking and executive director of the Center for Critical Thinking for 30 years. She has a special interest in the relationship between thought and emotion, as well as the twin barriers to critical thinking of egocentric and sociocentric thinking. Elder has developed an original theory of the stages of critical thinking development, is author of Liberating the Mind: Overcoming Sociocentric Thought and Egocentric Tendencies, and is co-author with Richard Paul of four books on critical thinking and twenty-three titles in the Thinker’s Guide Library. Designed to advance fairminded critical societies on a broad scale, The Paul-Elder Framework for Critical Thinking (TM) is widely esteemed as the most robust and accessible theory of critical thinking extant.
Two of the latest reviews for Dr. Linda Elder's book, Critical Thinking Therapy: For Happiness and Self-Actualization:
Critical Thinking Therapy is the rational person’s guidebook to bolstering happiness and mental health. Unlike self-help books promising quick fixes, Elder’s illuminating opus offers tools to build the habits that make real change possible, arguing that critical thinking—broadly defined here as “a way of living in which you routinely examine your thinking for quality before acting on that thinking”—is essential to mental health, self-actualization, achieving one’s potential, and leading “a satisfying, rewarding life” through “complete honesty.” Elder (author of Liberating the Mind and coauthor, with Richard Paul, of many foundational works in the critical thinking field) guides readers through exercises and thought experiments to help them develop the critical mind and embrace rationality. She lays out how to recognize egocentric and sociocentric tendencies, understand and manage the “three distinct” but interdependent functions of the mind (thinking, feeling, and wanting), and explore all dimensions of one’s life through “powerful,” probing questions about relationships, career goals, and more.
In outline, some of this may sound like other change-your-life tomes, but Elder lays bare the thought structures behind these ideas, explaining rationales and practical steps (like a “Beginning Checklist for Healthy Living”) with fresh insight, clear expertise, and rare persuasive power. Each chapter offers a series of exercises that bring readers into a clearer and more rational view of themselves. This book isn’t for those unwilling to unpack their skeletons or challenge their assumptions and inferences. Instead, Elder exposes the gulf between the power we ascribe to such skeletons and the influence they actually wield.
The list of activities is long, and work like eliminating resentment and learning to “Be Not Afraid, Except for Good Reason” can take a lifetime to master. Nothing on the page is ever esoteric or too confusing to grasp, and Elder acknowledges throughout that the scrupulously rational approach to life demands effort—putting in “the work” to eschew “intellectual vices” (among them narrowmindedness, conformity, laziness, arrogance, and hypocrisy) in favor of virtues that “will lead to higher levels of mental well-being.”
Takeaway: Illuminating guide to developing critical thinking skills for better mental health.
If the phrase “critical thinking” conjures dusty classroom posters or corporate training manuals, Linda Elder’s “Critical Thinking Therapy: For Happiness and Self-Actualization” (published by the nonprofit Foundation for Critical Thinking) may surprise you. “Critical Thinking Therapy” reclaims the term, applying it to the messy, daily work of living well. Built on an educational model emphasizing empathy, clarity, and intellectual humility, this hybrid work blends philosophy, psychology and self-help into something unusually earnest and grounded.
Elder’s premise is simple but demanding: Much of our emotional suffering stems from flawed thinking — unexamined assumptions, knee-jerk reactions and distorted self-perceptions. Better thinking, she argues, leads to better living. But there’s no shortcut. This is a rigorous text, packed with exercises, Socratic questions and conceptual scaffolding. You don’t skim it so much as work through it.
Still, for readers drawn to books that treat the life of the mind as a path to emotional resilience, “Critical Thinking Therapy” offers a refreshingly disciplined approach. Elder isn’t selling happiness. She’s offering tools. And in a genre awash with quick fixes, that feels like an act of respect.
(A companion volume — “Critical Thinking Therapy: Self-Actualization and Happiness Toolbox for Everyone” — offers a more accessible introduction.)
-Review by Philip Martin, Columnist for Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette
Books written by Dr. Linda Elder:
Critical Thinking Therapy: For Happiness and Self-Actualization - version with four-color interior
Think About Fran and Sam: Which is better at their thinking?
Website: http://criticalthinking.org
Email: elder@criticalthinking.org
To book this author presenter, email us at cct@criticalthinking.org.
