M. Scott Peck

Morgan Scott Peck, M.D. (May 22, 1936 – September 25, 2005) was an American psychiatrist and best-selling author.

The Road Less Traveled

The Road Less Traveled is Peck's best-known work, and the one that made his reputation. It is, in short, a description of the attributes that make for a happy and fulfilled human being, based largely on his insights as a psychiatrist and a person.

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In the first section of the work Peck talks about discipline, which he considers essential for emotional, spiritual and psychological health, and which he describes as "the means of spiritual evolution". The elements of discipline that make for such health include the ability to delay gratification, accepting responsibility for oneself and one's actions, a dedication to reality and an openness to challenge.

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In the second section, Peck considers the nature of love, which he considers the driving force behind spiritual growth. The section mainly attacks a number of misconceptions about love: that it is about dependency, that true love is "falling in love", that love is a feeling. Instead love is about cathexis, the extending of one's ego boundaries to include another, and about the spiritual nurturing of another.

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The final section describes Graces — phenomena which Peck says:

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• nurture human life and spiritual growth
• are incompletely understood by scientific thinking
• are commonplace among humanity
• originate outside conscious human will

He concludes that "the miracles described indicate that our growth as human beings is being assisted by a force other than our conscious will".

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