Psycho-Cybernetics: Updated and Expanded

Psycho-Cybernetics, written by American cosmetic surgeon Dr. Maxwell Maltz and first published in 1960, is one of the most influential self-help books ever written, with tens of millions of copies sold and a lasting impact on personal-development thinking. Its central claim is that success and happiness are governed less by circumstances or talent than by 'self-image', the internal picture of ourselves that we carry.

Maltz drew on his surgical practice, observing that changing a patient's face often failed to change their self-esteem, to argue that lasting transformation must happen at the level of the self-image. Fusing Prescott Lecky's psychology of self-consistency with Norbert Wiener's cybernetics, he frames the subconscious as an automatic, goal-seeking servo-mechanism that can be steered through vivid mental imagery, relaxation and rational action.

The book supplies practical techniques for visualization, letting go of past failures, and forming new mental habits, anticipating later work in visualization and goal-setting.