Maxwell Maltz

Maxwell Maltz

"The surgeon who treated self-image as the thermostat of the week."

Maxwell Maltz (1899–1975) was an American cosmetic surgeon and the author of Psycho-Cybernetics (1960). Born in New York, he built a surgical practice and then noticed a pattern his scalpel could not fix: a new face often left the old walk. Patients still entered rooms as the person who had been stared at. He began writing for lay readers about self-image as a thermostat and the mind as a goal-seeking servo. The book became a long-running bestseller and a quiet source text for later identity-first habit writing. Start with Psycho-Cybernetics; the clinic stories are dated, the ceiling is not.

1 book·Classic Personal Development
Psycho-Cybernetics Summary & Review: Your Self-Image Sets the Ceiling — Read SummaryBrowse All Books ↓
Maxwell Maltz

Books by Maxwell Maltz

Our in-depth summaries and reviews of his work

Key Ideas & Recurring Themes

Self-image is a thermostat

You act like the person you picture. Results rise to that picture and then stop.

The mind is a servo

Goal, act, feedback, correct. A miss is steering data, not a verdict.

Theater of the mind

Twelve quiet minutes in present tense aims the mechanism before the live inch.

Notable Quotes

"You will act like the sort of person you conceive yourself to be."
— Psycho-Cybernetics
"The self-image is the key to human personality and human behavior."
— Psycho-Cybernetics

New to Maxwell Maltz?

Start with our most popular summary of their work.

Read the Summary

Book Author Maxwell Maltz