It's Ok to Be Neurotic: Using Your Neuroses to Your Advantage [Paperback]

Frank Bruno (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2004

At last, quick relief for the chronic worrywart. A neurosis exists if an individual suffers chronic anxiety that is out of proportion to reality. More than 20 million people suffer from some type of neurosis, and they're looking for answers. It's Ok to be Be Neurotic is a revolutionary book that presents readers with twenty psychological strategies to help them channel their neuroses and achieve posititive goals. In a straight-forward, easy-to-read style the author offers useful advice to help readers turn neurotic weaknesses into strengths. The author himself copes effectively with anxiety and he draws from his personal experiences - as well as his thirty years as a psychotherapist - to help readers not only understand their neuroses, but also benefit from their condition. With the author's support, readers learn to maximize their neuroses, cope with conflict, and break bad habits that have been holding them back. With myriad case studies, prescriptive self-quizzes and easy tips and strategies for success, this book is the only one available to help readers realize that they may have a neurosis - but it doesn't have them.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Frank Bruno, Ph. D. has taught for more than thirty years. He has worked as a psychotherapist and is the author of eighteen books on various psychological issues.

Product Details

• Paperback: 326 pages
• Publisher: Adams Media Corporation (October 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593370253
• ISBN-13: 978-1593370251
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #776,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An invaluable resource for anyone with neurotic tendencies, August 17, 2004

By 

Blair Warren (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: It's Ok to Be Neurotic: Using Your Neuroses to Your Advantage (Paperback)

One of the most useful and *gentle* self-help books I've encountered in a very, very long time. Unlike some books that almost make you feel guilty if you can't "overcome" your neuroses, this one acknowledges the difficulty of eliminating one's neurotic tendencies and then shows you how to turn them to your advantage. Yes, to your advantage.

The book is a very easy read and filled with immediately useful advice. But don't let it's accessibility fool you - the information and ideas laid out in this book are rock solid. If you even suspect you might be neurotic, stop beating yourself up and buy this book. The only thing you'll regret is how long it took you to discover it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Turn Your Weaknesses Into Strengths, May 23, 2010

By 

John M. Ford "johnDC" (near DC, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: It's Ok to Be Neurotic: Using Your Neuroses to Your Advantage (Paperback)

Frank Bruno comforts us with the revelation that nearly everyone else is just as neurotic as we are--and suggests strategies to help us live productive lives in the face of our neuroses. His goals are helps us accept our neuroses, comfort us that they do not make us "crazy," and show us how to both work around their weaknesses and capitalize on their strengths.

The book is organized around twenty core strategies:

1. Recognize that it is really OK to be neurotic.
2. Work to lower your neurosis temperature.
3. Adopt the positive attitude that a neurosis is not an affliction, but a challenge.
4. Affirm that you can learn to cope effectively with neurotic disadvantages.
5. Learn to live with your neurotic advantages so that you can reap their harvest without paying to high a price.
6. Look upon your neurosis as something that you possess, not as something that possesses you.
7. Accept that bad habits are acquired and not part of your basic personality.
8. Seek ways to convert neurotic energy into creative accomplishments.
9. Turn your anxiety about your health into a positive psychological asset.
10. Work toward emotional closeness with your partner.
11. Change your ego defense mechanisms from emotional liabilities into life-enhancing assets.
12. Think about your life in psychodynamic terms.
13. Realize that we can learn to live relatively unafraid in a world we never made.
14. Look upon your neurotic disposition as an asset, not a liability, in your personal search for meaning.
15. Work to make a distinction between imaginary threats and real ones.
16. Act as if you are not depressed, and it will help your depression lift.
17. Recognize that neurotic anger is self-induced, manufactured by your thoughts and perceptions.
18. Challenge the idea that you need psychiatric drugs.
19. Look upon your neurosis as an asset, not a liability.
20. Make the seven pillars of emotional wisdom a part of your philosophy of life.

The text is readable and well-suited for anyone who would attempt self improvement in the face of one or more common neuroses. If you believe yourself to be too well-adjusted to benefit from it, take the change to confirm this diagnosis with the Neurosis Quiz on page 11.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not much new here, April 19, 2005

By 

T Ellis (High Point, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: It's Ok to Be Neurotic: Using Your Neuroses to Your Advantage (Paperback)

I suppose if you haven't read much in the psychology or self-help arena, this might be a good jumping off place, although Bruno does not have a list of recommended readings, which is irritating. But I found the book to be much too general, and to lack much original material. It is also quite repetitive, and a lot of it is just common sense.

Instead of this book, I would recommend Existential Psychotherapy, by Irvin Yalom, Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman, or The Feeling Good Handbook, by David Burns.