Customer Reviews

Overcoming the Myth of Self-Worth: Reason and Fallacy in What You Say to Yourself

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This is an outstanding book, which teaches that how you feel results from what you think. This is the essence of the rational-emotive/cognitive approach to psychology. It teaches how you make yourself afraid/anxious, depressed/worthless, or angry based on how your mind inteprets your environment (or from spontaneous thoughts). It does all this while also being easy to read and grasp. It has delightfully humorous illustrations. (I laughed out loud at the picture of the man being tortured by disco music.) There is also a chapter on the fallacy of asking "What is my purpose in life?" As the author explains, we each create our own purpose. But the main fallacy the book focusses on is the self-worth fallacy, which causes untold suffering to millions. The concept of worth is not applicable to human beings. It is a concept stolen from a different context. Yet people make themselves suffer needlessly over it. Any reader with this or other fallacies (everyone?) will be greatly helped by reading this book. This book can transform your life for the better without anything mystical. After reading it, I now see people differently. Somehow, I used to think that I caused someone to be angry, for example, when they became angry in my presence. I now see that they are doing it to themselves. I cannot "make" anyone angry any more than they can make me angry. There is a lot to digest in here for such a small book. Each chapter is an adventure. This is one of those rare books that I wish I had read years ago because it would have saved me so much grief. I cannot imagine anyone being sorry they bought this book. It has so much to offer between its bright yellow covers. Finally I do reccomend getting the books in the very short reccomended list contained in this book. They are also very good and may bring a different perspective to your situation.

CARL SAGAN, in The Demon-Haunted World, entitled his chapter ten "The Dragon in My Garage." I was intrigued by the main point of the chapter, especially the way Sagan introduced it. Sagan said his approach was one created by Richard L. Franklin in Overcoming the Myth of Self-Worth. I promptly bought Franklin's book and found myself unable to put it down once I had started it. Since then, I have read the book at least six times. I can truthfully say I have not seen the world in quite the same way since reading this eye-opening work. It's rare to read a book that transforms one's entire world view, but that's what this book did for me. After I had read it two or three times, it was as if a mist had been lifted and I could see my personal reality clearly for the first time in my life. I now keep it at my bedside and read from it nightly.

This is the friendliest book on cognitive therapy I've found. Though quite short, it covers all the basics, and without the excessive detail or the repetition of many of Albert Ellis's books. Initially I was surprised that Franklin didn't offer many techniques for learning to think rationally, but I've since come to find this part of the book's appeal, as it makes it feel less like a textbook, and more like simple good advice.

Franklin's book, " The myth of Self-Worth" was an easy read, eye opening wonderful adventure into my own thinking and how I hear and visualize those around me. I highly recommend this to young people and to old, to those who want to know themselves better and to those who think they know themselves enough. It is thought provoking, humorous, and in the end a gift to self to read. Thank-you Mr. Franklin.

Way better than Ellis himself at expressing his theories. This book is a life-changer, and I think it's great for preteens and up.