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46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful Books Shows How-to Self-Direct Your Life, June 25, 2011
This review is from: You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life (Hardcover)
"Habitually dismissing and devaluing your true emotions and needs causes your brain to adopt unhealthy responses and to strongly discount much of the positive information about you that is coming in." -- Jeff Schwartz, MD, and Rebecca Gladding, MD
I was well aware for some months that Jeffrey Schwartz's new book (co-authored with Rebecca Gladding) was coming out. When I saw the package from amazon.com on my front porch last week, I quickly opened it. The reward circuit in my brain got activated as I held the hardcover book with bright yellow lettering that told me: YOU ARE NOT YOUR BRAIN!
Jeffrey Schwartz is a pioneer in the field of self-directed neuroplasticity, and his work with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (as described in his book BRAIN LOCK) is highly regarded and used in clinics around the world. In this new book, Schwartz and Gladding have refined the 4-step method used in "Brain Lock" as well as expanded the scope of how it can be applied to lifestyle habits, addictions, and unhealthy thinking.
The 4-Step process is based on mindfulness. I found their revised process very clear and easy to grasp--and it can easily be used personally or by counselors, psychologists, and others to be shared with clients as a form of treatment. The 4-Step process includes 1) Relabeling (noticing thoughts), 2) Reframing (naming the brain's deceptive thought pattern to change your relationship to the thought), 3) Refocusing (placing awareness elsewhere), and 4) Revaluing (aligning with one's deeper values, or true self).
The book is a treasure trove of real-life case studies that demonstrate how Schwartz and Gladding used the 4-Step mindfulness process--and show how anyone can rewire their brain in this way. This is a step-by-step book that includes examples of charts and journaling methods that can help anyone track their movement toward wellness, clarity and purpose.
I highly recommend this book. It shows how to put the power of focus to work in a way that can change lives for the better. Thank you Jeff and Rebecca for sharing with all of us this very valuable and life transforming information!
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tremendously helpful, August 14, 2011
This review is from: You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life (Hardcover)
I bought this book after reading "The Brain that Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge, MD, which is a fascinating book. In it, Doidge mentions Schwartz and his method for helping patients who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
In "You Are Not Your Brain," Schwartz and Gladding expand on that method and help the reader apply it to other problems that result from what they call deceptive brain messages. I have also heard these deceptive brain messages referred to as automatic negative thoughts, core beliefs, et cetera. Essentially, they are ideas/beliefs you have that lead you to engage in bad habits, feel terrible about yourself, avoid taking actions you need to take, and generally prevent you from living the life you want to live. One example the book gives is an actor who doesn't believe he's good enough and therefore does not go on auditions for parts and, as a result, sabotages his own career success. In short, these false messages are running your life and it's time to stop listening to them. This book teaches you to identify these false brain messages, how to deal with them and how to take back control of your choices and your life.
Could this book have been written in a more engaging and perhaps slightly more cohesive way? Sure, but I bought this book for what it could teach me, and it has taught me a great deal. It goes beyond what a lot of books say, which is to write down and challenge the deceptive brain messages. Yes, that's helpful, but the steps in this book, especially the steps about doing something constructive and engaging while allowing those brain messages to continue to play on in the background are what really creates lasting change in your brain.
I liked the concept of the "Wise Advocate." You can re-cast it, if you like, as the role of a higher power or perhaps "Your Best Self," but the result is the same: to teach you to look at yourself with kindness, compassion and to believe the best things possible about yourself.
This book also contains tables you can fill in, either in the book itself or on a separate piece of paper. I found these tables to be quite helpful in really getting clear on what my messages were and what they were costing me.
Before this book came out, I had tried various methods for dealing with my deceptive brain messages, but the method described in this book is the only method that's really worked for me, and so for that, it deserves five stars. If you are looking for a good companion book to this one, "The Brain that Changes Itself" is excellent, but it's not instructive. This one is.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic - Very Practical and Useful, June 22, 2011
This review is from: You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life (Hardcover)
I read a lot of books and I have a hard time imagining anyone with an interest in practical results not finding this book valuable. I noticed the previous reviewer panned it because it wasn't full of detailed scientific descriptions, despite the fact that would probably turn most of its intended audience off. This is a common problem in book reviews. People read a book, like this one whose intent is to provide a practical technique and then criticize it for what it is not and was never intended to be. This book wasn't written to convince you of its theoretical foundation or educate readers on exact "neural pathways", although it does touch on that lightly. It was written to help you so get over it. This is a self help book and in that regard succeeds brilliantly.
The case histories included throughout this book are people with moderately significant problems (I would say even sometimes pretty severe). However, don't let that dissuade you because I think virtually anyone who is a normal human being would find the advice practical in many circumstances. I don't have any issues even remotely approaching those of the people described in the book but I still found it very helpful.
This is a fairly long book for this genre (approximately 350 pages) and it is very well organized. It includes a lot of worksheets and practical tips. I have no major criticism at all. I would recommend it to anyone who wants practical advice on how to improve their mental well-being and that includes people who think they are doing well already. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up!
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