Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthough Program to End Negative Behavior...and Feel Great Again (Paperback)

~ (Author), (Author), Aaron T. Beck (Foreword) "Are you repeatedly drawn into relationships with people who are cold to you?..." (more)
Key Phrases: unrelenting standards, emotional deprivation, social exclusion, Mary Ellen, New York, Moderately Difficult (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Several of the most painful petards upon which people become hoisted during an unhappy childhood are neatly dispatched here by two cognitive therapists, who attack 11 common "lifetraps"--destructive patterns that underlie a variety of emotional problems. Young, director of New York City's Cognitive Therapy Center and a faculty member of the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, and Klosko, co-director of the Cognitive Therapy Center of Long Island, ably demonstrate how to deal with issues of abandonment, dependence, trust, social rejection, emotional deprivation, failure and vulnerability. They provide meaningful case histories, perceptive descriptions, diagnostic tests and a variety of nugget-sized, easily understood lists detailing the causes, danger signs and effects of negative impulses and actions, as well as ways to short-circuit them.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The authors, both cognitive psychotherapists, identify 11 common "lifetraps," which they define as repetitive, destructive behavior patterns associated with a negative self-image. Using illustrations from case studies, the authors describe each lifetrap, discuss its origins in childhood experience, and provide a questionnaire for self-assesment. They then offer a program for change using techniques ranging from experiential (getting in touch with your inner child) to cognitive (writing a "case" against your lifetrap) and behavioral (identifying specific behaviors to be changed). Recommended for popular psychology collections.
- Lucille Boone, San Jose P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Plume (May 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452272041
• ISBN-13: 978-0452272040
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,094 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #17 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Self-Help > Self-Esteem
  #23 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Behavioral Sciences > Cognitive Psychology
  #23 in	Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Behavioral Sciences > Cognitive Science

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very useful, May 14, 2003

By	C. Smith (NI, UK) - See all my reviews

For those of us who have read endless books on Cognitive / Bahaviour approaches to depression, anxiety and personality disorders, this one is most welcome: First of all, it is not simplistic, naive and patronising, like it often is with self help books. Second, the authors can empathise and demonstrate knowledge of 'what it feels like'. Third, the book is not solely based on the main principle of cognitive therapy that changing your thinking is the first step to changing your emotions. The authors describe how learning patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving in childhood can affect adult life; these patterns, often hidden under totally different circumstances, appear again and again. The authors make this pattern abstraction and repetition very clear, and suggest ways that this can be broken. This is the popular book version of the authors' research on schema theory; it is a very balanced book, addressing emotions and thoughts in a way that the dry cognitive therapy approach cannot achieve. It has been the most helpful book to me to date, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who has had enough of naive readings and is seriously looking for explanations, answers and suggestions.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent self-help book to recognize and alter limiting life traps, September 10, 2005

By	Fred P. Gallo (New Wilmington, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Even though this book was originally published in 1993 and Schema Therapy has evolved further (which is what this book covers), the information is just as valuable today. This is an easy-to-read book that helps you identify limiting patterns or life traps (schemas) that originated in childhood and adolescence. Are you extremely anxious in social settings? Do you worry unrealistically about your health? Do you feel that you are essentially flawed, worthless, or incompetent? Do you become extremely upset when someone close to you disagrees with you? Do you find it difficult or impossible to form healthy relationships? Do you repeatedly get involved with people who abuse you? Do you avoid relationships? These and many other patterns are covered in this book, along with a technology for identifying yours and how to heal them. The first step is to recognize your life traps, which this book assists you in doing through detailed questionaires. You also learn about your misguided attempts to cope, which actually maintain the life traps. Then the author assists you in challenging these limiting patterns via various cognitive, behavioral, and experiential strategies. Highly recommended!!! --Fred P. Gallo, PhD, author of Energy Psychology: Explorations at the Interface of Energy, Cognition, Behavior, and Health, Second Edition (Innovations in Psychology), Energy Tapping, and Energy Tapping for Trauma: Rapid Relief from Post-Traumatic Stress Using Energy Psychology

51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good description of a useful therapeutical approach, July 17, 2001

By	Patrick Merlevede (Lembeke, Vlaanderen (Belgium, Europe)) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you belong to the target audience of this book, that is, people that have had to face some serious childhood problems (feeling abondoned, abused, overprotected, having an addicted parent, ...), this book may help you onto the track to recovery, and do what it promises: ending the negative behavior you may have developped as result of your childhood problems. It contains questionnaires to diagnose which lifetraps may apply to you and to what degree (ranging from "does not apply" to "a core lifetrap").

If you have to face such a lifetrap, I adhere to the idea of working out a multidisciplinary approach to treat the lifetrap. The idea is to both deal with the problem source as it comes from childhood, as well as to teach behavioral skills (related to emotional intelligence). Yet, I agree with the authors that self-help books may make change seem easier than it actually is, especially if you have to deal with problems as the ones they describe.

To get a fifth star, the book would have to be expanded with examples of less serious childhood problems, or to include people that only have to cope occasionally with the lifetrap symptoms. Also, I would like to see some more positive examples, or what one has to do if one had the luck to live a "normal" childhood. Finally, this book is more focussed on the therapeutical part, than on the behavioral part (emotional intelligence skills) needed to have the full multidisciplinary solutions the authors adhere.

Patrick E.C. Merlevede -- co-author of "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence"