Transforming Your Self: Becoming Who You Want to Be (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Do you ever say, or think to yourself, "I'm disappointed with myself; I thought I could do that, but I really blew it," "I wish..." (more)
Key Phrases: visual squash, integrating counterexamples, grouping counterexamples, Transforming Your Self, Uncertain Quality, Unwanted Quality (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

I use the simple, yet transformative, processes in this book regularly in my practice with astounding results-ten times the progress in one quarter the time. --Lonnie Barbach, Ph.D., Psychologist, author of For Yourself and The Pause.

If you read only one book this year, make it this one. While the world of psychotherapy is dizzy trying to learn techniques, here is one of the very few books that provides enduring value! --Stephen Lankton, MSW, DAHB, author of 15 books, including The Answer Within, Practical Magic, and Tales of Enchantment.

With specific instruction, real-life examples, and an all-important sense of humor, Steve Andreas unpacks this vitally important process clearly and succinctly, going 'under the hood' to show you how to rebuild, fine tune, and change your self-concept and self-esteem. --Bill O'Hanlon, MFT, author/coauthor of 20 books, including Do One Thing Different and In Search of Solutions.

Product Description

Discover what your identity is made of, how it functions, and how to use this knowledge to change how you think of yourself. Easy-to-follow demonstrations, explanations, and exercises provide surprisingly simple and practical ways to change your experience of who you are and others if you work as a therapist or coach. Learn how to strengthen your sense of self to become more independent of others views, while at the same time becoming more responsive to useful feedback.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 273 pages
• Publisher: Real People Press (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0911226435
• ISBN-13: 978-0911226430
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #453,436 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Really New Kind of Change, May 29, 2003

By	Professional Trader (Kingston-upon-Thames, UK) - See all my reviews

Transforming Your Self is a work as ambious as its title. It describes what your identity is made of, how it works, and how to use this knowledge to change who you are. Author Steve Andreas, once a student of Abraham Maslow, editor of Fritz Perls, and then popularizer of Richard Bandler and John Grinder, has already made numerous contributions to various fields including NLP. With this cognitive modelling of self-concept, Steve solidifies his reputation as an NLP innovator. Steve's ideas about self-concept correspond with Robert Dilts' idea of Identity level change and enriches it with many new distinctions and techniques including: how we create continuity of experience, how feedforward patterns lead to our futures, and how our mental processes act upon themselves. It will be no surprise to people who know Steve's work, that all this is clearly explained along with easy to follow exercises which enable the interested reader to create a more durable, accurate, self-correcting, and connected sense of self. The identity change processes are a mix of classic NLP patterns and distinctions applied in new ways with these new understandings. The NLP jargon has been kept to a minimum.

Steve introduces an important new concept into NLP and popular psychology - the "summary representation." NLP asserts that understanding a word means accessing a particular experience - often a memory. For example, on hearing the word "dog," you would remember a particular dog. Except only some people do that. Others think of a dog that stands for all dogs, or a cartoon dog, or dogginess. It all depends on the number, and the qualities, of the examples of dog you have to draw on to make your summary representation. The fewer the number of examples, the more impoverished (and caricatured) the representation. The greater the number and variety, the richer. With more abstract words, like the ones we use to describe ourselves - including beliefs, values, and qualities - this gets even more complicated. Each of these words refer to a number of categories each containing examples that are to be summarized. A summary representation is a simplified image of the examples it represents - and therein lies both its strengths and weaknesses. Previous identity change processes have for the most part tried to change a person's summary representation or self image. Steve found that while a self image can be difficult to change directly, the individual examples that it summarizes are easy to change, and cumulatively have profound transformational effects.

What is certain to surprise many motivational speakers and self improvement authors is that not thinking of mistakes or failures actually weakens a person's sense of self, making it rigid, brittle, and perfectionist. Not only can you afford negative thoughts; when handled with processes so easy they can be done conversationally, these "counterexamples" actually strengthen and enrich your sense of self - making it more open to improvement. You also learn the difference between self-concept and self-esteem (and how many of the self-esteem building efforts in American schools are an attempt to have the tail to wag the dog); as well as how 'classic' NLP distinctions like time, perceptual positions, and submodalities combine to create our identities.

This book doesn't say everything there is to say about transforming your self. There are ideas, observations and insights along the way that if they were followed up it would easily have doubled its length. I was particularly struck with Steve's modelling of the structure of paranoia, something wholly unanticipated by him. (A good sign that there is actual NLP modeling going on.)

Among the people who have written about NLP modeling, few of them have actually produce new models. This book offers the reader an opportunity to listen in on an actual modeler of human experience practicing his craft. For all these reasons, Transforming Your Self is likely to be the basis of identity change work for some time to come.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Andreas helps readers transform identity, February 8, 2003

By	"kelgerling" (Kansas) - See all my reviews

The first time I encountered the writing of Steve Andreas was when I read his superb book "Awareness" written under the name John O. Stevens. That was over twenty-five years ago. Since then, Andreas, in his writing and teaching, helped to found NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) and to guide NLP towards sensitive morality and technical effectiveness. The subject of this book--transforming your self--is a tricky one. Any book on this subject must guide readers to change their self with--guess what?--their self doing the guiding. This is a complex, paradoxical endeavor, one Andreas deals with well throughout the book through the use of many specific examples. What makes this book and its subject especially important is this: our sense of self influences many aspects of the rest of our lives: our values, our feelings, our relationships, our decisions, our hopes and dreams, and certainly our behaviors. Andreas treats this important subject much like he treats his workshop participants--with care, sensitive guidance and technical skill. He accomplishes this without falling into a review of often confusing and contradictory philosophical theories. Instead, he goes beyond theories to practice. He focuses on what we *can actually do,* to transform our sense of self in the privacy of our own minds. The process Andreas reveals in this book not only helps us to enhance our sense of self, but also offers something else: the book's workshop-style format helps therapists, educators and other professionals to discover how to pass on what they've learned to their clients and students. Parents too can benefit in this way, passing on what they learn to their children. For all of these reasons, I highly recommend Steve Andreas's book, Transforming Your Self: Becoming Who You Want to Be. Kelly Patrick Gerling, Ph.D.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Transforming Your Self, January 28, 2003

By	Richard Shane, Ph.D. (Boulder, CO Boulder, CO United States) - See all my reviews

For years, the world of psychotherapy has used words like self-esteem and self-worth. When posed with the question "How do you build good self-esteem?" most psychotherapists and authors would talk about giving positive regard to a child, etc. Steve Andreas, author of Becoming Who You Want To Be, is the first person I've come across to dissect in detail what are the internal "building blocks" of a healthy self-concept. His thinking is clear and precise and the models he presents (for building healthy self-concept) are well layed out and fairly easy to follow. Some of the ideas are revolutionary. Steve's humor and humanity make this book heartfelt and very enjoyable to read. Even if you use just some of the information, I predict it will change your thinking and actions. The world needs all the positive help it can get. Tell others about this book!