By Tom Moon, MFT–
Do self-help books really help? Can we make significant improvements in our psychological well-being by reading books? In this country, the self-help field is now an eleven-billion-dollar industry, and virtually every therapist I know regularly recommends self-help books to their clients. Unfortunately, there is a glut of these books out there, and most of them, in my opinion, aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. But over the past three decades, I have found a small number of them to be exceptionally helpful to my clients, provided that they actually read them carefully, and do the practices and exercises recommended. These are the four books that I recommend most frequently:
This book deals with one of the most vital and basic of all the life skills—the capacity to accept, with ease and open-heartedness, our moment-to-moment experience, just as it is. Most of us live in contention with life. We struggle with ourselves, we fight with our circumstances, and we go on campaigns to change the people we love. Many of us suffer from what the author calls “the trance of unworthiness.” We live with a relentless “inner critic” who constantly belittles and berates us, rendering any sense of relaxed well-being impossible. This book makes accessible to westerners one of the great “secrets” of Eastern spirituality—that a natural peace and happiness already exist in our own awareness. Brach shows how the regular practice of resting in present-centered awareness can end our contention with life and awaken the natural happiness that is the birthright of every human being.
This is the first book to introduce the methods of cognitive therapy to the general public. Cognitive therapists believe that our feelings arise in reaction to our beliefs, judgments, and assessments—our ideas, about ourselves and others—and that if we change the way we think, we also change the way that we feel. In cognitive therapy, emotions like depression and anxiety are understood as consequences of habitual “cognitive distortions,” meaning faulty patterns of thinking that are automatic and largely unconscious. When we become aware of these distortions, and learn how to examine them rationally, we can improve our moods dramatically. Cognitive therapy teaches us not to believe everything we think. It helps us to own our thoughts instead of being owned by them. In a survey conducted in all fifty states, this was the book most frequently recommended by mental health professionals for depressed patients.
The aforementioned two books are about changing our relationship with our own inner experience. The next two teach vital skills for improving our relationships with others.
The author’s childhood in the rough streets of Detroit awakened in him a passion to find the answers to two questions: “What happens to disconnect us from our compassionate nature, leading us to behave violently and exploitatively? And conversely, what allows some people to stay connected to their compassionate nature under even the most trying circumstances?” He developed a four-step process that helps people to resolve conflicts peacefully. The method is so effective that it’s been used to facilitate peace processes in places like Rwanda, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland. It is also amazingly helpful in developing and sustaining personal relationships based on mutual respect, compassion and cooperation.
I recommend this book to virtually every couple with whom I do couple’s counseling. Gottman applied rigorous scientific methods to the study of relationships. His couples stayed overnight at his famous Seattle “Love Lab,” an apartment at the University of Washington where all of their interactions were observed and recorded. Through painstaking analysis of these interactions, Gottman discovered the four negative behavior patterns—criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling—that inevitably doom any relationship. The book also lays out the seven basic principles that enable couples to develop and sustain deep friendship with one another. It is this abiding friendship, he believes, which is the secret of all successful long-term partnerships.
These books have widespread appeal because the life skills that they attempt to teach—mindful awareness, cognitive self-examination, compassionate communication, and deep friendliness—are all vital cornerstones of human happiness. If I were designing an Emotional Intelligence curriculum, I would make all of them required reading.
Tom Moon is a psychotherapist in San Francisco. For more information, please visit his website http://tommoon.net/
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