Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
216 of 219 people found the following review helpful:
The essential guide to saving your sanity...., 2 Aug 2001
I purchased this book about a year ago when things were clearly going wrong in my relationship. I only bought it to look like I was doing something constructive to deal with the problem - after all I was far to sane to really need a self help book. Little did I realise how much help this book would have been in saving my relationship. If only I had read it last year instead of this...Alice Katz makes you realise that you're not a total psycho for venting your anger and illustrates how simple every day situations lead to frustrations and outbursts. My partner (now ex-partner) would also benefit from reading this simple down to earth book as it demonstrates how anger can affect your life in so many different ways - from raging outbursts to depression and illness through bottling the anger up. Katz gives valuable lessons in both identifying the problems (and they come from some bizarre places) and ways in which they can be resolved. And I have finally learnt that it is neither personal nor entirely my fault... Just make sure you read it as soon as you buy it.
|
|
|
37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
Don't pin your hopes on it, 14 April 2006
I really can not agree with any of the other reviews, although an easy read, it does let you come to terms with the fact that being angry is a way of life and it's what you do with it that shapes your life, there are also little sentences to fill out to decide which type of angry you are, Aggressive?, Passive Aggressive, cold?..... but it gives no real advice to stop doing what you are doing, apart from sentences like "Try not to swear so much"... "Talk quietly", "Don't throw and say nasty things". In my opinion anyone who's dealing with agressive anger will know this anyway, we've all felt ashamed of our anger - that's why you're looking at this review, the question is HOW do we stop this, what is causing this and can we ever really be free?
I felt the book contradicts itself on many levels, whilst in one chapter it states we can overcome our anger and move on, in another it states quite clearly that and I quote "People never change, even after councilling", which isn't what we want to hear.
The questionaires are extremely basic, two sentences for you to fill out to 'discover' yourself for example "As a child I was angry because..." "Now I get angry when...."
If you want to dip your toes into the world of dealing with anger, then give it a go, but in my opinion this book falls too short of really helping anyone, it can make you realise what sets your anger off, and how different people deal with their anger, but that's it. It's cheap enough so try if you want, but don't pin your hopes on it changing your life, it's not that indepth.
Without sounding like a critic with ulterior motives (I'm not), there is another book that I found so much more helpful, Taking charge of Anger, by W.Robert Nay PhD, he approaches the subject in a much more indepth practical way, making you understand what 'triggers' your anger, helping you to defuse it before it reaches boiling point, and how to get rid yourself of high expectations which bring disappointments, which bring on anger, how to deal with your anger in a constructive, not destructive way, and how to talk it through and stay calm.
Either way, it's hard work, and you need a book to talk you through the stages of letting go, 'It's not Personal' deals with the - 'why are we angry', it might even help you shift the blame. For me, it didn't help at all, a more indepth book deals with not only they 'why?' but the 'how?'
|
|
|
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
well worth it!, 27 Feb 2005
I`ve never been one to think reading a book can help sort things out - but this book has. Although i am only halfway through it, i have already learnt to recognise when i am being angry when its not really worth the stress. It makes you think and learn to control outbursts and not only that, is written clearly and the exercises are easy to understand. Good examples are given to each section so there is usually something to which you can relate to. Worth buying.
|
|
(8)
£5.99
(6)
£7.59
(3)
£12.99
(3)
£6.49
(
