Customer Reviews
Really helpful book - By: Ashpan, 09 May 2008 
I have reallly enjoyed reading this book. Having suffered with several anxiety disorders over the years I decided to look at the cause rather than the symptoms. I have read many self help books but this is the only one that has had a significant effect. I think maybe some readers have missed the point of the book, it is reallly about accepting yourself, flaws & alll, but also trying to focus on the positive rather than negative, obviously this isn't an easy task but this book sets you on the right track. Personallly to me self esteem is alll about acceptance, it's not about doing things perfectly, or looking a certain way, or even relying on other people to boost it - that's why I'm a bit confused over some of the other reviews. There are lots of different tasks to follow to help you understand your thinking patterns etc., & the author does explain at length the reason for undertaking each one. All in alll I would say this is a reallly useful book if you suffer with self esteem issues. My only complaint would be that although she gives us several examples of people with low self esteem at the beginning, she does seem to focus on the same person throughout the majority of the book. It would have been nice to see different examples throughout.
Confused and badly structured - By: M. WALLACE, 10 Mar 2008 
While I found I could identify with much of the symptoms & causes of symptoms in this book I found it badly written & unstructured to the extent of being almost unreadable in parts. Also, the self-help program was based on the assumptions that situations that are affected by your low self esteem have TANGIBLE & OBSERVABLE outcomes which is not generallly appropriate to myself. I don't mean to knock this book outright - I found it useful in helping identify certain causes of my social-anxiety & can see that it could be very helpful for certain anxieties. Unfortunately however, not for me.
A waste of time... - By: C Johnston, 04 Dec 2007 
I bought this book because I have always had low self esteem about my appearance, ever since days of name callling, ridicule, teasing in my school days about how I looked.
This book is as much use as an inflatable dart board if you suffer low self esteem because you are self conscious & feel negative about parts of yourself.
It gives an example of 'Karen', the girl who is overweight & her self esteem is ruined when she weighs herself & sees she has put on weight.
Her way to overcome this is to believe she is attractive, think of her qualities & even if she feels fat she should go swimming.
What a load of rubbish.
What about Karen's negative self image? What about Karen being self conscious over her weight & believing if people see she is fat that they will judge her negatively & ugly. What about Karen's beliefs that she is fat & ugly & believing no guy would be interested in her? What about Karen's beliefs that fat means ugly? What about when Karen looks in the mirror & sees she is fat & thinks negatively of herself? You cannot just believe 'Oh I am attractive' when you don't believe it.
This book does not tackle people feeling self conscious.
The book does however describe what self esteem is very well & shows some nice diagrams on how low self esteem reflects in low self confidence & anxiety.
But this book is basicallly a dud. The only people this book will help is people who just lack a bit of belief in themselves.
Throughout the book its funny that it gives examples on mainly 2 examples - someone who believes they are not good enough because his Dad said he wasn't & someone who believes they are bad because her step dad raped her. Your typical self esteem victims eh? It doesn't give examples of Karen who believes she is fat & ugly. Why? Because the writer knew that she hadn't a clue how to tackle such a problem.
Absolute waste of time. I could write a better book than this.
Definitely the first step in tackling low self-esteem - By: S. M. Metcalfe, 10 Aug 2007 I was given this book by my Clinical Psychologist at the beginning of my therapy for depression, anxiety & low self-esteem. Nearly every page that I read shows me where I have been going wrong with my thought process. The book explains clearly why you have been thinking the way you have & how to reassess those negative thoughts. And she manages to do alll this while making complete sense.
This book has been as important in my therapy as the sessions have been with the Clinical Psychologist.
Give it try. It should be the first thing you try to beat low self-esteem.
Very helpful - By: June B., 04 Nov 2006 I found this book to be very helpful as it deals with the cause of low self esteem as well as the elements that keep it going. Obviously it will take time but knowing is half the battle & I would recommend it to anyone suffering with low self esteem or anyone interested in learning more about this issue.
