Reinventing Your Life

Learn how to end the self-destructive behaviours that stop you from living your best life with this breakthrough programme.Do you …Put the needs of others above your own?Start to panic when someone you love leaves — or threatens to?Often feel anxious about natural disasters, losing all your money, or getting seriously ill?Find that no matter how successful you are, you still feel unhappy, unfulfilled, or undeserving?Unsatisfactory relationships, an irrational lack of self-esteem, feelings of being unfulfilled — these are all problems that can be solved by changing the types of messages that people internalise. These self-defeating behaviour patterns are called ‘lifetraps’, and Reinventing Your Life shows you how to stop the cycle that keeps you from attaining happiness.Two of America’s leading psychologists, Jeffrey E. Young, PhD, and Janet S. Klosko, PhD, draw on the breakthrough principles of cognitive therapy to help you recognise and change negative thought patterns, without the aid of drugs or long-term traditional therapy. They describe eleven of the most common lifetraps, provide a diagnostic test for each, and offer step-by-step suggestions to help you break free of the traps. Thousands of men and women have seen the immediate and long-term results of the extraordinary programme outlined in this clear, compassionate, liberating book. Its innovative approach to solving ongoing emotional problems will help you create a more fulfilling, productive life.

‘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 and Klosko 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.’, ‘Using illustrations from case studies, the authors describe each lifetrap, discuss its origins in childhood experience, and provide a questionnaire for self-assessment. 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 behavioural (identifying specific behaviours to be changed).’

Jeffrey E. Young, PhD, serves on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University. He is director of the Cognitive Therapy Center of New York as well as the Schema Therapy Institute. Dr. Young founded schema therapy, and is a founding fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. He has published extensively, including two major books, Schema Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide, for mental health professionals, and Reinventing Your Life, a bestselling self-help book. Dr. Young was awarded the prestigious NEEI Mental Health Educator of the Year award in 2003. Janet S. Klosko, PhD, Co-director of the Cognitive Therapy Center of Long Island, in Great Neck, New York, is senior psychologist at the Schema Therapy Institute and at Woodstock Women’s Health in Woodstock, New York.