Self-Defeating Behaviors: Free Yourself from the Habits, Compulsions, Feelings, and Attitudes That Hold You Back Paperback – March 2, 2010

This is one of those books that is a "must have". It describes in detail how people relate to culture and how the messages received by culture causes individuals to draw conclusions about life and develop protective behaviors. These behaviors which at first seem to help one to avoid psychological pain, eventually causes problems of its own when it is done unconsciously in all situations. The book clearly shows how faulty conclusions can be drawn by a person based on an experience and how fear keeps people locked in a cycle of behaviors that are self defeating and how testing the logic of conclusions and replacing self defeating behaviors with truly fulfilling behaviors can assist in breaking the cycle. My eyes were opened and my understanding of my decision making process broadened. One of the best tools that I received from this book is the concept of living consciously in every new moment, seeing new moments as new opportunities to make decisions that will bring me closer to my true self, and to slow down my decision making process instead of doing things automatically. Now I ask myself questions that I didn't ask before and I observe my own behavior and thoughts more often. Great book, and I plan to read it again because I think I will get even more out of it the second time!! In my opinion this is a good choice to buy, these authors really put a lot of insight and wisdom into this book.

This book I found to be extremely helpful. The book likes to posit the belief that while it is not your fault for adapting a self-defeating behavior, it is your fault for maintaining it in perpetuity.The manner in which this book is set up is very helpful, first they call us to understand the nature and process of the Self-Defeating Path then with that understanding in place show us the Path of Breakthrough, the author also does a wonderful job of presenting case studies and following those case studies through out the book to show us how they work.I used this to help figure out ways to break out of one self-defeating behavior pattern, and will probably replicate this going forward into others to help me come out a better person, they helped me a lot.

I've yet to finish reading it (procrastination is one of my bad behaviors :) but about 3/4 through I can't say enough about this book. Too many books give you fluff, whereas this is a good blend of real life illustrative stories from their patients, along with what I really wanted... practical how-to steps along with a thorough description of how & why we learn and practice the behaviors we so abhor in ourselves. I already knew I was "choosing" my bad behaviors, but hadn't found anything that described why I was making such bad choices, and how to stop. This is none of that self hypnosis mumbo jumbo, but real suggestions on how to identify what you are doing and why, and then to catch yourself, and methodically replace bad behaviors with good ones.

"Cogs in the machinery of life or social engineering:So don't always blame yourself, if you feel like crap sometimes"Social engineering is the use of centralized planning in an attempt to manage social change and regulate the future development and behavior of a society. Our society doesn't give a damn how we feel or whether we have meaning in our lives. In fact, society doesn't care whether we live or die. When I say society, I also mean those who set up society.In the introduction of the book, it states, "For all its virtues, our culture is in many ways toxic to humans, and that the by-products of its systems and structures impose negative experiences on most people." So if you sometimes get to feeling like life is pushing you around, you are 1000% correct.An oligarchy is a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution. Pick up a dollar bill and at the top of the bill are the words Federal Reserve. Then look up who is the Federal Reserve. These are them that make up the oligarchy.If you want and alternative to this life that is orchestrated by an oligarchy, then you might want to read the book that I mentioned.The Serenity Prayer suggests to know what you cannot change and what you can. I am currently reading the history of the Serenity Prayer written by the daughter of its author. In her book, she says that it should read, "God, grant me the grace." She says that grace is something we have to prepare for.If you want and alternative to this life that is orchestrated by an oligarchy, then you might want to read this book: Self-Defeating Behaviors. I agree with this author who says we have to understand the origin of our self-defeating behaviors, how they keep going, where we practice them, and how and where we can replace them.This book is worth the read even if they only let you off the hook of blame; we are very limited on what we can do in this sometimes sick and self perpetuating society.

I'm not a psychologist so I can't debate his techniques but this book has helped me observe myself and I always find myself thinking back to something I read. It can be wordy and complex but if you really focus it all makes sense and you know exactly what he means. I like the way he connects things like faulty assumptions and the consequences it leads to if you make the wrong choice; it makes breaking habits or addictions just that much easier. I added pictures of the Table of Contents that might help explain what its touches on. It touches on so many aspects psychologically and you have to add it to your self help collection. <3

Good information this far, I haven't finished reading it all.