Ten Days to Self-Esteem

Dr. Burns is great, but honestly: if you have his first book, you don't need any other. They are ALL THE SAME. This one is filled with workbook pages, and if you don't want to do the work, you will get nothing out of it. He even writes, over and over: Did you fill out the exercise? Did you really? Go back and complete the page.

I was annoyed to see exactly the same words, ideas, and exercises in this book as in Feeling Good's workbook. I wish I had saved my money.

Having read The Feeling Good Handbook already, I bought this to get the benefit of a actually doing the work in a workbook. Good thing I already had the Handbook as it is necessary for reading assignments. I saw improvement in just days. Sometimes the world gets me down, people aggravate me, I feel insecure. The assignments, which Dr. Burns continually nags you to do and not skip, remind you that the problem is not what is happening but your thinking about it. Immediately after doing the assignment for the day, I feel happier and ready to face the day. I get to work right away, purr along for hours, and don't think things are all that bad after all. I find myself catching myself doing wrong thinking and make the adjustment. Worth every penny and much, much more but you have to pick up your pen and do the work!

I am a psychotherapist, I purchased this book because a client requested that we work through the book together. We did so for about eight weeks. I believe the client felt she benefited to some extent. My theoretical approach is definitely CBT however, I would not use this book again. The explanations were too wordy and the homework unnecessarily repetitious, other workbooks or using handouts would have been more effective. I think the client was bored halfway through, I know I was even before then.

There were some insightful points about how I think negatively thus perpetuating my negative view of myself... but I just couldn't get into the exercises. Very specific, action-oriented exercises, but inner visualization works better for me. I think this book could work for some people; it just didn't for me.

Burns is terrific: see his Feeling Good books, but this is a crashing bore of no sustained interest.

I would be interested to know if anyone bought it, worked it hard, and felt their self-esteem surge. My own thinking on self-esteem is much different than what's here (possible bias alert!) and I think since the model and thinking are less developed that the book is obsolete. No disrespect intended, but this one is like many junky self-help books.

Good price, and quick delivery. I have not yet actually begun the book yet, so I cannot comment at this point. But skimming through it, it looks like it will be very good. Note that this is not a "reading book", but more of a "workbook". Most of the pages appear to be exercises to do, things to write down, tests to take, etc.