OWN YOUR OWN LIFE: How the New Cognitive Therapy Can Make You Feel Wonderful

Last year, it was Mood Control; now, it's self-reliance. And once again cognitive therapist Emery offers some quite decent solutions--admittedly, formula solutions--to problems of emotional, social, physical, intellectual, and financial dependence. His three-step formula is called ACT: Accept reality; Choose to become independent; and Take action, often in the opposite direction from the course you're on now. Wide-awake checklists enable readers to assess their degree of dependency in daily lire. Re physical dependence on another person, for example: Who fills the gas tank after you drive the car? And who refills the ice tray after you empty it? Then, for those determined to change, there are specific instructions. Persons whose economic dependence includes escalating debt are given ten steps to getting free of it (put away the credit cards, set up accounts for paybacks and one-time-only needs, pay off the smallest debt first, refrain from both impulse spending and status-seeking in the future). In the social arena, we learn how to combat perfectionism (""If it's worth doing, it's worth doing--no matter how well it's done""); fear of authority; shame; and dependent friendships. For the workbook-prone, neat and simple.