COPING WITH FAILURE

A free-lance writer examines two common but debilitating fears: fear of failure, fear of success. Cohen delves into family patterns (overprotection, lack of confidence on the part of parents) and into how fear is concealed (sarcasm, excessive demands on oneself, trying something only once). Her mnemonics for developing positive attitudes are helpful, as are the echoes of voices we've heard from ourselves and others: suggestions for envisioning the worst scenario; origins of communication failures; coping activities to let go of a loss. But these strong elements are muddled by the book's poor organization: chapter and subheading contents are not consistent with their titles, and Cohen tries to dispel readers' fears before exploring them in depth. The charts that outline ""goal/worries/new plan of action"" may help, but some good ideas (e.g., visualization) are given cursory treatment--while some of the longer stories are either too extreme to be generally applicable (a gift who overcame her abuse as a child; a Down's syndrome victim who attends college) or tell of adults (Mrs. Fields and her cookies). Not on target. Bibliography; index.