sbaunsgard's review
This is a Cognitive Behavioral book for coping with anger. In order to be able to use it, you need to have enough insight to be able to correctly recognize which subjects that the author discusses that do and do not apply to you. Trust me when I say they cannot possibly all apply to you. There are exercises which you need to complete to apply the ideas in the book. It was somewhat frustrating for me to do the ones that did not apply to me. I tried to use these parts of the book to understand the behavior of others. I did find several parts of the book helpful. Most of the anger that I was dealing with was from one source in my life. I was able to deal with it constructively before I finished the book, so I did not complete it.
The only part of the book that I read that I really have a problem with is the part where she suggests tonglen meditation as a method to deal with your anger with others. I think tonglen is great in theory, and I'm sure it could be very healing. I found it difficult to practice on my own even with more involved instructions, and I also found that it brought up a lot of emotions that I wasn't really ready for even when I wasn't feeling particularly emotional. Not that I'm an expert, but I wouldn't neccessarily recommend it for working on anger without knowing a person had some spiritual and emotional support ready.
The only part of the book that I read that I really have a problem with is the part where she suggests tonglen meditation as a method to deal with your anger with others. I think tonglen is great in theory, and I'm sure it could be very healing. I found it difficult to practice on my own even with more involved instructions, and I also found that it brought up a lot of emotions that I wasn't really ready for even when I wasn't feeling particularly emotional. Not that I'm an expert, but I wouldn't neccessarily recommend it for working on anger without knowing a person had some spiritual and emotional support ready.
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