A review by esqzme
Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart by Tara Bennett-Goleman

4.0

I enjoyed this book and its discussions on maladaptive schemas and the integration of mindfulness principles in catching and choosing different responses once our schema(s) have been triggered. I chose this book because it was referenced in Jon Kabat Zinn's Full Catastrophe Living. I am making my way through the books he referenced, and this was the first one on my list. I was intrigued that Goleman is married to Daniel Goleman (the person who identified and studied Emotional Intelligence and wrote a groundbreaking book about it years ago). I wish she spent more pages discussing the spiritual aspect and the alchemy, which only got the last chapter of the book, however I did enjoy the empowerment resulting from the revelation that we can choose different responses even when triggered to embark on these emotionally habitual patterns of behavior.