Living the Truth
Transform Your Life Through the Power of Insight and Honesty
by Keith Ablow, MD
Psychiatrist, author, and talk show host, Dr. Keith Ablow asks readers to commit to a painful search through their
childhoods in order to uncover the truth. Although conceived and developed through suffering, these buried truths
(hidden behind protective shields) will ultimately offer us treasures for more fulfilling lives when revealed. He
calls this the Pain-to-Power Principle, a strategy for confronting our demons head-on and thereby diminishing
their power.
Besides our natural avoidance to pain, the author says we often neglect to see the truth because of family
fictions. Most families - and all dysfunctional ones - harbor dangerous fictions that keep us from uncovering
reality. As children, these fictions may protect us against truths that are too horrible to bear, but as adults
we must uncover the truth through conversations with family members and lots of soul searching. Upon debunking
these fictional family stories (such as describing a father with a gambling addiction as a man who has bad luck in
business), we can rewrite our futures and stop the cycle from moving on to the next generation.
Ablow writes with an appealing conversational style and uses an easy-to-understand dialogue with the reader.
You get the feeling that he really enjoys helping his patients. Each chapter concludes with fill-in-the-blank
questions that encourage readers to delve into their own tragic stories. If you have already benefited from
psychotherapy, you may not find these questions all that challenging, although you’re still likely to glean
some insight from the information contained in the chapters. Some problems, of course, will be too complex to
solve through this one-size-fits-all question format. The questions (and the overall content of the book) should
be most beneficial to readers with previously unexamined lives. |
The Book |
Little, Brown and Company/Hachette |
May 1, 2007 |
Hardcover |
0-316-01781-7 / 978-0-316-01781-7 |
Nonfiction Self-Help |
More at Amazon.com |
Excerpt |
NOTE: |
The Reviewer |
Leslie Halpern |
Reviewed 2007 |
NOTE: Reviewer Leslie
Halpern is the author of Reel Romance. The Lovers' Guide to the 100 Best Date Movies
and Dreams on Film. Coming Soon: A Writer's Guide to Fearless Interviews. |
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