My wife, who is a psychotherapist, regards this book as an excellent insight into how a client's behaviour in the present has been shaped by early childhood experiences. It provides a conceptual framework, as well as self-assessment tools.

If you are interested in finding out the most possible reasons and solutions for your personal life rutts this is a fantastic read.
Discover something new about yourself and move forward and take control without blaming others for past and present issues.
Understand why, accept and change these patterns we all tend to slip into.... :o)

I love this book. I have read many books in my efforts to heal from anxiety/fear/paranoia, depression, and a poor self-image. There are many books that have helped me, and this one is in the Top 10. I am happy to say that I no longer suffer from those problems! I credit the books I've read, changing my thought patterns, my voyage of personal inner growth/soul-searching/discovery, making changes in my lifestyle, and getting away from people in my life who were toxic/negative/abusive. This book made me realize that some "old wounds" I thought I had recovered from ... had not fully healed yet. It also illuminated some wounds I hadn't thought about before, and provided ways to try to heal from them. I found this book to be very touching. The authors' insight and empathy is commendable.

Even though this book was originally published in 1993 and Schema Therapy has evolved further (which is what this book covers), the information is just as valuable today. This is an easy-to-read book that helps you identify limiting patterns or life traps (schemas) that originated in childhood and adolescence. Are you extremely anxious in social settings? Do you worry unrealistically about your health? Do you feel that you are essentially flawed, worthless, or incompetent? Do you become extremely upset when someone close to you disagrees with you? Do you find it difficult or impossible to form healthy relationships? Do you repeatedly get involved with people who abuse you? Do you avoid relationships? These and many other patterns are covered in this book, along with a technology for identifying yours and how to heal them. The first step is to recognize your life traps, which this book assists you in doing through detailed questionaires. You also learn about your misguided attempts to cope, which actually maintain the life traps. Then the author assists you in challenging these limiting patterns via various cognitive, behavioral, and experiential strategies. Highly recommended!!! --Fred P. Gallo, PhD, author of "Energy Psychology" and "Energy Tapping"

Having read their book "Schema Therapy" I can see that this book could be improved on, it is nevertheless the best self-help book I've come across.

Young and Klosko's approach is based on the work on Aaron T Beck and as well as other forms of therapy and intuitively it seems to ring true in a lot of ways. It's a lot less fuzzy and diffuse than other approaches and this makes personal insight a lot easier for the layman.

I'd thoughly recommend it.