My Therapist Is Making Me Nuts! -

Personal Growth, Self Help

My Therapist Is Making Me Nuts!
A Guide To Avoid Life's Obstacles
Mark Hillman, Ph.D.

Brookestone Publishing
316 Pages

ISBN 0972377409, trade paperback, $19.95
September 17, 2003

"Remember the opening of The Dick Van Dyke show? He'd come in, trip over the ottoman, and fall down on his way to greet Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie. Didn't you want to warn him? Well, this book is a lot like that."

Most everyone has stumbling blocks of some kind that keep them from professional and personal fulfillment. This author helps readers identify these blocks, learn where they come from, and why. Hillman believes his book is different than most because it focuses on the real world. He tries to illustrate that how people think affects their lives.

As a cognitive behavioral therapist - Ph.D. with years of experience -- he believes people never do things spontaneously. Hillman is a counselor/coach/mentor in private practice since 1982, and has provided private consultation for twenty-one years. He's also published nationally and provided training seminars in Russia.

Hillman wrote his book in second person with a style that feels like an intelligent friend relaxing after a barbecue, drinking iced-tea. As a result, his humor and regular guy personality comes through. His book is an easy, informative and comfortable read, though has a few of its own stumbling blocks. In Hillman's desire to create comfort and identification, he repeats himself and sometimes over explains.

However, with his upbeat tone, Hillman presents readers with a well constructed work that studies life's unmet expectations, operating assumptions, social convention, conflict between emotion and logic, the way people are made and raised, control, reacting verses responding, self verses person, knowing what one really wants, and more. Then, he uses examples, explanations, and self-tests to aide awareness and understanding. He encourages readers, leading them through concepts, analysis, how to change, and why.

This author's use of evidence, combined with unique presentation and examples, make this book a playful and helpful read. Hillman hopes understanding comes to those seeking to cope, adapt, and/or change. He fulfills his promise to show and teach readers about themselves, their stumbling blocks, and then provide the steps for them.