Reviews

Review by Michael Perez

The review copy of Steve Andreas’ new book, Help With Negative Self-Talk just popped up in my inbox. I’m going to start out with my only criticism of the book, and frankly, criticism is too strong a word. More like quibble. It seems to me that this is in fact two books with two different audiences. I’ll call these “book Self” and “book Other.”

In “book Self,” Steve lays out a very simple, step-by-step and easy to follow path for allowing just about anyone who needs help with negative self-talk to change their experience. Rich in explanations and follow-along exercises, these are a no-brainer for just about any functional human being.

And, frankly, I’ll be surprised if those self-help readers get more than halfway through the book! By then, they will have probably changed their experience so much for the better that I don’t know if they’ll feel the need to continue!

Given that the title is Help with Negative Self-Talk, I think that’s a wonderful and reasonable expectation that one might have of a book like this. It’s a book that an individual can use to trade in negative self-talk for some really useful and constructive self-talk instead.

But the book isn’t just “book Self.” The book is also “book Other,” a thorough and well-documented examination of different techniques that NLPers can use with others in order to change their self-talk. There are numerous and detailed examples of many different interventions laid out in a very thorough way, complete with significant regard to ecology checks—something I all too often find missing in books like these.

What’s more, Steve works to be encyclopedic in the way that he documents successful self-talk amelioration strategies from multiple sources. This is not Steve Andreas’ Guide to Self-Talk. There are a number of detailed contributions from people like Andy Austin, Nick Kemp, Michael Yapko and others. Steve provides a cogent analysis of their contributions in the context of the frame he creates.

(As an aside, this is a great illustration of what can happen when one breaks out of the “camp” mentality and talks to anyone who’s doing good work, as Steve does. As a result, there are loads of new material in this book, not just another tired rehash of techniques from 20 or 30 years ago. There’s some useful material on the subject I’ve come across over the years, but that’s almost entirely behind partisan lines these days, I’m afraid. How I’d love for NLP to become more like other fields where information flows more freely.)

To sum up, “book Other” is a treasure trove for the professional change worker. So, In a way, I would’ve loved for this to have been made into two books. A somewhat edited version for the individual and the version in its present form for coaches, therapists and all sorts of other change workers.

Having said that, I think it’s a only a quibble, because even the therapeutic material is presented in a manner that is both clear and entertaining enough to hold the interest of the nonprofessional reader.

Another point I’d like to make is that, despite what some might infer from the title, the book (thankfully) is not just focused on remedial change work. Steve discusses distinctions of excellence with regard to self-talk. So this book is of particular interest to those who would like to be more successful in the things that they do in their lives. It’s not just about what you shouldn’t tell yourself; it presents clear strategies for what you can tell yourself instead, to increase both your enjoyment of life and your ability to function smoothly and easily.

If this were 1973, I could see this book being published under the title (Almost) Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Self-Talk (but were afraid to ask). I can’t recommend the book highly enough, and I eagerly await Volume 2.

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