get real - self help by Gail Saltz

Becoming Real by Gail Saltz

Discover and unlearn old responses that one inappropriately applies to new situations.

Gail Saltz, the author of Becoming Real, makes it clear as a bell how some of life's basic experiences can propel us to become involved in a pattern of situations that are harmful to us such as relationships that cannot possibly work out. With the clear insight of Gail Saltz into why my marriage and other relationships have been far from successful, I now see what I can change to make my life different instead of making the same mistakes over and over and over and over! I feel so much more hopeful of the future and feel much kinder toward myself and more understanding toward others who have been involved in my life. I now know how to behave differently to get different results. I now have more control of my future. The book, Becoming Real, may appear to be more geared to women than men, but the main points Gail Saltz makes apply equally to men and women.

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About Becoming Real by Gail Saltz From Publishers Weekly
Saltz, an assistant professor of psychiatry at New York Presbyterian Hospital appears who weekly on the Today show, provides a guide to a kind of narrative unconscious as it affects decision making. The author says that most people live according to stories about care and need that were created in childhood to help them stay attached to and feel safe with adults who often failed to give what was needed emotionally. Saltz finds five major groups of stories about oneself and others, and names them by their distinguishing traits: dependent, super achiever, self-defeater, competitor, perfectionist. Such descriptors, she finds, lodge in the unconscious and result in self-destructive or nonproductive behavior in relationships and at work, as each type (or a combination of several) is used as a shield to fend off emotional stress. To move beyond these early stories to a more satisfying life, Saltz recommends that one clearly articulate the "old story" and its cost to one now, and then "rewrite" it and act accordingly. Although the author's instructions for undergoing this process are specific and clear, this is not a quick fix self-help book, but is based on psychoanalytic technique that will take time and commitment.
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About Gail Saltz the Author
Gail Saltz, M.D. is assistant professor of psychiatry at Weill-Cornell School of Medicine. She appears every other week on the Today show and has a monthly column in Glamour magazine. Dr. Saltz practices psychiatry in New York City.

Becoming Real Book Description
The Today show psychiatrist shows readers how to stop living half a life, break old patterns, and take control.

The key to having fulfilling relationships, experiencing a satisfying work life, being authentic, confident, and comfortable with yourself is simple, says Gail Saltz, M.D. The stories we told ourselves as children to make sense of the world around us are the cause of most of our adult problems. Becoming Real illustrates how to find those stories and rewrite them so that we can be free of the past, of repeating history, and start down the road to taking control, being stronger, and having the best relationships of our lives.

Emotional pain and difficulty mean that a story you told yourself as a child about how life should be and about who you are isn't working anymore. It's a story that looks like the truth, but it's not-myths like these: "I can't depend on anyone but myself." "There must be something wrong with me that no one stays around." "People don't give me the credit I deserve."

You'll know a story is holding you back if you're experiencing any of the following symptoms: having outbursts of anger out of proportion to the cause; repeating behaviors you don't like in spite of your determination never to repeat them; repeatedly dating or marrying the wrong person; never being happy with your work.

Becoming Real demonstrates how to recognize and defeat the stories that keep us from being happy and prevent us from having fulfilling relationships in our personal lives and at work.

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