Rating: 
Summary: The Buddhist Way to cope with disturbing emotions
Review: Several readers of my book "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence" that studied Buddhism or ZEN told me that they had learned to listen to the meaning of disturbing emotions, look for the patterns behind this emotion, and find other ways to cope with it. This is exactly what Tara Bennett's book is about, and I strongly support using this kind of techniques. However, this message is not new, not even for the Western World: it also underlies parts of rational-emotive therapy, NLP, etc (these models data back to the early 1970s). This is my version (based on Leslie Cameron's book "Emotional Hostage" (1986):
1. Estimate and evaluate your emotional state.
2. If you decide that you can get more enjoyment out of life, decide how you're going to go about it.
3. Promise yourself to really take action.
4. Carry out the actions you have committed yourself to.
5. Evaluate whether the actions you took are having their effect.Bennett rehashes this model, gives you a dozen of applications and a zillion of examples. Given the simplicity of the model explained, I found that the book should have been condensed to about 50% of the current volume. I guess that the reader wouldn't mind! Also, it's difficult to get an overview of what's in this book. I could have used some more structure and I would have liked some use of graphics, tables and schemas. Also, there are at least 10 other ways to get to better emotional management (and some are more powerful). Patrick E.C. Merlevede -- co-author of "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence"
Rating: 
Summary: New Wave in Psychology
Review: Tara and her husband Daniel Goleman are powerful voices in what seems to be a fresh, new, and overall "saner" movement in the post-Freudian, post-Skinnarian modern psychology. This approach takes the best of both worlds: a rigorous, hard-thinking "scientific" and open-minded, common-sense and practical insights of "self-help." This kind of approach (I heard about it originally through LiveReal.com) is exactly what I personally have been looking for for a long time. In this book Tara shares a great deal of clear, soothing, and insightful words on what are often totally muddy and confusing subjects. We definitely need more of this kind of thing. American psychologists are slowly delving into other religions and cultures to piece together (if such a thing could exist) a real science of human nature, with books like Tara's leading the way. Anyone interested I'd recommend to check it out, it's well worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful, insightful and poignant
Review: Tara Bennett-Goleman has done a masterful job with Emotional Alchemy. This wonderful book touched me in so many ways as the author shares a depth and wealth of insight about mind, body, heart and spirit. There are very few individuals who could bring forth such a fine blending of eastern and western approaches to healing. I would heartily recommend this book to anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of how to transform emotions and achieve higher levels of mental, physical and spiritual aliveness.
Rating:
Summary: Read and enjoy
Review: Tara Bennett-Goleman introduces us into the hidden world of destructive schemas which unconsciously rules our lives. What is new in this book is that the author connects these schemas with mindfulness (awareness) and offers the mindfulness as a tool for recognising and changing these destructive unconscious habits When you are overwhelmed by your schemas you will find it difficult to recognise what are rational and what are irrational thoughts (irrational thoughts always seem rational to a person who is under spell of their schemas). Therefore, at the beginning of trying to understand your thoughts it is easier for you to be aware of your thoughts, not trying to react on them or suppress them, and just recognize that a schema is happening, that thinking is happening. This choice of non-reaction is the beginning of changing your way of thinking, feeling and behaving. Although you will understand your schemas and how they rule your life intellectually, as Bennett-Goleman says, it takes years of practicing mindfulness to change your emotional mind which develops before intellectual mind, and that is way changing is so much difficult and one cannot expect great improvement in short time or just after reading this book. But understanding this opens new perspectives for personal growth and liberation. The descriptions of the mind functioning are profound and written in easy-to-understand style. I really enjoyed reading the book.
Rating:
Summary: Turning our inner coal into diamonds.
Review: Tara Bennett-Goleman writes that "this book is about seeing ourselves as we genuinely are, not as we seem on first glance as viewed through the filters of our habitual assumptions and emotional patterns" (p. 4). The concept of "emotional alchemy" allows for "the possibility that our bewilderment and turmoil might blossom into insightful clarity" (p. 7); it is about "bringing intelligence to our emotional lives" (p. 144). Bennett-Goleman is a psychotherapist who studied with Dr. Jeffrey Young in schema therapy (p. 9), and with Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusettes Medical School in mindfulness training (p. 10). She also practiced meditation with S. N. Goenka in Bodh Gaya, India (p. 36). This book is recommended "for people who are functioning in their lives, but who suffer from self-defeating emotional habits" (p. 15). Although it offers an excellent introduction to psychology from a Buddhist perspective, the psychology presented here "offers a scientific approach to inner work, a theory of mind that anyone, Buddhist or not, can draw insights and benefit from" (p. 8). Buddhism, Bennett-Goleman adds, contains "an entire system of psychology--a mind science--that can be of value to anyone" (p. 65). Buddhist teachings encourage us to recognize our suffering, to free ourselves from that suffering, and to follow a path free from that suffering. This is the path of Bennett-Goleman's EMOTIONAL ALCHEMY--"a path that offers a gradual freedom from the hold of what Buddhism calls 'afflictive' emotions" (p. 12). Buddhist teachings tell us that our "most insidious enemies are internal--our afflictive states of mind" (p. 300) Bennett-Goleman examines a number of familiar schemas ("negative life patterns") in her book, including abandonment (pp. 75-77), deprivation (pp. 77-79), subjugation (pp. 79-81), mistrust (pp. 81-83), unlovability (pp. 83-85), exclusion (pp. 87-88), vulnerability (pp. 88-90), failure (pp. 90-91), perfectionism (pp. 91-93) and entitlement (pp. 93-95). "Deep beneath vulnerability and deprivation," she observes, "lies a pool of profound sadness; beneath mistrust and subjugation is a smoldering anger; beneath vulnerability and social exclusion, and abandonment lurks fear. An anxious self-doubt drives perfectionism and failure alike. And at the core of entitlement very often lies shame" (p. 168). Mindfulness practice allows us to identify these hidden emotional patterns, and when we direct our "spotlight of awareness" toward these schemas, we experience opportunities for transformation from the distorted thinking and emotional chaos of our lives (pp. 172-73). Bennett-Goleman also shows how the "schema tango" (p. 210) of any relationship can become an "emotional battleground," but those relationships (including parent-child relationships, pp. 225-40) also "offer an especially ripe opportunity to let us do inner work that will free us from the grip of our schemas" (p. 207). EMOTIONAL ALCHEMY is more than a self-help book, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in what it means to be human, or in personal growth. Although she is a qualified psychotherapist, Bennett-Goleman admits she is not an expert on Buddhism. The fascinating journey "to inner freedom" set forth in her book travels the psychological path only, unlike path of spiritual alchemy, which Bennett-Goleman concedes is "beyond this book" (p. 263). G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: Turning our inner coal into diamonds.
Review: Tara Bennett-Goleman writes that "this book is about seeing ourselves as we genuinely are, not as we seem on first glance as viewed through the filters of our habitual assumptions and emotional patterns" (p. 4). The concept of "emotional alchemy" allows for "the possibility that our bewilderment and turmoil might blossom into insightful clarity" (p. 7); it is about "bringing intelligence to our emotional lives" (p. 144). Bennett-Goleman is a psychotherapist who studied with Dr. Jeffrey Young in schema therapy (p. 9), and with Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusettes Medical School in mindfulness training (p. 10). She also practiced meditation with S. N. Goenka in Bodh Gaya, India (p. 36). This book is recommended "for people who are functioning in their lives, but who suffer from self-defeating emotional habits" (p. 15). Although it offers an excellent introduction to psychology from a Buddhist perspective, the psychology presented here "offers a scientific approach to inner work, a theory of mind that anyone, Buddhist or not, can draw insights and benefit from" (p. 8). Buddhism, Bennett-Goleman adds, contains "an entire system of psychology--a mind science--that can be of value to anyone" (p. 65). Buddhist teachings encourage us to recognize our suffering, to free ourselves from that suffering, and to follow a path free from that suffering. This is the path of Bennett-Goleman's EMOTIONAL ALCHEMY--"a path that offers a gradual freedom from the hold of what Buddhism calls 'afflictive' emotions" (p. 12). Buddhist teachings tell us that our "most insidious enemies are internal--our afflictive states of mind" (p. 300) Bennett-Goleman examines a number of familiar schemas ("negative life patterns") in her book, including abandonment (pp. 75-77), deprivation (pp. 77-79), subjugation (pp. 79-81), mistrust (pp. 81-83), unlovability (pp. 83-85), exclusion (pp. 87-88), vulnerability (pp. 88-90), failure (pp. 90-91), perfectionism (pp. 91-93) and entitlement (pp. 93-95). "Deep beneath vulnerability and deprivation," she observes, "lies a pool of profound sadness; beneath mistrust and subjugation is a smoldering anger; beneath vulnerability and social exclusion, and abandonment lurks fear. An anxious self-doubt drives perfectionism and failure alike. And at the core of entitlement very often lies shame" (p. 168). Mindfulness practice allows us to identify these hidden emotional patterns, and when we direct our "spotlight of awareness" toward these schemas, we experience opportunities for transformation from the distorted thinking and emotional chaos of our lives (pp. 172-73). Bennett-Goleman also shows how the "schema tango" (p. 210) of any relationship can become an "emotional battleground," but those relationships (including parent-child relationships, pp. 225-40) also "offer an especially ripe opportunity to let us do inner work that will free us from the grip of our schemas" (p. 207). EMOTIONAL ALCHEMY is more than a self-help book, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in what it means to be human, or in personal growth. Although she is a qualified psychotherapist, Bennett-Goleman admits she is not an expert on Buddhism. The fascinating journey "to inner freedom" set forth in her book travels the psychological path only, unlike path of spiritual alchemy, which Bennett-Goleman concedes is "beyond this book" (p. 263). G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: Emotional Alchemy: A Personal Catharsis
Review: The emotional impact of delving into "schemas" as defined by Goleman was huge.While intellectually I was aware of childhood influences on my adult being, Goleman's work puts those experiences, and our resultant coping mechanisms, or schemas, into a solid framework. I had never given thought to how deeply rooted the schemas of abandonment, deprivation, subjugation, mistrust and unlovability were in my own life, or in the life of my signficant other. Descriptions and vignettes presented by the author brought me to shaking and shuddering tearfulness as long-dormant emotions rose to the surface. At the same time, I could see my partner's schemas at work on both her and on our relationship. For the first time outside of a pure academic exercise, I highlighted the book as relevancy to my life swirled inside of my head. I later actually wrote out 12 single-spaced pages of notes about these revelations to later share with my partner. I sent her the book (since she's now moved 1500 miles away. . .) with the promise that we shall discuss in detail once she finishes. Behaviors as individuals and as a couple NOW make sense. What was inexplicable and frustrating before now have a plausible framework. Most importantly, the author's strategy and techniques for employing "mindfulness," or the way to see things as they are, is very useful and sensible. The ability to recognize the power of our schemas and then help to turn maladaptive schemas away from controlling our lives is totally understandable and useful. She adroitly blends in various underpinnings for her theory ranging from the latest psychological therapy techniques to the quieting powers of reflection as exercised within Buddaism and other far eastern religions. This is one of those books that can serve as a personal turning point. It certainly did for me. Personal fears and doubts and needs are now understood. Mindfulness meditation is now part of my daily mechanism to overcome the previously underestimated power of maladaptive schemas on my life. Thanks for sharing the wisdom Tara.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant - and brilliantly useful
Review: There's probably not a lot I can say about this book that hasn't been better said already. However, I just want to add my opinion to those who have praised the humanity, intelligence, and usefulness of this book. Having studied Buddhism for quite a few years, I can attest that the author's use of ideas from this domain reflects years of solid training on her part. This is not new age, feel-good fluff, not by any stretch of the imagination. It is an imaginative - and in my mind, brilliant - combination of buddhist thought and more recent parallel ideas from cognitive therapy, neuropsychology, etc. I think it had just the right blend of theoretical, explanatory power (so you really get the sense that there's some there, there) and ideas for practical application. This is a book that can add great value to anyone's life. Very highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Score one for Buddha!
Review: This book did a nice job of integrating Buddhist thought with modern psychology -- which is getting more Buddhist all the time! The writing was beautiful. Only trouble is, I always reach for books like this when I feel I need help, can't do it alone, etc., and feel absolutely inadeqaute to the rigours of the self-help processes recommended. I would recommend this book more for practitioners than for those of us limping along. Meanwhile, I will try to simply "chop wood, carry water."
Rating:
Summary: Turned My Life Around!
Review: This book is amazing! While it is true, as another reviewer noted, that this book may not tell you anything you've never heard before, it's the way Ms. Goleman delivers it that makes such an impact. I'd read and heard about mindfulness, about schemas and all that, but I never "got it" until I read THIS BOOK. And it changed my life! It got me to change my thinking about people and what they do and say, and my relationships, especially my marriage, improved tremendously. I was miserable with much of my life before I studied this book, and now, well, I've never been happier! (If you don't believe me, just ask my husband!:)) Thank you Ms. Goleman, for a brilliant book. I hope many, many more people will benefit from it as much as I have.
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