Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out

Rating:
Summary: Marketing Over Mind
Review: This book is a marketing piece--not a well thought out, provoking book that can change your life. What is so amazing is that Dr. Phil thinks we have multiple selfs and that just by shere will alone we can go from our untrue self to our real self. Ridiculous! He gives a layman's definition of self that philosophers would cringe at and goes on and on with stories that fill the page, but don't further the subject matter. He paints the self as stagnate, but it seems to me that it is fluid. I mean, afterall are we the same people that we were 10 or 20 years ago? Dr. Phil is good at selling books and dishing out simple ideas, but as a reader I wanted much more!

Rating:
Summary: Too many vegetables, not enough meat and potatoes
Review: I decided to title this review with a "Phil-ism" because this is the first thing you have to get used to if you read or listen to anything Dr. Phil says. I bought this book when it first came out in 2001 because I was struck by his no-nonsense, sensible approach to issues when I first saw him on the Oprah Winfrey show which was a refreshing change from the 'girly men'-type self-helpers either promulgating a 'victimization mentality' or hocking some sort of pseudo-New Age type techniques to solve all of your ills. Didn't read it until now and although my thoughts about Dr. Phil have changed since I first bought it, I will attempt to give an unbiased review from memory.

Basically as others have stated, this book attempts to show that most people's entire self concept is influenced by external things that have happened in their lives and much more importantly, by how these external factors (10 defining moments, 7 critical choices, 5 pivotal people) are internalized in your psyche. These negative internal feelings that you harbor in various ways then prevent you from living a fulfilling, happy life - not living within your 'authentic self' Dr. McGraw attempts to guide you through the mechanisms of how these thoughts materialize in your 'fictional self' and how you can change them as to take advantage of all of the abilities, needs, and desires that you were born with.

I read through the entire book, but I felt it to be a bit tedious. He takes too much time explaining and defining conceps and reiterating the fact all to often that HE is going to show you how to improve your life, yet he makes you do all the work! True, to change any portion of your life YOU have to make sacrifices and exert some effort, but Dr. Phil doesn't really do much in the way of anything except just giving you a high school pep talk before you play the game. A book filled with more real-life examples of his patient's stories and how they got in touch with their authentic selves would have benefitted me much more than a cornucopia of psychological termas: AAAs, MERs, etc. I always hear Dr. Phil say to "Get Real" so isn't the best way to do that is to hear 'real' stories by 'real people'? He spends 3/4 of the book explaining terms and concepts and only the last chapter telling you how to implement them. To me, implementation is the most difficult and important thing you have to do if you want to change your life and THAT should have been a bulk of the book. All in all, it was too long-winded.

In my hardback edition, there was definitely a problem in the math dept. In the first section where you have to divide 2 numbers to get a guage on to what degree you are living in your fictional self, the editor put in a square root symbol and relating to the exercises in Appendices A and B, the charts given to determine your degree of locus of control are NOT explained as well as wrong (should be from 5 to 20 NOT 5-40 from what I could see) Another thing that irked my was some of Dr. Phil's plain Texas talk. To me, he loses some credibility. If you want me to be the best person I can be, to show me that I'm special with unique abilites, don't talk to me like a commoner! I don't want psychobabble either, but I would take what he says more seriously if he talked to me as a professional.

There is some value in every book and I did find some things in here, such at the hierarchy of how you base your critical choices, some good quotations, and it did help me understand why some people in my life are they way are. On a whole though, it didn't really help me that much and wasn't worth the time spent.

Rating:
Summary: SELF MATTERS-DR. PHIL
Review: I LOVED THIS BOOK!
DR. PHIL PROVIDES SOUND REASONING AND EXCELLENT TOOLS WE CAN USE TO CHANGE OUR LIVES.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK, 'SELF MATTERS'... TO ANYONE WHO 'THINKS' THEY ARE POWERLESS TO GET ON WITH LIFE.

Rating:
Summary: Disapointed for the First Time by Dr Phil, sad
Review: As a longtime Dr. Phil and Operah fan, I got this book with the highest of expectancy. How ever, I find it to be full of advise which if followed, would not be as affected as his previous tomes. Obviously we create our lifes from the inside out. How else would this happen? Outside-in is just backwards and leaves a hollow person. This is the type of obvious logic which runs rampart in this book of Dr. Phil. The lack of input of Mrs. Orpha Winfrey is also sorely lacking, and may be the reason for my disappointed. His tone also is more harsh than normal. Normal I find his "get real" Phil-osophy (get it?) to be a breath of fresh air, but here it is "over the edge" - when he sites an example of a men being unsure of how to paint his car and despondent over his losing of a job and his girlfriend turning out to be underage, Dr. Phil is uncharactericly harsh, and his advise consists of "get over it". Get over it? Dr. Phil, I may be "over you", which maeks me sad because some of the best times of my live has been reading yoru advise, watching your shows, watching you on Operah and the fireworks between you that are close to heaven's ardor, reading your cookbooks, eating your snack bars, and watching you on other talk shows and how you look like Jeffroy Tambor and your good humors about that embarassment. I hope in the future you stick to waht you know best, good "get real" advise, and stay away from life-creating, that is God's work, I hope you know.

Rating:
Summary: must read if you want to be authentic
Review: I first read this book a year ago and then put it aside and let it collect dust. I recently had a bad semester at school and deceided to give Dr. Phil another try. I realized that I had been living up to the expectations of others and doing things for others and forgeting about me. His section on "Labels" really hit me. I guess when you get assigned a label, you live only according to that label and basically live in a box. But you're much more than just a label! Now, I'm alot happier and I don't worry so much about what other people think of me and living in my box. If you're down in the pits, give this book a try. You may hate it at first, but it's sort of like medicine.

Rating:
Summary: "Self Matters"? More like, "SELF LOATHING"!
Review: I picked up this book one night at a local super store. I cracked it open and began to read. It appeared to offer something... then I started reading it at home.

I may have been in a vulnerable state and just wanted someone to tell me how to fix things and make me a better man. I'd heard Dr. Phil was just that type of person so, why not?

This all happened last year. I started reading it and felt like I was just spinning my tires. He spun some good stories in there, but just when I thought the Dr. would deliver something I could sink my teeth into, he would go on AGAIN about the "actualized self" or some other buzz word. I quite reading it after 2 chapters.

A few weeks ago I had a long trip and picked up the book on tape at the library [*a good option before you buy it!]. I figured that maybe I didn't give it a chance. Again and again I heard how "I wasn't this" or "I wasn't that" and "I'll never be this until I come face to face with my 'actualized self'." I fast forwarded the type and listened AGAIN AND AGAIN. Same thing.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard "actualized self" or whatever he referred to, I'd be self-made and rich like Dr. Phil.

BOTTOM LINE: I felt worse about myself because of this book. [*I admit I didn't read it all, but felt I'd end up a miserable self-loathing, "actualized self" by book's end!]


Rating:
Summary: raises self-awareness - and misses the real challenge
Review: As a person and professional psychotherapist, I have studied human motivation, behavior, and relationships professionally for over 40 years. My conclusion about "creating your life from the inside out" is very different from McGraw's. He makes no mention of the observable reality that the lives of average people from troubled childhoods (i.e. most of us) are governed by a group of personality "subselves" who often are disorganized and conflicted.

This can change, if people become interested in freeing their resident true Self (capital "S") to harmonize their other subselves. Hundreds of practicing clinicians around the country help people do this via "Internal Family Systems" therapy.

McGraw's ideas sound practical and useful, build hope, and DO promote healthy self-awareness. However, I suspect that most people will be unable to benefit significantly from his suggestions because they're unaware that their lives are often ruled by false selves. This is one explanation for vexing compulsions, why most diets don't work, widespread trouble keeping New Year's resolutions, and often doing self-harmful things "anyway." ...

For more perspective, see this:

http://sfhelp.org/01/innerfam1.htm

Rating:
Summary: Challenge of a lifetime
Review: This book is not some innocent read. Potentially, it challenges the reader to take a serious look at his or her life - stop clinging to things they dont really want and start working for better things.
Surely, most people probably find safety in the status quo, but this is not a book for them. Instead, this is a book for people who actually wants change. And what a great book it is !

-Simon

Rating:
Summary: You must be pretty low to benefit from this book
Review: You must be pretty low to benefit from this book. It was so boring, same thing over and over. He goes on making you feel really low so that you feel like only Dr. Phil can save you. I have a hard time believing that people really like this. I guess I'm successful and happy with my life because I turned it off (audio book) after about 45 minutes. That's all I could take.


Rating:
Summary: this is a great book!
Review: If you decide to read this book you have to use it as a workbook. Do lots of work beside listening to the book otherwise, it won't be constructive and will serve as a novel.