Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: Bruce Lee once said in an interview "All knowledge ultimately means self-knowledge". In the quest for personal liberation, this book is an excellent tool with insight. The 'sentence-stem' exercises really help me look at myself and deal with uncomfortable realities that I have to face in order to progress for my overall well-being.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Points But With Reservations.
Review: Good book if one takes it with a grain of salt. While sleep walking through life and being unaware of one's surroundings, is a poor way to live, being aware of one's surroundings, often has severe consequences not mentioned by Branden. This may be because Branden is use to working with Beverly Hills types, people insulated by money and power from many of the hard realities of life. The problem with living consciously is that one sees the irrationality in all areas, and this can be a dangerous place to be, something that Branden never addresses because most likely, he doesn't want to consciously focus on the dark side of being aware. Yet being aware and acting on it, especially for those in precarious positions, can be hazardous. For example, say you are a 30-year old women living in Jersey, who wants to divorce her husband and leave a loveless marriage, and pursue a career in New York, yet has no connections in New York and has never lived alone. Reading Branden, she has become fully conscious of her discomfort at the status quo, but where does she find the support and help to make the transition into a new world? And then what about the daunting prospect of facing New York alone? Will she be better off doing this or perhaps just toughing it out in her loveless marriage, where she is safe and secure? Who knows, certainly not Branden who is safe and secure in his Beverly Hills office!
Rating:
Summary: The best buy of the year so far...
Review: If this book doesn't get you thinking about the truth in your life and with your emotions, nothing will. I thought it was a tad slow in the beginning but once I got going I couldn't put it down. I read it in a week and exhausted my brain. Enjoy - A great buy.
Rating:
Summary: Understanding this will cause you to reflect
Review: If you have a pulse, can read, and understand this book can cause you to reflect more consciously about the everyday things that you do in your life than you may have in a long time. If you can withstand that, then doing Nathaniel Branden's exercises which he presents throughout the book will push the envelope even further. He doesn't settle for feel-good platitudes, but the medicines he offers can open us up to possibilities that we have previously not seen through the haze of unconscious behavior and thinking. I have become extremely jaded by a lot of the feel-good new-agey speak that has become closely identified in my mind with "self-esteem" and these days. Initially that association caused me to hesitate in buying this book. To the contrary, and to my relief I found Branden's message free from that kind of shallowness. If you merely seek self-flattery Branden offers none. On a personal note, in this book Branden even succeeded in rehabilitating the word "spirituality" for this once self-identified "atheist" who still occasionally refers to himself as a "secular humanist." On the whole his message proved very accessible, and I even found myself eager to reread it after getting through it the first time.
Rating: 
Summary: Consciousness for Dummies
Review: If you seek a discipline for increasing awareness of reality, then keep looking. In this book, Branden continues his self-absorbed obsession with celebrity, including Rand. He admits in this book being unable, despite endless requests of his wife, to stop spilling his coffee on the kitchen floor for seventeen years. Then it dawns on him to stop filling the cup so full. If this is your idea of a guru, then enjoy. As for me, I'm still searching...
Rating:
Summary: More Rationality From The Self-Esteem Innovator
Review: In the early seventies just after the publication of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, I went to the library looking for other books on the subject. I found only one other book with self-esteem in its title. Over the years, I've watched closely as the word self-esteem has exploded into American culture, and has become as American as the proverbial apple pie, often with undercurrents of confusion and ignorance. Yet, with Nathaniel Branden, the innovator of the whole movement, the definition has always been the same; what has changed is his ever-increasing knowledge and awareness of the subject, much of which he shares In The Art Of Living Consciously. For those interested in the role of consciousness in improving one's life and one's self esteem -- that one is competent to know one's world, and worthy of happiness -- this will be the book for you. Once again, Nathaniel offers up a treasure chest of personal examples, as well as the examples of his clients. Also, offered is a facinating look into the world of ¨spirituality¨ as seen through the eyes of Mr. Rationality. Here, again, is another powerful and entertaining book from the man who launched the term into public discussion.
Rating:
Summary: The master key to a life of considerable joy
Review: Nathaniel Branden has finally written the One Book I Would Take With Me to a Desert Island If I Could Have Only One Book. I must consider this book his absolute masterpiece. It was only on my second reading that the power of the book really hit home. I wasn't prepared for the truth and beauty of it the first time I read it. I just wasn't prepared. I'd so clouded up my own intellectual history with spirituality and escapist self-help (a true contradiction in intentions). I dip into any page now and come out cleaned and bright and ready to use the power of my mind. I do the sentence completions and feel my center grow stronger every day. This one book may be the greatest single gift psychology has ever given to humanity.
Rating:
Summary: Almost as good as Six Pillars...
Review: Okay,so I have a bit of hero worship and father figure identification with Dr. Branden so maybe my review is not the most objective but I want to express a great deal of gratitude to him.This is a fine book and I am in my first rereading of it.I think it is one of those kind of books where there is more to reflect on with each reading and more to learn.I still think "The Six Pillars of Self Esteem" is his masterwork but well maybe it's "The Disowned Self", no wait maybe it's "The Psychology of Self Esteem". The point is, buy this book and all the others if you would like to illuminate your path.(and do the sentence stems, they make a difference)
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fantastic
Review: What a fantastic book! I've been staying up late reading it the past two nights, and am so excited about what it has to say that I can't sleep. Here's a quote: "Too often, when we suffer the consequences of our unconsciousness, we do not ask, 'How can I learn to be more conscious?' Instead we ask, 'Why is life so difficult? Why do unhappy things always happen to me?" And another one: "Many people have an affair with or marry not a person but a fantasy - then resent the person for not being like their fantasy and then withdraw in bitterness, telling themselves, 'So much for romantic love.' They do not examine the mental processes that led to their selection of a partner; instead, they are angry at a universe in which the road of unconsciousness does not lead to fulfillment." Mr. Branden encourages us to bring full awareness to what we're doing, offering many stories, exercises and much encouragement for doing so. I especially like the chapter on consciousness and spirituality. To the reader below who deplores her new state of awareness: Now you know what you want to do. Buck up your courage, girl, and do it! Have faith in your own abilities, however latent they may be. You can do it!
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fantastic
Review: What a fantastic book! I've been staying up late reading it the past two nights, and am so excited about what it has to say that I can't sleep. Here's a quote: "Too often, when we suffer the consequences of our unconsciousness, we do not ask, 'How can I learn to be more conscious?' Instead we ask, 'Why is life so difficult? Why do unhappy things always happen to me?" And another one: "Many people have an affair with or marry not a person but a fantasy - then resent the person for not being like their fantasy and then withdraw in bitterness, telling themselves, 'So much for romantic love.' They do not examine the mental processes that led to their selection of a partner; instead, they are angry at a universe in which the road of unconsciousness does not lead to fulfillment." Mr. Branden encourages us to bring full awareness to what we're doing, offering many stories, exercises and much encouragement for doing so. I especially like the chapter on consciousness and spirituality. To the reader below who deplores her new state of awareness: Now you know what you want to do. Buck up your courage, girl, and do it! Have faith in your own abilities, however latent they may be. You can do it!
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