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Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart [Paperback]

Tara Bennett-Goleman
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
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Book Description

Jan 22 2002
“May this very important and enticing book find its way into the hearts of readers near and far so that it can perform its mysterious and healing alchemy for the benefit of all.” —John Kabat-Zinn, author of Wherever You Go, There You Are and
Professor of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School

The Transformative Power of Mindfulness

Alchemists sought to transform lead into gold. In the same way, says Tara Bennett- Goleman, we all have the natural ability to turn our moments of confusion or emotional pain into insightful clarity.

Emotional Alchemy maps the mind and shows how, according to recent advances in cognitive therapy, most of what troubles us falls into ten basic emotional patterns, including fear of abandonment, social exclusion (the feeling that we don’t belong), and vulnerability (the feeling that some catastrophe will occur). This remarkable book also teaches us how we can free ourselves of such patterns and replace them with empathy for ourselves and others through the simple practice of mindfulness, an awareness that lets us see things as they truly are without distortion or judgment. Emotional Alchemy provides an insightful explanation of how mindfulness can change not only our lives, but the very structure of our brains, giving us the freedom to be more creative and alive.

Here is a beautifully rendered work full of Buddhist wisdom and stories of how people have used mindfulness to conquer their self-defeating habits. The result is a whole new way of approaching our relationships, work, and internal lives.

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From Amazon

According to ancient legends, alchemists use a magical philosopher's stone to transmute lead into gold. In Emotional Alchemy, Tara Bennett-Goleman shows readers how they can use this alchemist metaphor to transform emotional confusion (lead) into insightful clarity (gold). And what does the magic stone represent? "Mindfulness," a lifelong practice that can bring readers more joy and contentment than the gold, according to Bennett-Goleman. "Mindfulness means seeing things as they are without trying to change them," she writes. "The point is to dissolve our reactions to disturbing emotions, being careful not to reject the emotion itself."

Those who have never entered this practice will find a concise and articulate teacher in Bennett-Goleman, who leads national workshops with her husband, author Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence). What make this book such an exciting breakthrough is Bennett-Goleman's ability to apply Buddhist mindfulness to Western psychology. She shows how emotional alchemy can be used to address typical habits, such as mistrust, fear of rejection, feeling unlovable. Readers will also find fascinating scientific facts on how emotional alchemy affects brain chemistry and even cancer survival. --Gail Hudson --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

"We all desire happiness and do not want suffering." The Dalai Lama introduces Bennett-Goleman's first book with this trademark refrain, adding the deceptively simple Buddhist truth that much suffering is caused by our "disturbing emotions." Bennett-Goleman, a psychotherapist and longtime student of Buddhist meditation, draws on decades of experience to elucidate how the Buddhist practices of nonjudgmental awareness or mindfulness and the cultivation of compassion can unclasp the grip of the most addictive and deeply entrenched emotional patterns. What sets Bennett-Goleman's work apart from other contributions to the emerging field of Buddhist-oriented psychotherapy is her particular expertise in "schema therapy," which applies the consciousness of thought patterns that characterizes cognitive therapy to the deep-seated emotional habits that are formed in childhood. Thus she shows readers how our habitual fears and defenses get triggered again and again in our relationships, mechanically perpetuating old pain and obscuring reality. The author offers anecdotes from her clinical work and from workshops she conducts with her husband, Daniel Goleman, author of the megabestseller Emotional Intelligence. While Bennett-Goleman will undoubtedly benefit from the huge interest in her husband's book and from the burgeoning market for applied Buddhist wisdom in general, her distinct power flows from her sincerity. She is not given to neat formulations, yet her stories have the persuasiveness of experience, of transformation drop by drop. "In Western psychology it is often said that one needs a strong ego," writes Bennett-Goleman. "But in the Buddhist sense what we need is strong confidence." Many readers will trust the path that she forges here. (Jan.) Forecast: Foreign rights to this title have been sold in Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain and Latin America, Sweden, Taiwan and the U.K. Given the excellence of the book, a planned major push from Harmony, and the obvious benefit of a title and author name approximating those of Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, hefty sales and major interest are likely
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Score one for Buddha! July 24 2001
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
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."
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Turning our inner coal into diamonds. July 8 2001
Format:Hardcover
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

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5.0 out of 5 stars Very informative and helpful! Mar 11 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you often question why you react to situations the way you do, this book will help you to see what some of those reasons might be. It introduces Schemas, which I'd never heard of until I read this book. I have done a lot of reading on healing the inner child, healing emotional trauma, etc..., and while many of them have made sense to me, none of them truly resonated with me where it counts, which is in the heart. The mind can gain all the knowledge it wants, however having that knowledge can only take you so far.

If you have read other self help books and they haven't connected with you, or you are still looking for 'something' you should definitely give this one a try. It does tend to repeat information throughout the book, which makes you want to put the book down, but then you get little tidbits of information or examples of the situations people have been in and you just want to keep reading because you could miss something that will click with you. These little tidbits give you the ah-ha moments of understanding, and I didn't want to miss any of them.

Out of all the books I have read on healing trauma, and believe me, there have been tons, this one is the only one that has really got right down to it and pointed out what's really going on. Or at least, it's the only one that helped me to see it.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone hoping to understand themselves better. Not just those looking to heal past trauma or emotional healing.
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Most recent customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars Informative but dull and uninspiring
This type of a book is not read for its entertainment value, that it obvious. The depth of the content is a primary consideration, and in the case of this book, the material is not... Read more
Published on May 2 2004 by E. Minkovitch
5.0 out of 5 stars The right mix of Buddhism and psychology
I thought this was a wonderful book, and very helpful. Surprised by the negative comments about its length, I found almost everything very helpful and not too redundant. Read more
Published on April 2 2004 by Mark Meyer
4.0 out of 5 stars A Helpful Book
This book was recommended to be at a time when I was going through some personal difficulties and it it was able to teach me to be mindful of all the powerful emotions I was going... Read more
Published on Dec 14 2002 by J. F. Sarile
4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, wish it had been trimmed a little
I enjoyed this book and learned from it. This may be because I am very interested in cognitive psychology. Read more
Published on Dec 11 2002
5.0 out of 5 stars gret book
this book is very insightful in many ways. It makes the philosphy of Bhuddism easier to understand for the westerner. The schemas she discusses are excellent. Read more
Published on Sep 14 2002
5.0 out of 5 stars Enough said --
It has a forward by the Dali Lama, enough said.

Buy this book for whatever makes you crazy. Well worth reading twice. Read more

Published on Sep 11 2002 by Dianne
5.0 out of 5 stars A blessing
I found this book to be very helpful and informative with getting down to the core of why we do what we do and our own emotional patters. Read more
Published on July 19 2002 by Alicia Lee
5.0 out of 5 stars Read and enjoy
Tara Bennett-Goleman introduces us into the hidden world of destructive schemas which unconsciously rules our lives. Read more
Published on Jun 14 2002 by Ivo Panban
3.0 out of 5 stars a good intention
Very valuable information but not usersfriendly.The essence of the message is very simple but the author does not seem to master the art of simplicity to get it across. Read more
Published on May 4 2002
4.0 out of 5 stars food for thought for professionals
Very valuable information but not usersfriendly as a self help.The simple wisdom of mindfulness is not presented in an easy way. Read more
Published on May 4 2002 by david dewulf
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