Transforming Your Self: Becoming who you want to be Paperback – November 1, 2002

You're not going to do the impossible.But you very well might start doing things that you 'Knew for sure" were impossible for you.the limits imposed by our imagination are almost as palpable as the ones imposed by reality. Only with the Self Concept Model you can learn to rearrange your memories so they work for you. It's literally like the power increase you get when you take the parking brake off. You still could have gotten there, MAYBE, but this way you'll skip the damage and use your full horsepower.

I am re-reading this book and playing with the distinctions and exercises and I am loving it. The changes in my sense of self and my behavior are profound.....and I have only just got started!.This for me is one of the best personal change books that I have ever used. Though to benefit from it you really must play with distinctions and do the work. And it is probably best to have some background in NLP as other reviewers have mentioned. It could also be helpful to have a friend or two to work through the exercises. Really good stuff. One could, I think, create an entire personal change course or workshop based just on this book and give participants amazing results.If you want to "geek out" and go into some of the distinctions in more academic and detailed manner, you may also want to consider Six Blind Elephants: Understanding Ourselves and Each Other, Vol. 1: Fundamental Principles of Scope and Category and Six Blind Elephants: Understanding Ourselves and Each Other, Vol. 2: Applications and Explorations of Scope and Category (v. 2)cheers!Ryan

So far very good Still reading, will update soon !

Steve Andreas is the clearest non-fiction writer I've ever read, and he applies that, along with his equivalent clear-headedness, in this exhaustive tome on ways to change the ways you think about yourself that make you unhappy.He doesn't fall in to the trap of thinking you can bury your head in the sand and think happy thoughts. In fact, coaching you to avoid that is one of the major features of this book. He's after a self-concept that's realistic and constructive. Not delusional, not depressive, not oblivious, not cynicism calling itself realism. Realistic in a way that's useful. And he knows how to get it.

This book is worth it’s weight in platinum. I’ve been morbidly obese since age 7. Now I’m working out 5-7 days a week and running 4 miles in 30 minutes or less. I’ve made a life of avoiding connection to avoid pain. Now, I’m loving, accepting and affectionate. I still have so many transformations in me.

Transforming Your Self is a work as ambious as its title. It describes what your identity is made of, how it works, and how to use this knowledge to change who you are. Author Steve Andreas, once a student of Abraham Maslow, editor of Fritz Perls, and then popularizer of Richard Bandler and John Grinder, has already made numerous contributions to various fields including NLP. With this cognitive modelling of self-concept, Steve solidifies his reputation as an NLP innovator. Steve's ideas about self-concept correspond with Robert Dilts' idea of Identity level change and enriches it with many new distinctions and techniques including: how we create continuity of experience, how feedforward patterns lead to our futures, and how our mental processes act upon themselves. It will be no surprise to people who know Steve's work, that all this is clearly explained along with easy to follow exercises which enable the interested reader to create a more durable, accurate, self-correcting, and connected sense of self. The identity change processes are a mix of classic NLP patterns and distinctions applied in new ways with these new understandings. The NLP jargon has been kept to a minimum. Steve introduces an important new concept into NLP and popular psychology - the "summary representation." NLP asserts that understanding a word means accessing a particular experience - often a memory. For example, on hearing the word "dog," you would remember a particular dog. Except only some people do that. Others think of a dog that stands for all dogs, or a cartoon dog, or dogginess. It all depends on the number, and the qualities, of the examples of dog you have to draw on to make your summary representation. The fewer the number of examples, the more impoverished (and caricatured) the representation. The greater the number and variety, the richer. With more abstract words, like the ones we use to describe ourselves - including beliefs, values, and qualities - this gets even more complicated. Each of these words refer to a number of categories each containing examples that are to be summarized. A summary representation is a simplified image of the examples it represents - and therein lies both its strengths and weaknesses. Previous identity change processes have for the most part tried to change a person's summary representation or self image. Steve found that while a self image can be difficult to change directly, the individual examples that it summarizes are easy to change, and cumulatively have profound transformational effects. What is certain to surprise many motivational speakers and self improvement authors is that not thinking of mistakes or failures actually weakens a person's sense of self, making it rigid, brittle, and perfectionist. Not only can you afford negative thoughts; when handled with processes so easy they can be done conversationally, these "counterexamples" actually strengthen and enrich your sense of self - making it more open to improvement. You also learn the difference between self-concept and self-esteem (and how many of the self-esteem building efforts in American schools are an attempt to have the tail to wag the dog); as well as how 'classic' NLP distinctions like time, perceptual positions, and submodalities combine to create our identities. This book doesn't say everything there is to say about transforming your self. There are ideas, observations and insights along the way that if they were followed up it would easily have doubled its length. I was particularly struck with Steve's modelling of the structure of paranoia, something wholly unanticipated by him. (A good sign that there is actual NLP modeling going on.) Among the people who have written about NLP modeling, few of them have actually produce new models. This book offers the reader an opportunity to listen in on an actual modeler of human experience practicing his craft. For all these reasons, Transforming Your Self is likely to be the basis of identity change work for some time to come.

This book is about self-concept - the qualities each of us believes to be true about him- or her-self - and how to deliberately change it in positive ways.I am about 70% through the book and I am already using it with my clients (I am a hypnotherapist and NLP practitioner) and myself, with good results.The book consists of transcripts from a workshop. It is best read slowly, practicing as you go.TRANSFORMING YOUR SELF is a book that should, in my opinion, be much more widely known and taught, among NLP practitioners but also in the wider therapeutic community.

This book is amazing. I have to read it slowly just to be able to take it all in without overloading. The overloading comes because the book provides such a powerful framework for understanding the 'self'. I constantly like ... 'Oh wowwww'. Written in a nice no frills style as well.

It's not like it's life changing book (at least not for me) but for sure worth to read and implement worthy ideas.

O melhor das técnicas da PNL

Hats off to Mr. Steve Andreas for writing this book and changing my life. It's an absolute treasure. It has not only changed me positively but also put me on a path to bring about a positive change in others. You need not have any knowledge about NLP terms to read this book. Exercises are very simple and instructions are easy to follow. Get this book people. It's worth it.

J'adore Steve Andreas, ancien Gestalt Therapeute et auteur de Transformation essentielle et Au coeur de l'esprit.Ce livre approfondit la notion de Self ou Soi en indiquant les qualités que l'on se prête en fonction des événements passés. Il insiste alors sur les sous-modalités de ces événements passés pour renforcer ou modifier l'image de soi ou pour changer les non-qualités en qualités.Je n'ai pas mis 5 étoiles car se livre est un verbatim de séminaires. Il manque de synthèse et ne liste pas les qualités des participants à ses séminaires, et lesquelles sont les plus courantes.Je le conseille vivement aux personnes qui veulent approfondir ce qu'elles pensent d'elles-mêmes.

Big words spoken so softly, the wind may carry them anywhere...a windy Soul may catch them- and then what...Great Book for any transformed Selfhow to get there?find out yourself...