Getting Real
   Susan Campbell, Ph.D.
  2001 New World Library, Novato CA
    ISBN: 0915811928


Everyone values honest communication, right? So how do we do it? How do we get such skills in a world where superficial chatter & white lies are the norm?

Getting Real provides a set of simple & effective awareness practices that give you ideas on how to discover the freedom that comes from relating more & controlling less. From speaking from your true self rather than from your self-defensive shield. How to stop worrying about how others will react to your honesty. How to let go of the shoulds that rule your life & do what you really, really feel. How to become an effective communicator in both your personal & business worlds.

Having said that, Getting Real will make you work -- packed into 231 pages is a trunkful of baggage we carry about, shielding us, distracting us. From “How to Stop Being Right and Start Being Real” to “Experiencing What Is: To get Where You Need to Go, Be Where You Are“; from “Being Transparent: Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Hide” to “Noticing Your Intent: Is It to Relate or to Control?”; from “Welcoming Feedback: It's How We Learn” to “Taking Back Projections: Discovering Your Other Side.” & so on, Dr. Campbell works us through each process with sidebars, quizzes, examples, explanations, a good Resource Guide & Index.

Dr. Campbell starts us out with her own stories about her relationships with her mom & her dad. How her earliest moments with her mom during breastfeeding created a lifelong belief that: “if you express your wants too strongly, you'll get punished.” False belief or not, that knocked me for a loop as memories flickered in the back of my mind.

With her dad this author experienced another lifelong reaction that's so habitual as to have become another belief: “you can avoid painful feelings by becoming judgmental or critical of others; and it's not safe to talk back to an angry person...” Oh, boy! How many of us live by that one?

There's so much to work on -- so much to learn, some you might already know -- most you won't have given a second thought to until you turn the page & find yourself murmuring: “Ahha!” I felt decades & pounds lighter after I'd worked the exercises & read the book! While Getting Real is hard work -- it is good medicine!

Definitely a book to work with others as sounding boards & to spot you as you practise coming clean & Getting Real. I wish it had been printed in a binder form, like a recipe book, so I could lay it flat with wide enough margins so I could scribble what came up for me as I read, for surely Dr. Campbell's ingredients take digesting & brewing!

Susan Campbell, Ph.D. has worked many years as a relationship coach & a teamwork consultant for Fortune 500 companies. she is the author of 5 previous books including: The Couples' Journey & Beyond the Power Struggle.
(10/28/01)

Rebecca