Book Review Emotional Fitness

Title: Emotional Fitness: Discovering our Natural Healing Power
Author: Janice Berger and Harry Hall
Genre: Self Help
ISBN: 0-14-305557-7

The author of Emotional Fitness seems to have made it into more than just a publication. She has made cds, hosts workshops and seminars and counsels people through their own healing. Her website
(www.janiceberger.com/) has wonderful information about the process to healing ourselves. Janice Berger is considered to be a pioneer off Deep Emotional Therapy and has been counselling for over 30 years.
Janice Berger co-authored Emotional Healing with Harry Hall who has been practicing Deep Emotional Therapy for over 20 years. Harry trained in the psychiatric practice of the late Dr. L. Macintosh here in Toronto.
To best review this book I began looking at the sections. The introduction to this book is filled with powerful emotions. The author has openly shared her pain with the reader in order to allow them feel more comfortable with their own past experiences. She has shared her path to where she is now and mentions books and authors that helped her on that way. She ends the introduction with what would be her mission statement:

"This book is the fulfillment of my desire to open doors for everyone willing to take responsibility for their own healing and willing to risk taking steps toward positive change."

Her experiences, coupled with her reason for writing Emotional Healing make it feel like an honest yet hard read, yet worthwhile as well.
If there were a theme to this book it would be self help which is of course the topic. The style of using a lot of well thought out and well placed examples that pertain to real life make it seem like something anyone can accomplish. There is no hocus pocus or preaching, no talking down to and no expectations. This book is simply a vote of confidence in our ability to heal our selves emotionally.
Readers are probably not so sure they can accomplish what they are reading and many are not even willing to try, but one thing's for sure; it will help you understand yourself better. Why do you feel how you feel about a particular situation? Why are you reacting in an irrational way? Why does something so small bother you so greatly? We have all had questions like these at one time or another. This book helps us understand the most important part of who we are; our emotions.
We may be complicated but we now know we are not so misunderstood. In fact we are all textbook cases who deal with our pasts very differently. Mrs. Berger gives us one personally hard and emotionally demanding way to conquer the past and make our future what we want it to be by controlling the only thing we can; ourselves.
Not only is this book great to read through and work with but it is set up much like a reference book. Janice Berger has set up chapters on the most common emotions. So if the reader has an emotion they cannot understand they simply look it up and voila! They can identify their emotion and begin to work through it. I recommend this book if even just to read and not work through just yet. Reading through it will make a difference to your understanding and you may even start implementing it in small parts throughout your life without even realizing it.
Normally self-help books are recommended to adults but I think even young teens could benefit from this book as they begin to explore their emotions more and have no clue how to express them or even understand them. Go on and get started learning how to understand yourself more. It's never too late to make a difference in your understanding and appreciation of yourself and your complicated emotions.