Prisoners of Belief: Exposing and Changing Beliefs That Control Your Life

Unlike some of the other reviewers, I give this book 5 stars. I found it to be absolutely eye opening and very helpful to find out what your true core beliefs are. I am a lay person, not a counselor, and when I realized how much my core beliefs effect everything I do, i set out on a task to determine exactly what my core beliefs are.... all of them. I was overwhelmed at first because I couldn't find a clear way to identify them. Some I knew, others I didn't realize until I had taken the Schema and really paid attention to my daily negative self talk. This book really helped me to get to the bottom of what I believe about myself and why. I took the Schemas and the journaling I did, along with the book to my therapist. My therapist was impressed and we have been able to utilize the things I self discovered though this book, during my sessions. My self esteem has already made a marked improvement. I recommend this book to anyone wondering why they have self esteem issues or anyone trying to determine what is at the root of their self belief system.

While I firmly believe that your mindset or your core beliefs rule your life, I did not find the book motivating me to follow their suggestions.My first problem concerns the core beliefs inventory that consist of 100 true or false questions about yourself. After the first 15 or so questions I realized that the "ideal" answer was a T for the first 10 questions and then each 10 questions alternated the answer. The inventory totally lost its value.I had a greater problem with question #12 that said "Life is dangerous - a medical, natural, or financial disaster could strike at any time. The ideal answer was false. However, I live in the New Orleans area and there are a few hundred thousand that can tell you a natural disaster can and in fact did alter our lives in one day.It is easy to tell people to develop a budget and they can get their financial life under control. But how many can do that? Very few. Likewise it is easy to tell someone to do the exercises that is recommended. However there are very few people who will do the exercises on their own. It might be a fine exercise for therapy, however I do not see the average person jumping in and doing the back to childhood exercises.I just do not think the book is a practical guide to changing the mindset of most people. And if most readers are not inclined to follow the exercises, then the book is of little value to them.

This has great points about self-improvement; mostly focusing on our core-beliefs and how they can help or hinder in many ways that aren't obvious. Gives good explanations and tools on how to start making changes in one's life.

Such a good book. I wish I had had it when I was a kid.

I read it and found it good.Interesting with good tips in order to change your beliefs.It gives a good insight for your beliefs.

Very good book, it really affected my life in a positive way, and made me feel I was not alone in my journey to freedom from the inner critic.

Still reading. I like it so far.

This book was very disappointing. It had ideas but none of them were new or helpful. I found myself putting it aside and turning to another book on belief systems that really had substance.

This is an excellent book for a therapist who wants to work with the person's core beliefs: he describes lots of good techniques.