Your Own Worst Enemy

The author is a professor of management at RIT in Rochester, and a clinical psychologist. It is clear he has no love of post-modern therapy, because most of the self-sabotage that he talks about comes from the individuals themselves, and the scripts they bring to work, not their company, not the work demanded of them, and not from their circumstances. He is best in his insistence on confronting the individual's patterns of behavior, or, really, misbehavior, which stem from faulty self-esteem, faulty anger control, depression and political blunders. You get a sense he does not let his patients pull a lot over him; he confronts your shortcomings directly, and this is probably the essence of the book. The problem is inside you, not your company or your work situation. If you are a victim, it is your own fault, and your own problem to fix.I found the book very telling. My family members have suffered repeated demotions, firings, unhappiness at work, and divorces over the years. I have lost three excellent career opportunities due to self-sabotage. While I found the book telling, its prescriptions are remarkably simple: figure it out, get over it, and fly straight. Thus, his method is more cognitive and rational-emotional than analytical, but you know that, under the surface, he has dealt with a lot of personality disorders.