Guilt: Letting Go

Well known for Fight Against Fears and her many other self-help books, Freeman has collaborated with Strean, a psychotherapist, to produce this Freudian-oriented guide to coping with a nagging conscience. The first part of the text explores the roots of guiltin anxiety about a forbidden wish for sexual satisfaction or aggression. When this wish is frustrated, people feel anxious and then may experience anguish and guilt that can cripple self-esteem and be so paralyzing, the authors claim, that victims are subject to easy manipulation and an irrational sense of unworthiness. The book's second part contains the authors' advice to end the guilt trip by accepting the sexual and aggressive desires within oneself. The material is presented clearly, thanks in part to the book's many examples, culled presumably from Strean's practice. The writing is dense and somewhat dry, however. 25,000 ad/promo. (December 2)