Boston-based guest blogger, Kim Shippey, devours books from many fields in his regular job as a staff editor for the Christian Science Sentinel.

I have recently read a book by two psychotherapists with a combined 60 years of counseling experience, Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels. It’s titled The Tools (Spiegel & Grau, New York, 2012), and their purpose, as the subtitle explains, is to transform the everyday problems everyone faces into “courage, confidence, and creativity.”

Stutz and Michaels identify several fundamental issues that “keep people from living the life they want to live.” They provide readers with the main “tools” their professional lives have shown to be highly effective in achieving such goals, and explain how their tools connect us to a “higher force.”

The authors illustrate their findings with dozens of case histories, including several drawn from their own experience. These personal stories, understandably, are especially  convincing and gripping. Continue reading →