In one way or another all movies are about change.  From the beginning of a film to its end things are happening.  In the course of these events the characters have to find some resolution to what has occurred. 

Many good movies are about how people strive to cope with whatever it is that has happened.  Some have a much harder time than others.  In fact, some stay stuck because they have such a hard time breaking out of a way of thinking or behaving.  We see this with Shirley Valentine and Benny in Benny and Joon.

This booklet is about how we are able to change. It is about what makes that change so hard at times. It is for anyone who remains stuck somehow in life and has not been able to get permanently unstuck. The author explains what causes this and describes how the mind functions to interfere with a person's efforts to break out of self defeating thinking and behavior. The conditions that must exist for real change to occur are identified and a strategy given for overcoming the mental hindrances causing roadblocks and the tendency to slip back into old patterns.

Getting Unstuck challenges the reader to look at his thinking and how it is influenced by unseen assumptions, believes and expectations. This is especially a problem when the person is trying to find a way to break out of an old pattern. The author points out that these unseen ideas influence the way the person thinks about what he reads and what he hears when looking for new answers. People seek answers that fit their understanding of things and reject or discount those that do not.

Not only is the reader instructed in how to address this problem but will learn how to deal with the emotions often triggered when one finds himself struggling with some difficult, self-defeating pattern.

The booklet includes directions for keeping a notebook that will assist the reader in working through problem behaviors. The organization of the notebook and its instructions promotes a new way of thinking and approaching these behaviors.

Getting Unstuck is only thirty two pages long but contains more useful information than many books ten times its size. It is a volume that the reader can quickly refer back to for reminders and positive reinforcement.

SG1001 (32 pgs.)

*Copyright 1995 Claremont Behavioral Studies Institute.

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