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Updated on 10th July 2021
On these webpages, you will find substantial extracts from my popular book entitled, ‘How to Write a New Life for Yourself’.
Please feel free to browse these pages; and I hope you enjoy the content of this book.
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How to write a new life for yourself
Self-counselling and personal growth using regular journal writing
Narrative therapy as a DIY process
By Dr Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling
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Writing on a regular basis, about your current problems, old traumatic experiences, current feelings of anxiety or depression, or how to build a better future, can all result in dramatic improvements in your life.
Many individuals have made dramatic changes to their physical and mental health, and to their creativity and problem solving skills, by making a commitment to do the kind of writing exercises described in this book.
Engaging in self-therapy, or professional self-development, by writing – about your personal problems; your plans and ambitions; your current life difficulties; and traumatic experiences from your past – is a well-established form of self-improvement.
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I have personally done a lot of self-therapy and personal and professional development through the medium of writing, and indeed I have written a new life for myself. Sometimes, I have combined writing with face-to-face counselling, but mostly I have stuck to a self-directed system of self-therapy, or reflective writing, by writing in my journal on a fairly frequent basis – daily if possible – but often as little as twice or three times each week.
The big question is this: How should you structure your self-therapy and reflective writing on the written page?
I have written a book which contains lots of ideas, more than twenty exercises, and models of how to do this invaluable self-therapy and personal development work. (Your creativity and emotional buoyancy will soar if you do this work!) And you can thereby create a better life for yourself.
To get your copy, in paperback or eBook format, please click the Amazon link that serves your geographical area:
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| Amazon.com | |
| Amazon Canada | |
| Amazon Germany | |
| Amazon France | |
| Amazon Japan | |
| Flycrates |
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How I wrote a new life for myself – to overcome a rotten childhood
By Dr Jim Byrne,
Today, in 2020, I am in my twenty-second year of successful professional practice as a Doctor of Counselling. I have helped more than 1,000 people with all kinds of problems, using various approaches to counselling, coaching and psychotherapy.
However, I was born into a highly dysfunctional and deprived family, and caught in a cross-cultural migration.
My ‘emotional IQ’ (or EQ) was originally extremely low, at least in the *social-connection* domain, though it must have been more than adequate in the *personal-survival* domain. (My academic IQ was high).
But my probable destiny was (potentially) to live a short, unrewarding, brutish existence, based on isolation and loneliness.
How did I escape? I wrote a new life for myself.
What does that mean?
Initially, it did not involve *any* physical writing; that came later, when I was in my thirties. Initially it involved:
# Watching others to try to make sense of life.
# Deciding to move away from my family of origin, when I was thirteen years old; though I did not get away until I was eighteen.
# Trying out new forms of living arrangements and work arrangements; and quickly moving on from anything that did not work. Never contemplating moving backwards!
# Searching, seeking, moving ever onward.
# Meeting new people; watching them; soaking up information.
# Being very patient, and very persistent! Deferring gratification for safer, better times!
# Exploring psychoanalysis, person-centred counselling, transactional analysis, rational therapy; attachment theory; affect regulation theory; and many other systems of counselling and therapy.
# Attempting to write about my life, when I was 22 years old and in analysis;
# and again when I was 34 years old,
# and exploring therapies created by Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls and Eric Berne;
And then in my forties:
# beginning to write my Story of Origins;
# then my Story of Relationship (especially with my mother);
# and then an autobiography of the first eighteen years of my life;
# and then a fictionalized autobiography of the first forty years of my life.
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To get your copy, in paperback or eBook format, please click the Amazon link that serves your geographical area:
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| Amazon.com | |
| Amazon Canada | |
| Amazon Germany | |
| Amazon France | |
| Amazon Japan | |
| Flycrates |
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That writing work, combined with writing a journal many days of most weeks, for many years, gave me:
# New insights into where I came from; who I ‘am’; and where I am trying to get to.
# New insights into problem solving and decision-making.
# A greater capacity to process my emotions, instead of ‘jumping over them’.
# It also improved my physical health and my emotional well-being.
# And it gave me a wonderful life in which I am fulfilled and productive, happy and healthy, and glad I took responsibility for the journey!
# And, as a bonus, it made me so creative I’ve been able to write many books and to create a unique business, based on a completely original form of counselling and psychotherapy.
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Recently, I wrote up most of the writing processes that I have used during those years, into a new book on how *you* can write a new life for yourself.
If I can do it, so also can you!
Please read the page of information about my new book, which is attached, below.
Sincerely, Jim
Dr Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling
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To get your copy, in paperback or eBook format, please click the Amazon link that serves your geographical area:
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| Amazon.com | |
| Amazon Canada | |
| Amazon Germany | |
| Amazon France | |
| Amazon Japan | |
| Flycrates |
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…End of first page.
For more detailed information about this book, including substantial extracts, please click this link: Write a New Life, Page 2.***
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ABC Bookstore Online UK 