It'd be all too easy at first glance to mock this work based on the improbable premise of it's title and the all-too-happily grinning mug shot of its turtlenecked author, Dr. Burns, so I won't, other than to say I can sure see where Saturday Night Live! alumnus, Al Franken, may have found his "Stuart Smalley" inspiration.

Nevertheless, there are decent psychological exercises/question-and-answers throughout this introductory workbook designed to foster intellectual/interrelational insight and emotional growth, particularly for individuals who've struggled with feelings of low self-esteem and depression for whatever reasons, and who are new to the therapeutic process. Ten Days to Self-Esteem could conceivably be especially helpful in a group therapy setting as a means of initiating a safe, how-to, structure in running a therapy group for newcomers to the process or even grad students getting their feet wet in moderating group sessions. I would cautiously recommend it only for its hands-on practical value in Brief Psychotherapy, say, for its indispensable overview of positive affirmations that are like the autonomic programming codes for those in possession of healthy self-esteem. Perhaps software can be programmed in ten days, but can self-esteem? I doubt it.

Ten Days to Self-Esteem bends credulity beyond its breaking point not because of the psychology in its pages, but because of its absurdly unrealistic claim made by its title that could, conceivably, accomplish the opposite of its aims in readers who, say, after ten days of reading Ten Days to Self-Esteem, applying its precepts step-by-step, wake up on the eleventh day and realize they still feel like shit about themselves. But now, not only do they still feel like shit about themselves, they're sent reeling by crushing disappointment and possible despondency after the failure of the book. And don't you know -- don't you just know -- that such crushed readers suffering from low self-esteem and now also suffering from the piled-on agony of defeat, probably blame themselves, rather than the book and its too-good-to-be-true promise, for the failure? These sad and now possibly despondent readers with low self-esteem might as well have read Ten Days to Suicide for all the self-help the other book provided them. ( )