Don't Lie to Yourself. How to Stop Destroying Yourself and Start Building

A book about how people lie to themselves, avoiding painful truths, and how psychotherapy helps confront these truths to become free.

We tend to avoid complex reality, intuitively believing that it will help maintain calmness and balance. But the opposite is true – it is self-deception that makes us unhappy.

Honesty with oneself is the key to change. Psychotherapist, supervisor, and teacher John Frederickson explains why, without an honest look at one's life, a person plunges into psychological suffering, while defensive mechanisms keep them stuck.

Drawing on decades of practice, the author talks about how psychological defenses work, why we deny the obvious, suppress feelings, and cling to relationships, dreams, and self-images that have long ceased to be reality. Through vivid stories of patients, the book helps us see how self-deception gives rise to anxiety, addiction, depression, and inner emptiness.

But this book is not about diagnoses or "fixing" oneself; it is about acceptance – of our emotions, vulnerability, pain, and human nature. About how to stop fighting reality and start living more honestly, freely, and fully.