THE TOOLS: Transform Your Problems into Courage, Confidence, and Creativity [Review]

This article was published in The Mindful Word journal of engaged living (http://www.themindfulword.org)

Phil Stutz and Barry Michels

The Tools: Transform Your Problems into Courage, Confidence, and Creativity

[Spiegel and Grau, 2012, 288 pages]

In The Tools, psychiatrist Phil Stutz and psychotherapist Barry Michels offer a set of principles, or “tools,” designed to help individuals overcome their fears, insecurities and problems in everyday situations.

In the introductory chapters of the book, the authors each describe a period of nagging disillusionment with traditional therapy practice, and its dogged focus on past trauma, which failed to offer solutions to their patients’ real-life problems.

It’s through this mutual disillusionment that Stutz and Michels came to find one another, and to ultimately co-author The Tools. Stutz and Michels explore the ways in which our human potential is limited by our avoidance of pain, negative thinking and untrue belief systems, and our seeking fulfillment and self-worth from external, (often material) sources.

At the heart of the book is the assertion that every challenging life situation presents an opportunity to employ one of five tools. Each tool acts as a catalyst for an associated “Higher Power,” a positive outcome that cannot be explained rationally, and is intricately connected to what the authors call “The Source.”

Summary of the five tools

One need only spend a few moments scanning reviews of The Tools to see that there’s a noticeable divide in the reception of this book.

Criticism appears to be centred around two key areas. The first is the apparent hypocrisy in the authors’ simultaneous criticism of looking for answers through consumer culture and their making money off of the sales of this self-help book (note: there is even a Tools App available for purchase to help you use the tools each day, on the go). The authors explain this contradiction by asserting that the typical consumer will by this book, read it and never pick it up again. By contrast, a creator will consider what the book has to offer, derive meaning from it and integrate its principles into their everyday life.

The second is the author’s explanation of how the tools actually work—their being intricately and indescribably connected to “higher powers” and related to “The Source” of all things. A sample of negative reviews reveals two schools of thought with respect to this important component of the book: Either the terminology is too watered down for readers that subscribe to more spiritual or religious beliefs and see the book as a cop out of sorts, or it scares off the group of readers who place their trust in the science of psychology and find that Stutz and Michel’s supernatural preoccupations undermine the book’s authority.

While the author’s explanation of how the tools ultimately work may be off-putting to some, the book’s bestseller status speaks to its widespread popularity. The Tools is a helpful resource for people who are looking for tangible ways to address personal issues, including anger, worry and insecurity and are tired of looking to the past for answers to today’s problems.

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