As far back as he could remember he worried. When he was a child, he worried about his parents dying. He worried in school too…what if he got into trouble or didn’t do well? Whenever anything happened he always felt it was his fault and vowed never to be caught off guard. Unfortunately it never occurred to him that he had done nothing wrong. Nor did anyone else make that clear to him. This became his way of life throughout his school years. As he got older his success grew but not his self-esteem. In fact, the more success he had, the more convinced he became that he had to work harder to maintain the whole charade. He was tired, always looking over his shoulder, worrying about what might go wrong, always fearing the “what-ifs.” It wasn’t easy to be him…Dr. Joseph Luciani that is.

This is the kind of story one usually hears in a self-help group or book, but rarely is the story teller the doctor. That’s what makes Joe Luciani’s message of hope and healing so profound… he lived it. He lived with the constant need to control every aspect of his life so that he was never taken by surprise. In fact, it never occurred to Joe to ask himself why he needed to be in control; it only mattered that he was.

And then, one night, driving home from work a very simple thought came to him…that there was absolutely no rational reason for him to be so miserable. Simple, right? But for someone so used to being tormented and worried this was a major shift. Joe realized that Nothing was making him worry except the way he was thinking. Nothing was stopping him from feeling better. Although the full impact of his epiphany was yet to come, that one influential revelation was enough to awaken in Joe a realization that he had the power to choose how he felt.

In his more than twenty-five years of private practice, lecturing, and writing, Joe knew that all of these insights were wasted if he could not deliver his message to others in a way that would have meaning for them. And then one day it dawned on him that he needed to replace the passive and endless dissections of traditional therapy with a more dynamic, active approach that challenged patients to demand to take their lives back. The catalyst for Joe’s ground-breaking method of Self-Coaching came from his own jogging and marathon running. Combining his athletic training with his revolutionary psychological insights was the spark that began a whole new way of helping people deal with all kinds of emotional problems.

Whether it be sleeping badly; feeling tired, hopeless, defeated, or struggling with panicky out-of-control feelings, The Power of Self-Coaching teaches people how to reconnect with the joys of life -- no matter what holds them back. Joe believes that the answer to a struggling, tormented life can be broken down into two words: Control and Habit. Once we recognize these two influences on our thought processes we CAN create the life we want. Self-Coaching is about lighting a CAN-DO fire that enables us to have the life we want and deserve.

As a frequent lecturer, guest speaker and author, Joe Luciani has brought this message of hope to millions over the years. A clinical psychologist, he has been in general private practice since 1977. He earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego. Prior to private practice Joe was a staff psychologist at West Bergen Mental Health Center, Director of Guidance at Englewood Cliffs College in New Jersey and a teacher of Educable Mentally Retarded for the Newark Board of Education. Joe has written numerous magazine articles and is the author of Healing Your Habits: Introducing Directed Imagination; A Successful Technique for Overcoming Addictive Problems, Self-Coaching: How to Heal Anxiety and Depression and his latest book, The Power of Self-Coaching: The Five Essential Steps to Creating the Life You Want. He has appeared on numerous television and radio programs around the country. He and his wife Karen live in Northern New Jersey.

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