Dr. Lior Shochat, a senior organizational consultant and a professor at Ben Gurion University School of Business and at the Department of Political Science at Haifa University:

     "Dr. Orenia Yaffe-Yanai's new book starts with a moving personal invitation to join the author on her life's quest in order to learn a thing or two about our own lives...

Here and there we meet people whose work is a memorial and whose lives are a desperate quest and longing for a loved departed parent. Orenia Yanai's book belongs in this category; Although the message is extremely personal, it evokes experiences that we have all been through at one point or another...

Thanks to the willingness to be exposed without fearing the vulnerability, and thanks to the message of healing and recovery (also known as "career healing"), this is a book that stirs empathy and creates optimism...

       According to Yaffe-Yanai, our professional choices are influenced not only in more-or-less direct ways by the choices, preferences and opportunities that our parents have made or missed, but also indirectly by the frustrations of parents who did not realize themselves. Such frustrations seep into our adult lives and haunt us for many years after our parents are long gone...

       Gently, patiently and considerately, Orenia Yanai leads us from one personal story to the next, all the while weaving the lessons and insights into the storytelling...

A must!"

Top

         Yocha Yovel, author of "Obstacle Course" ("Maslul Michsholim"):

"Self-help shelves are full of books about married life, parenting, health, happiness, self-discovery, energies and recovery. But Mrs. Yaffe-Yanai seems to be the first Israeli therapist to tackle a forsaken yet essential issue, which to many � including myself � is also urgent: choosing one's professional career and making it happen. So much of our happiness depends on our professional life.

The author is an expert in her field and has years of experience in individual therapy and career consulting.

The book offers its readers many useful insights. It is hard to tell on what page each reader will find that special link to his or her own life but it is sure to happen!

I am now compiling the key lessons from the book into a guide, and hope to make good use of it."

Top

         Dr. Varda Milbauer, psychologist, Human Resources Magazine ("Mashabei Enosh", February 2000):

"Many of us strive to strike that successful combination between our professional and personal life... Modern life demarcates separate realms for career and for love. Wherever work is concerned, people are required to be very rational and matter-of-factly and choose their path according to qualifications and opportunities...

          Orenia Yaffe-Yanai's book, CAREER YOUR PASSION, addresses this interface. One's professional choices and preferences cannot be seen in isolation from the context of one's personality and family setting, she says. Yaffe-Yanai illustrates this with stories of people who at some point in their life felt they had reached a dead-end in their career, and felt tremendous frustration and distress. Some of these individuals even had serious crises both in their professional and in their personal lives.

The consulting process described in the book is about giving the symptoms reported by these individuals an entirely different interpretation than that which they themselves attribute to these symptoms. With much empathy and respect to her clients, the author leads them on a voyage back in time to earlier periods in their lives at which some of their perceptions were fixed � perceptions of themselves, others and the world around them. These perceptions influence the choices they make in their professional life, albeit subconsciously.

        The main premise, which is the leitmotif connecting all the stories in the book, is that in addition to our individual genetic code, we also have a unique psychogenetic makeup. The atmosphere and way of life that we absorb and learn in our parents' home influence our personality. This is why a deeper, conscious understanding of our familial background and all the experiences, values and positive and negative choices that we have absorbed, allows us to set our life in order. Once we can distinguish between those things that are part of our psychogenetic makeup and those that constitute our unique, individual self � we have the freedom to choose.

         Unlike many self-guidance books about careers, this book is not pushy, nor is it a list of "dos" and "don'ts". Rather, it respects the hard work and commitment that is required to make a change. The author floats possibilities, makes proposals and suggests ideas, and her clients � and readers � can choose which if any to adopt. The language of the book, the many questions presented in it and the imagery used, lead the reader to understand that this is a quest, at times arduous, for self realization and discovering one's unique individuality.

        The book successfully explains how imperative it is to connect between the various components in our lives, and how important it is to have a comprehensive outlook that stresses the growth of the special powers that each of us has in the professional road that we take. Such growth is made possible thanks to the connection that is made between feelings that we have in the here and now and the more broader context of our personal and family background. The author's optimism and belief that there is a light at the end of the tunnel really comes through. There is no age or stage in life at which we can take the easy road and say �it's too late for us�."

Top

          Varda Raziel-Jacont, psychologist and journalist:

"Feeling stuck? A new book will help you discover why you feel stuck in your career or personal life and offer practical solutions...

         Dr. Yaffe-Yanai's book evokes empathy and trust thanks to the personal note in which it is written, including a confession that the author herself was for many years "stuck"...

The book tries to help people understand what it is that keeps them in dull jobs, uninteresting professions and cyclic patterns of frustration and disappointment. It shows how people ruin their family lives because they blame their frustrations on the wrong thing...

The book is an inspiration to embark on the quest of self-discovery."