“It is every woman’s birthright to live from her true self. Yet instead, women live their lives standing outside themselves, always ready to judge their feelings, their thoughts and their bodies from an external standard and find themselves wanting.”

Women today, more than at any time in history, can do anything and be anything they want to be. So why is it still so hard not to feel like they’re losing themselves somewhere along the way?

Psychologist Helene G. Brenner, Ph.D. has devoted her career to finding the answers to this question–and the solution. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Brenner shows that, aside from all the real-world pressures affecting them, women
are responding to an inner psychological legacy, shaped by thousands of years of women’s experiences, that tells them to accommodate, adapt and mold themselves to serve others at their own expense.

Her solution is a bold new approach to women’s psychology. Instead of trying to “improve” themselves and change their thoughts and belief systems, Dr. Brenner shows women how to become grounded in an unshakeable source of self-esteem and integrity – their own Inner Voice.
Look Inside!

I Know I’m In There Somewhere will show you:

  • Why trying to “rise above” your thoughts and feelings doesn’t work
  • The Inner Voice Experience: How you can have one, and what it can do for you
  • How to turn away from “outside voices” and toward your own inner truth
  • The ABCs of the Inner Voice — Acknowledging, Being (With), and Compassion
  • The Five Pathways to the Inner Voice — Knowing, Sensing, Feeling, Wanting and the Voice of the spiritual Larger Self
  • What the most important question is when evaluating a new intimate relationship (Hint: It’s not “Do I love him?” “Does he love me?” or “Does he make me feel good when I’m with him?”)
  • How to use the Power of Positive Wanting to get through to your spouse — and create breakthroughs in your relationship
  • How to make your innermost dreams and visions come true — and how to overcome the fears and life circumstances that hold you back

Filled with lively case studies, surprising insights, loads of practical advice and 27 simple yet powerful “innercizes” to help you access and live from your inner voice, this “self-acceptance” book offers women a whole new way to relate to themselves, improve their relationships and create the lives they truly want. Let I Know I’m in There Somewhere

show you how to get back in touch—or stay better in touch—with your true self, so you remain in the “driver’s seat” of your life.

Professional Reviews

After years directing a women’s counseling program in Maryland and leading “Inner Voice” workshops across the country, psychologist Helene Brenner has put her practical and encouraging advice down on paper. The result is a valuable and important book for all the women who have been told they are too needy or emotional, who remember powerful urges only as distant relics from girlhood, or who wonder where their strong sense of self disappears to whenever they get in a relationship.

Brenner’s realistic approach flies in the face of many self-help techniques. “You don’t have to change or fix or improve yourself in order to be happy,” she declares. “Living a fulfilled life comes from learning how to listen to your inner voice, to the truth of your inner being in all of the way that it speaks to you, and to live from it.” I Know I’m in There Somewhere shows why and how to uncover the “forgotten self,“ focusing on five pathways to finding, and listening, to that self.

Brenner describes these pathways–knowing, sensing, feeling, wanting, and tapping the inner spiritual guide–using real-life examples and practical “innercizes” that readers can try at home. In the pathway of feeling, for example, she emphasizes the need to accept your feelings (even those so-called unattractive feelings like anger and envy) exactly as they are. “When you tell the truth, the whole truth, and the exact truth about what you feel to yourself or to someone you trust, you inner self feels heard, and you feel better.” Methods for facing difficult emotions include sitting with your feelings, naming them, empathizing with them, assigning them a size (as big as a house or an ocean, for instance) to keep them from seeming infinite, and viewing them as separate parts of you rather than the whole of you. Innovative advice like this, along with Brenner’s no-nonsense writing style (“When life gives you lemons, the last thing you need is for some doofus to throw sugar on them and pretend it’s lemonade”) make this book a user-friendly guide to discovering the wisdom we each carry within ourselves.”

—Body & Soul magazine, July/August 2003

“This is the self-help book women have been waiting for—a book that understands women and their emotions, inside and out. This wise, healing book offers women a profound process to discover and to trust their inner truths, and at the same time, deal positively with the people who matter most in their lives. I Know I’m in There Somewhere is a must for real women living in the real world, looking for ways to hold on to their authentic selves in the midst of imperfect lives and relationships.”

—Laura Davis, author of The Courage to Heal and I Thought We’d Never Speak Again

“We humans have been accumulating inner wisdom and increasing goodness for several million years. How is that we so easily lose touch with this side of who we are? Dr. Helene Brenner shows us how to identify our inner powers and strengths and live from them. Listen up, men: This one’s for you too.”

—Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Beyond the Body,

Reinventing Medicine, and Healing Words

“Helene Brenner’s book, I Know I’m in There Somewhere, touches all the truths I am aware of. The minute I picked it up and began to read it, I knew she was aware of what every woman needs to know and live. I have learned from my work with cancer patients that the women who internalize feelings and live the role of ‘good girl’ are more likely to develop breast cancer and other afflictions. This book can help you become fearless and start living an authentic life.”

—Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine and Miracles and Prescriptions for Living

“I Know I’m in There Somewhere offers a rich, practical guide for finding and following one’s true self, for learning self-acceptance and strength. Using women’s stories, advice and self-exploratory exercises, this gifted therapist gives startling new ways for women to access and liberate their deepest selves.”

—Dana Crowley Jack, author of Silencing the Self: Women and Depression and Behind the Mask: Destruction and Creativity in Women’s Aggression

“This breathtakingly insightful book is a deeply thoughtful exploration of how we can come to peace with ourselves and the world around us. Intensely readable and psychologically sound, readers will see themselves on every page through the author’s real-life stories that illuminate her immediately useful, yet gentle, suggestions. Read it and reap.”

—Sam Horn, author of Tongue Fu! and What’s Holding You Back?

“If there’s only one book you read this year, let it be this one. Put yourself in the hands of a wise and gentle master therapist who can help you awaken the power and clarity you’ve always known you could feel…but didn’t know how. Many books say they can change your life—this one really will.”

—Ann Weiser Cornell, author of The Power of Focusing: A Practical Guide to Emotional Self-Healing

“I Know I’m in There Somewhere is the kind of book that stays with you long after you’ve read it, that will stay on your night table to be consulted again and again. I highly recommend it!”

—Joan Borysenko, author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind and Inner Peace for Busy Women: Balancing Work, Family and Your Inner Life

Reader Reviews

“Probably the best book purchase I’ve ever made. I have read a number of “self-help” books over the years. Ms. Brenner’s book is, without a doubt, the most moving, useful book I have ever read. I think every woman should read it. It impressed me so much that I bought copies for my daughter and all my closest friends!”

J. Scott (Red Rock, TX USA) –

“I have been in the process of ‘self-discovery’ for the past 20 years and have read many, many books. This book by Helene Brenner takes a fresh, new approach. She helps women to let go of the idea that we are somehow flawed and need to be ‘fixed.’ From her use of words (she calls this a self-acceptance book…not a self-help book) to her ideas of why so many women are walking around striving to be perfect, Brenner has put a new face on our quest for living that life of our dreams. She makes it seem attainable because there is nothing really more to ‘do.’ There is only to ‘be.’ I highly recommend this book and especially encourage women just beginning the process of self-discovery to read it. You will save yourself a lot of time and self-doubt.”

Ginny Robertson (Lutherville, MD USA)

“Helene Brenner’s book, I Know I’m in There Somewhere, is outstanding and please note, it is not just a book for women. Dr. Brenner, in clean, clear, crisp English presents a holistic way for men and women to examine their lives from a feeling, knowing, sensing, and wanting perspective. By acknowledging these important parts of ourselves, and listening to our Larger Selves, we can begin to claim a graceful lifestyle that we all, by the mere fact of being here, deserve, and we deserve it now.”

John Sanchez (Crofton, MD United States)

“Wow! I Know I’m in There Somewhere has actually truly saved my life and possibly my marriage. I think it should be required reading for every parent and teenager, boy and girl.
I’m 38 with four children. I had two abusive marriages and have now been married 10 years to my very non-abusive husband. When my youngest child started to go to pre-school recently, I discovered, like many of the women in your book, that I was very unhappy. My husband and I had become just parenting partners and we had no relationship. I started to believe my unhappiness was my husband’s fault and that I didn’t love him anymore.

I happened upon the book and picked it up because the title was exactly how I felt. By the end of reading the intro I knew the book was for me. I realized I wasn’t unhappy because my husband was controlling, but because my inner self was NEVER allowed to develop.

I have 38 years to catch up on. I’m working on finding my inner voice now, and my husband is totally supportive. It’s been a Godsend.”

E.R.

“I’m currently halfway through I Know I’m in There Somewhere. I’ve started putting little stars next to the passages that I see myself in and there are stars on every page! After reading only the first few chapters of your book I realized that I had found what I was looking for.

The Five Pathways to the Inner Voice and the ABCs of the Inner Voice are so easy to understand and put to use. I found them incredibly insightful when applied to myself and I’ve recommended the book to all of my friends and acquaintances.”

H.G.

“I always thought that something like “the truth” doesn’t exist, but for me, I Know I’m in There Somewhere simply feels like the essential truth about what is going on in a woman’s soul.
Reading it, I often had the impression of somebody holding me protectively in her hands. It felt like being in a shelter, very safe where I could expose my real self, look at it, accept and learn to love it. Reading I Know I’m in There Somewhere, I felt fully understood for the very first time in my life.
I would love to share what I got out of the book with my friends but unfortunately, it is not published in German. I wish it could be, because I believe it would be a big success in the German speaking countries as well and it would help – I’d even say rescue — many women here.”

G. Z., Munich, Germany

“I Know I’m in There Somewhere changed my life and my way of relating to myself. Honestly, I was riveted! I did the innercizes and tabbed them all with asterisks for those particularly relevant to me. I reread it daily and I made a tape I play in my car. My gratitude always.”

C.S.