Living Through Job Loss: Coping with the Emotional Effects of Job Loss and Rebuilding Your Future

Stearns, a psychology professor at Essex Community College in Baltimore, believes that many people change overnight when they lose their jobs. Often more distressing than any financial concerns are the emotional effects. People who have recently lost their jobs often doubt their own abilities, which in turn makes searching for a new job difficult. This insecurity can cause stress, strained family relations and other problems. By using profiles of people who lost their jobs and ended up in new positions, started their own businesses or explored entirely new lifestyles, Stearns offers pointers on fighting the side effects of unemployment. Such advice as seeking free help in managing credit or carefully budgeting any severance pay as ``bridge money'' is sound, if unoriginal. The most helpful section is that designed to help readers recognize their skills and needs, both on the job and at home, as they search for new positions. In its validation of feelings, this book will provide some help to readers, but a more powerful examination of the same subject is William Byron's Finding Work Without Losing Heart. (Dec.)