"A friend's shoulder to lean on is sometimes just a luxury that isn't available. "The Journey to Be Your Own Best Friend: How to Discover Your Power Within" is a guide for looking within for the simple power to deal with the stress and problems of everyday life. The advice covers how to recognize one's problems, stopping them, and doing what one needs to change their lives for the better, and to ultimately become oneself's own best friend. "The Journey to Be Your Own Best Friend" is a self-help book in the true sense of the term, encouraging readers to be self-reliant when faced with adversity."
– Small Press Bookwatch: January 2009
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review

"The Journey to Be Your Own Best Friend is a slim little book, and my first reaction was to assume it was going to be pure pop psychology.
And, indeed, there is nothing very original in this book. Ms. Parish, a career counselor and motivational speaker, quotes or refers to Dr. Stephen Covey and Dr. Phil quite often, and she does not claim to be presenting new ideas.
What she does do is to present real, sound advice and techniques for anyone who is troubled by self-doubt, guilt, or lack of confidence. She not only says that changing the way you think will change your life, she provides scenarios to help the reader identify thinking that needs to be changed and positive ways to go about changing it.
The key concepts in this book are that we teach others how to treat us by the way we treat ourselves, and that positive thinking results in positive change.
While the book is written in a very easy to read and understandable style, Ms. Parish gives clear and concise explanations of concepts from Zen (Mushin, the art of not-thinking), B.F. Skinner (behavior reinforcement), Maslow (the heirarchy of needs), and Victor Vroom (expectancy theory.)
I particularly like the way this book is organized. Ms. Parish constantly reinforces her points using text blocks for Thoughts to Ponder, Reinforcement Moments, and Awareness Moments. The evaluation sections with spaces to write in your own responses entice the reader to stop and think before moving on. At the end of each chapter, she provides a summary which restates the main points of the chapter, making use of bulletted lists for key points.
While many years of experience have brought me to a point where I am happy with who I am, I would not hesitate to recommend this book to any person I know who is struggling with negativity or still trying to find the way to be their own best friend."
– I Just Finished.com ~ Reviewer: starmac

"This is a very refreshing and enlightening book. It delivers you a very sincere message which boosts your bio-energy making you feel more confident and courageous. It is very obvious that the knowledge of the book comes from a first hand, insightful life experience. When I first read the book I felt so comfortable, I felt like talking to a close friend. The sincerity of the tone of the author eliminates the boundaries between you and the book and makes you feel like you are engaged in a talk which you can only have with your best friend."
– Hediye Demet Akan, Turksat A.S., E-Government, Corporate Communications, Istanbul, Turkey

"This book gives useful information to those of us you beat ourselves up with our own self talk in our heads. The main principle of the book is that in life we do the best we can in each situation based on what we know at the time. We should learn from our mistakes and move on, not beat ourselves up over it. Also we should negotiate with people in our lives NOT just compromise our own needs. Also all things that exist in our lives should be there because we allow them, we should not have things, people, our circumstances in our lives that should not be there but we tolerate them instead of removing them. This is a nice book that expands into many interesting topics, most people interested in self improvement will learn from it and enjoy the information. Some may find it to basic if you are advanced in reading self help books, and been to seminars."
– Amazon Reviewer Steve Burns

"It is well known that the first step to success is almost always reaching a level of comfort with yourself. This leads to self-confidence, which projects to the world that you are competent and capable. Nothing will generate doubts in the minds of others regarding your abilities faster than when you project a sense of uncertainty. The purpose of this book is to help you establish a level of comfort with who you are. In that arena, it can help you succeed, but cannot guarantee that you will succeed. Generating good will with yourself can be a very difficult thing to acquire; some people just seem to have it naturally, often in spite of negative forces to the contrary. Others obtain it from parents and other significant caregivers, some acquire it later in life and a significant percentage of people never seem to reach that threshold. Clearly, this book is for those who could possibly acquire it later in life. There are several exercises that you can follow that will start you on the path towards the goal. However, they are only a start, the fire to succeed must be within you if you are to have any chance of being your own best friend. Therefore, if you are someone who does harbor the potential, this book will be valuable but if you are one that is easily cheered and even more easily discouraged, then at best reading it will provide a momentary high."
– Amazon Reviewer Charles Ashbacher