Your heart deserves the best protection possible, but you can't lock it away for safekeeping. You must keep your heart in touch with the world: giving and receiving love and reaching out to embrace the people, activities, and causes that create a deeply rewarding life. In this truly transformative book, Marilyn Kagan, LCSW, and Neil Einbund, Ph.D., well-known therapists in the Los Angeles area, help you discover the common defense mechanisms we all use to guard our hearts against being hurt. Over time, these mechanisms, which the authors have coined "defenders of the heart," can become habitual and overly entrenched. In one way or another, they are at the base of nearly all of our bouts with dissatisfaction. " Defenders of the Heart" delivers a strong basic understanding of these 10 strategies, shows how to recognize which ones are sabotaging your life, and offers a comprehensive tool set to break free of their life-limiting powers. If you want to change your life yet are too guarded to see the very obvious paths that are open before you, this book will guide you toward the glorious, awe-inspiring, and utterly fulfilled existence you're striving for