Great book
I've been trading for over a year with mixed success - wildly successful trades followed by crashing defeats and back again. This book helped me to finally understand why - inconsistency in my trading habits - and better yet, what to do about it. I recommend it for anyone, novice or expert, who wants to understand how the mind works and how our thoughts, beliefs and attitudes affect our success in trading and in life.

Trading in the Zone
A few times I thought about buying this book, but after reading the negative reviews I said I wouldn't buy it. I actually read alot of the reviews and wavered back and forth. Well I'm happy to say I bought and now have read this book and could not put it down. I have to say this book puts the whole trading process in a nutshell. I've taken expensive courses that still didn't help my trading ability. This book has successfully told me why and I now know what needs to be done. I recommend this book whole heartedly to any one who has traded and lost much money as it will and does explain why and what one needs to do to to change the whole losing process.

Well worth it
By the very fact that you are looking into this book you likely already know the critical elements to successful trading include (among others):

1. Defining and edge - technical / fundamental analysis - the fun stuff
2. Money management - define the amount you will spend to determine if your edge is working and if not cut your losses early
3. Record keeping - not just to help with taxes and to verify the broker's records, but to act as a journal to learn from your successes and failures to constantly improve your edge and state of mind
4. State of mind - what is so fully presented in Trading in the Zone

And of those elements listed above, it is easy to recognize that your state of mind is the one that is most often overlooked.

What I loved about this book is that it stayed true to its intent and did not stray off the subject. What I didn't like is that because of the depth that he goes into, I sometime found myself wondering if this is a book for traders or for psych students. But overall what I got from this book far outweighs any negative and I highly recommend it.

Hang in there for the later chapters
I found the first half of this book rather disappointing in the same way as I found The Disciplined Trader: Developing Winning Attitudes disappointing. Too many babbling chapters that boil down to a simple point like "don't fight the market". Too much dodgy pseudo-science about negatively- and positively-charged energy, and too much reliance on non-trading analogies.

The book really redeemed itself in the later chapters with its points about thinking purely in terms of probabilities, expecting the unexpected (see also The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable), and accepting that you are fallible (see Soros).

This book will not give you a concrete strategy for beating the markets, except possibly this one: Approach trading like you were operating a casino. Bias the dice slightly in your favour (through fundamental analysis, pattern-spotting, or whatever) and if you roll (trade) enough times then you will generate consistent profits. Accept that in the meantime any one trade can go against you. Relax, and don't fight the market!

Tony Loton, author --
Financial Trading Patterns
DON'T LOSE MONEY! (in the Stock Markets)

Good discussion of psychology of trading
Douglas discusses five fundamental "truths" of trading which tend to boil down to getting yourself to the point where you can believe anything might happen. The benefit of this is that you'll begin to think in probabilities rather than getting locked into a position that your trade is the right one or wrong one and letting your behavior be driven by the emotions that may accompany that mindset. He includes chapters on taking responsibility, the dynamics of perception, understanding the nature of beliefs and the impact of them on trading as well as working with your beliefs and obtaining self-discipline. Some of his writing is very basic psychology but just as there's a big difference in reading a diet book and actually eating in such a way as to lose weight day in and day out, there's a big difference in reading this while nodding in recognition and actually doing the work to integrate it into your trading. If you absorb and apply the insights and do the exercises he includes, your trading is bound to benefit. But that's because you're applying self analysis and self discipline and both are required for successful trading. I'm giving it four stars because I think it could have used additional editing--the first few chapters could have been trimmed into one.