What do you think: who is the best trading psychology coach? Which psychology books should a trader read in order to become a better trader?
Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas. And it isn’t even close.
2 Likes
brett steenbarger (psychology professor and trader, and trading coach) and van tharp (famous trading author) are the two top ones, i don’t know which you will like best
the three that help me
The Daily Trading Coach: 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist (brett steenbarger)
A Trader’s Guide to Self-Discipline: Proven Techniques to Improve Trading Profits (brett steenbarger)
Trading Beyond the Matrix: The Red Pill for Traders and Investors (van tharp)
mark douglas, trading in the zone, not helpful for me. he make the same little points again and again and again and again until it’s boring, if you take away the repetition the whole book is only really 10 pages, also he is a badly failed trader and he even says it himself, so i don’t trust his view of the markets at all
2 Likes
Dr. Alexander Elder, Board certified Psychologist, DR, and Trader,
Trading For A Living, and everything else he has written. One of his motto’s is “Do not trade if you have unresolved emotional issues”. See "The Kid’ In the Viper Couch area.
The Ever Reading Dr Elders Stuff VIPER
1 Like
Hahaha…I just started reading it…I’m not sure if I should continue 
If you have a copy already, continue by all means and see which side of The Great Divide you’re on?
I’m with Piperazine, in thinking the book’s over-inflated rubbish that could and should have been compressed into about 8 pages, but I’m sure that’s a minority view.
It’s pretty safe to recommend anything by Dr. Brett Steenbarger, though - he’s excellent both as a psychologist and as a trader.
1 Like
I think trading psychology is a difficult thing to coach or pick up from a book.
Imo, the best way to improve trading pschology is the gradual increase of confidence in yourself as a trader, your system and hopefully the positive net outcome of your method that comes with experience over time.
A positive trading psychology is developed, not coached or learned.
2 Likes
I know. Every job requires practice and experience. But I am looking for some ideas and techniques that will help me fight stress and fear of loosing…
I’m not a person who must look at the charts whole day, and I’m not actually affraid of losing because I am aware that trading is a kind of business where you must lose in order to win. But I trade with small amounts and I think my psychology will change as I start trading with larger capital.
Still, it’s good to have some pointers from more experienced traders who have gone through the same struggle rather than bumble around in the dark on one’s own.
2 Likes
Why bother searching for books if this site itself has a blog dedicated to the subject. You could ask questions there as well should you need to. Here’s the link: Forex Trading Psychology - BabyPips.com
What’s important in trading psychology IMO is actually what’s beneath our conscious mind, i.e. our personalities, attitudes, mindsets, etc.; all in the endless ocean of our subconscious minds.
However, what you’ll find is that most trading psychology writers writing about problems and solutions that your conscious minds should be able to solve. The ones that are logical and systematic. What’s rarely being addressed is our subconscious minds. Why? I don’t know and won’t dare to speculate. You have to ask them to know their excuses on that.
As you may know, the subconscious minds are the ones who actually in charge when it comes to us making decisions and expressing our emotions. The conscious minds only give reasonings and justifications on the why we do them. So, it’s crucial for us traders to know the subject and to know how to deal with them when they give us mental blocks.
So, my point is you may want to look beyond trading psychology books and articles should you need to overcome certain mental challenges. As the root causes may not be related to trading at all. It may come from your past emotional scars that you had buried a long time ago, but now it resurfaces again. Or, it may come from certain mind programming that your family and educators imposed on you creating incompatible mindsets about life, money, business, etc to what a trader should have. Or other reasons whatever they may be. In any case, you need to pin point them and gradually change them.
Cheers
1 Like
I think thats a valid point
1 Like
I agree with you! This is very good one! I have read all of 240 pages so determinedly; learned a lot by reading this Book!
I agree with Charlie’s opinion of Trading In The Zone (“over-inflated rubbish that could and should have been compressed into about 8 pages”).
I agree with the first two of these, both of which are interesting and well written and helped me.
In complete contrast to Mark Douglas, Dr. Brett Steenbarger is himself a successful trader, and it shows.
One has to decide whether one wants to get one’s input on this subject from a successful trader or a failed one.
It certainly applied to my experience back when I was a newbie. I did bumble around in the dark quite a bit, it was not a pleasant experience at all.
1 Like
Not very difficult to decide?
This is why it’s a shame people are recommending Mark Douglas, here, when (unsurprisingly) there’s so much better material available. 
Beyond Candle Sticks By Steve Nison i heard about it here on Babypips and its very good, when i first started i actually made profits while i was about half way through the book and i did that without actually doing fundamental or sentiment analysis just technical, it really taught me a lot about candle stick charting and it helped me a lot because im kinda lazy when it comes to fundamental and sentiment analysis
1 Like
Most of you guys told me that Mark Douglas is actually a waste of time…and I must agree. I read over 50% of “Trading in the Zone” and I realized that I learned absolutely nothing that I didn’t know already. The book is just a whole bunch of theory that repeats from one page to the next one. It’s quite a boring book. I can’t say that it has nothing to do with the truth, but you could easily take all the information from the book and put it on a 10-page article. Not worth the time and money!
And, as someone already mentioned, Mark is not a successful trader himself (he admits that inside the book), so I think it would be much better to read books from someone who achieved success in this business. I will order some book from Steenbarger or Van Tharp and check if there is some good points.
I can relate to that. Being a new trader and just trying to grasp the basics is an uphill battle in itself.
My logic is that pschology is about mental habbits, and habbits come with consistent repetition.
You are correct however that guidance from experienced traders who have been there before is of great value to newbies.
Thank you for your feedback and happy trading to you.
1 Like
You’re welcome. I know exactly what you mean.
Also, I got scammed a few times as a newbie, because I didn’t know how to pick a trustworthy broker at the time. That just made my anxiety going forward even worse.