Susan Jeffers - Telegraph After her divorce she took the children, but six months later, while they were away at summer camp, she called her ex-husband and said: "You know, hon, I think I'm leaving the house today and everything in it is yours, including the children." Her divorce had been, she said, "one of the most empowering experiences of my life because I pushed through the pain and found my own independence." Thus, while many self-help books are about the search for love, Feel the Fear was about dealing with the fear of being without it: "I used to be a very frightened and needy woman; now that has changed," she explained. Really it all comes down to a very simple question: how do you want to be in this world - happy or unhappy? I wanted to be happy, so I learnt how. In 2001 Susan Jeffers wrote I'm Okay, You're a Brat!: Setting the Priorities Straight and Freeing You from the Guilt and Mad Myths of Parenthood, in which she claimed that the number one "Mad Myth" was that normal people find the experience of parenthood even remotely enjoyable. Children, she maintained, rob adults of many of the things that make their lives worth living: time, freedom, money, sleep, mobility, privacy, career opportunities, self-esteem, sex life, sanity, friendships, fun and personal space - to name a few. Even though the book was written after her son, as an adult, approached her to say that he and his wife were thinking of having children (perhaps unsurprisingly they decided against), some wondered how the book, and her earlier abandonment of them, had affected her children. One interviewer concluded that perhaps " being happy actually involves a certain amount of ruthlessness." Susan Jeffers was born Susan Gildenberg at Hazleton, Pennsylvania, on March 3 1938 into a middle-class Jewish family, the daughter of a pharmacist and a stay-at-home mother. She once explained that she later became interested in what constitutes a happy life because her parents "did not understand the secret of a life really well lived. My father used to say to me: 'Susan, life is just a mass of boredom interspersed with a few expansive moments. In many ways my parents were the models of what I really didn't want to be. She went up to Penn State University, but dropped out to marry her first husband. In her mid-20s the family moved to Manhattan, where she took degrees, followed by a doctorate, at Hunter College and at Columbia University. In 1971 her marriage ended and she became executive director at New York's Floating Hospital, an educational and medical establishment which serves the poorest people in the city and where she remained for 10 years. While there she met the British film producer Mark Shelmerdine. Just as she was about to leave her job and concentrate on writing, they married, enjoying, in her words, a "glorious" relationship. At first Susan Jeffers had trouble finding a publisher for Face the Fear. One rejection letter observed that "Lady Di could be bicycling nude down the street giving this book away and nobody would read it." But when the book was published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich it soon became a bestseller. Susan Jeffers continued to add to the burgeoning volume of self help literature (other titles include Feel the Fear... and Beyond; Embracing Uncertainty; The Little Book of Confidence; End the Struggle and Dance With Life; Life is Huge!; Dare To Connect; Opening Our Hearts To Men; and The Feel the Fear Guide to Lasting Love). She became a regular guest on Oprah and was in constant demand to conduct "fear busting" workshops and seminars around the world. Her husband and children survive her. Susan Jeffers, born March 3 1938, died October 27 2012