Psychologist and trader Denise Shull of The Rethink Group has worked with many traders, including large institutional types. She also authored Market Mind Games which is an interesting read.
One of the points Denise Shull emphasizes is that emotions are data. If you learn to use them as such, they can reveal your patterns and tendencies. To take this to another level, you can use other traders (and how they are thinking / feeling) as data -- because sometimes it's easier to recognize patterns in others -- and once you figure out their patterns -- and when they are right / wrong, you can use that to guide your own trading.
you're right, lack of edge can could be the main reason you tend to believe things are wrong with psychology aspect of you as a trader taking foot off the gas and tracing back your losses could be a lot more beneficial
Check Quantpedia’s list of Books; there are various books aimed for complete beginners to pro programmers.
Have you read Sway:The Irresistible pull of Irrational Behaviour? The book talks about the obvious problems the traders face and how it affects the ability of decision making. Give it a shot, you'll like it.
%% DR Van Tharp is one of the best. He gave a great example in the Jack Schwager /Top Traders books. Even if all the details are not right, most are. The#1 winner of the 100 or 1000 round shooting match, went thru all the 100 or 1,000 shots dry firing, as preparation. Actually, i like to shoot, but not 1,000 times/rounds of preparation. LOL [#2] winner did prep, but not 1,000 rounds of dry fire preparation. Ed ''long term trend'' Seykota warned Jack Schwager, ''pride is a great banana peel'' Same coin, but IBD founder corrected the sloth miss == ''New traders want to much with to little work''