Synopses & Reviews
You don't need a book to tell you this much: Sometimes things fall apart, crack open, and miss the mark. You can plan and strategize and keep your eye on the horizon, watching for trouble. And nothing you can do will protect you from the fact that things might, when you least expect it, go terribly, horribly wrong. If you're anxious about this, it's not like you don't have a reason. If you're very anxious about this, you're certainly not alone. In fact, even if your whole life feels like it's about anxiety, your story is a lot more common that you might imagine.
If you could just get your anxiety to go away, you could get on with the business of living your life, right? Well, maybe — or maybe not. Does anxiety need to go away in order for you to live your life fully, vitally, with richness and purpose?
This book approaches the problem of anxiety a little differently than most. Instead of trying to help you overcome or reduce feelings of anxiety, Things Might Go Terribly, Horribly Wrong will help you climb inside these feelings, sit in that place, and see what it would be like to have anxiety and still make room in your life to breathe and rest and live — really and truly live — in a way that matters to you.
Although it's grounded in a research-supported form of psychotherapy called acceptance and commitment therapy, also known as ACT, Things isn't especially technical or stepwise. Rather, the book starts a conversation about why we all sometimes feel anxious and what role that anxiety serves in our lives. It connects the experience of anxiety to the essential experience of human suffering. And then, in sometimes unexpected ways, Things explores some basic ways of being in the world that can change the role anxiety plays in your life.
This book has been awarded The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Self-Help Seal of Merit — an award bestowed on outstanding self-help books that are consistent with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles and that incorporate scientifically tested strategies for overcoming mental health difficulties. Used alone or in conjunction with therapy, our books offer powerful tools readers can use to jump-start changes in their lives.
Synopsis
Whether it manifests itself as worry, fear, rumination, obsession, compulsion, or shyness, anxiety is everywhere, and it causes no end of trouble for just about all of us. But at its core, anxiety serves an important purpose: to neutralize uncomfortable ambiguities. This book begins with a whirlwind tour of anxiety: what causes it, what we think about it, and what it might look like. Then the book looks at some of the approaches to treating anxiety and poses an intriguing question: What if you don't need to get rid of anxiety in order to live a terrific life?
Things Might Go Terribly, Horribly Wrong approaches this breakaway hypothesis through the mechanisms of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and presents a series of thinking points and short games readers can do to easily and effectively begin to incorporate ACT techniques into their lives. This book is not a full-scale self-help approach for someone with serious anxiety problems, but an easy way for readers who have wrestled with worry, fear, and shyness to put those feelings into perspective and focus instead on what they want to do in life. This book will help readers foster the flexibility they need to keep from succumbing to the avoidant forces of anxiety and open themselves to the often uncomfortable complexities and possibilities of life.
Synopsis
Wilson and Dufrene help readers foster the flexibility they need to keep from succumbing to the avoidable forces of anxiety, and open themselves to the often uncomfortable complexities and possibilities of life.
Synopsis
In Things Might Go Terribly, Horribly Wrong, Kelly Wilson and Troy DuFrene, authors of Mindfulness for Two, offer an effective approach based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to coping with the worry, panic, and fear associated with anxiety disorders. This comprehensive book is packed with in-the-moment strategies readers with anxiety can use to calm their fears.
Synopsis
Are you truly in danger or has your brain simply "tricked" you into thinking you are? In The Worry Trick, psychologist and anxiety expert David Carbonell shows how anxiety hijacks the brain, and offers effective techniques based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to help readers break the cycle of worryonce and for all. Anxiety can often play subtle tricks to convince us of something that is not true. This book helps readers understand this so they can observe anxious feelings with distance and clarity.
Synopsis
Are you truly in danger or has your brain simply "tricked" you into thinking you are? In The Worry Trick, psychologist and anxiety expert David Carbonell shows how anxiety hijacks the brain and offers effective techniques to help you break the cycle of worry, once and for all.
Anxiety is a powerful force. It makes us question ourselves and our decisions, causes us to worry about the future, and fills our days with dread and emotional turbulence. Based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), this book is designed to help you break the cycle of worry.
Worry convinces us there's danger, and then tricks us into getting into fight, flight, or freeze mode—even when there is no danger. The techniques in this book, rather than encouraging you to avoid or try to resist anxiety, shows you how to see the trick that underlies your anxious thoughts, and how avoidance can backfire and make anxiety worse.
If you’re ready to start observing your anxious feelings with distance and clarity—rather than getting tricked once again—this book will show you how.
Synopsis
Want to be miserable? It isn’t as difficult as it sounds, and chances are, you’re already doing it! Studies show that repeating specific behaviors can actually increase feelings of dissatisfaction, foster a lack of motivation, and detract from your quality of life. In How to Be Miserable, psychologist Randy Paterson outlines 40 specific behaviors and habits, which—if followed—are sure to lead to a lifetime of unhappiness. On the other hand, if you do the opposite, you may yet join the ranks of happy people everywhere.
Synopsis
In How to Be Miserable, psychologist Randy Paterson outlines 40 specific behaviors and habits, which—if followed—are sure to lead to a lifetime of unhappiness. On the other hand, if you do the opposite, you may yet join the ranks of happy people everywhere!
There are stacks upon stacks of self-help books that will promise you love, happiness, and a fabulous life. But how can you pinpoint the exact behaviors that cause you to be miserable in the first place? Sometimes when we’re depressed, or just sad or unhappy, our instincts tell us to do the opposite of what we should—such as focusing on the negative, dwelling on what we can’t change, isolating ourselves from friends and loved ones, eating junk food, or overindulging in alcohol. Sound familiar?
This tongue-in-cheek guide will help you identify the behaviors that make you unhappy and discover how you—and only you—are holding yourself back from a life of contentment. You’ll learn to spot the tried-and-true traps that increase feelings of dissatisfaction, foster a lack of motivation, and detract from our quality of life—as well as ways to avoid them.
So, get ready to live the life you want (or not?) This fun, irreverent guide will light the way.
About the Author
Randy J. Paterson, PhD, is director of Changeways Clinic, a private psychotherapy practice in Vancouver, BC, Canada. He is author of The Assertiveness Workbook and Your Depression Map, and he conducts training programs for professionals on evidence-based treatment. Through Changeways Clinic, Paterson presents lectures and workshops internationally on topics including mental health policy, cognitive behavioral therapy, the nature and treatment of depression and anxiety disorders, and strategies for private practice management. He is the 2008 recipient of the Canadian Psychological Association's Distinguished Practitioner Award. For more information on Paterson, his presentations and workshops, or Changeways Clinic, visit www.changeways.com. To view Paterson's blog on psychological and practice issues, please visit www.psychologysalon.com.
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