Self-Coaching: How to Heal Anxiety and Depression

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 272 pages
• Published by: Wiley
• Edition: 1st Edition April 12, 2001
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0471387371
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0471387374
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 11.4 ounces

From Library Journal
Cognitive behavioral therapy is based on the idea that our thoughts and our interpretations of events greatly influence our moods. Therapists teach clients to listen to their negative internal dialogs and to use less depressive "self-talk." Clients may also be given "homework" in the form of relaxation exercises for anxiety or gradual acclimatization to frightening situations. The emphasis is on changing thoughts and actions, not on understanding their origins. Getting Your Life Back and Self-Coaching are both based on this approach. The latter, by clinical psychologist Luciani, advises readers to identify themselves as specific personality types (e.g., "Worrywarts," "Hedgehogs," "Perfectionists") and then gives specific instructions on how to change these thought patterns. The title by Wright and Basco, a psychiatrist/educator and a clinical psychologist/researcher, respectively, looks at various psychological areas (e.g., thinking, action, biology, relationships, and spirituality) and invites readers to work on these areas in any order with valuable, morale-boosting checklists and examples. Getting Your Life Back is the better of the two because it discusses antidepressants and because the authors' instructions and exercises are much more thorough.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The prevailing therapeutic value of trying to change cognitive thought processes in order to ward off depression and anxiety is not new. However, the approach in this book puts the primary responsibility for making the change on the sufferer of either condition. For those who are uncomfortable with the thought of entering therapy or using medication, the self-coaching work here may be just the ticket to greater freedom from depression and anxiety. (There are a few useful self-tests.) As an alternative to traditional psychiatric options, the self-coaching and "self-talk" prescribed in the book may work to talk oneself out of temporary mild or moderate depression. Sufferers of major clinical depression might want to combine the approach here with therapy or medication. A viable option for the self-help section of library collections. Marlene Chamberlain
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Reader Reviews
This book is fantastic, not just for anxiety and depression, but for issues of self-esteem, shyness, excessive introversion, anger, perfectionism, etc. I am exploring all these things in therapy and with medication, but felt that there was something more, some common thread, common cause...and the author has found it. This book really helps you get to the root problem that all these have in common. Deep-seated insecurity and lack of trust in oneself to handle what life throws at you. Hard to admit, but it is the beginning of healing. The author shows how this insecurity (what he calls the Insecure Child), tries to maintain control of oneself and the outside world through immature coping strategies learned in, and repeated since childhood. If you are a self-help junkie like me who has read countless books, but the result has only been "understanding" your issues better, but never overcoming them, I urge you to give these techniques a try. At first read, they seem too simplistic, to simple, but in simple things there is power. Give it a try! What have you got to lose, except the misery you're living in? Comment | | (Report this)