- ISBN13: 9781572244993
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety: A Guide to Breaking Free from Anxiety, Phobias, and Worry Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Product Description
Anxiety happens. It’s not a choice. And attempts to “manage” your thoughts or “get rid” of worry, fear, and panic can leave you feeling frustrated and powerless. But you can take back your life from anxiety without controlling anxious thoughts and feelings. You can stop avoiding anxiety and start showing up to your life. This book will get you started, using a revolutionary new approach called acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT.
The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety has one purpose: to help you live better, more fully, more richly. Your life is calling on you to make that choice, and the skills in this workbook can help you make it happen. Find out how your mind can trap you, keeping you stuck and struggling in anxiety and fear. Learn to nurture your capacity for acceptance, mindfulness, kindness, and compassion. Use these qualities to shift your focus away from anxiety and onto what you really want your life to be about. As you do, your life will get bigger as your anxious suffering gets smaller. No matter what kind of anxiety problem you’re struggling with, this workbook can guide you toward a more vibrant and purposeful life.
“…Highly recommended for all those struggling with worry, anxiety, and fear.” – David H. Barlow, Ph.D., professor of psychology and psychiatry at Boston University and author of Anxiety and Its Disorders.
“…a “must-read” for anyone encountering anxiety as a barrier to a leading a fuller life.” – Zindel Segal, Ph.D., Morgan Firestone Chair in Psychotherpy at the University of Toronto and author of The Mindful Way Through Depression.
This workbook comes with a CD that includes a full-length audio guided meditation and electronic copies of the worksheets that appear inside the book.
The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety: A Guide to Breaking Free from Anxiety, Phobias, and Worry Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Let’s start with the printing error (page 6):
“Each audio exercise comes in female – and – male voice versions. Choose the version that works best for you”.
There is NO male version. And this is a problem because I find the female voice to lack authenticity. I contacted Harbinger about this and they claim it’s a printing error. A product that lacks a promised feature is worse than a printing error.
The material is solid enough. As a follower (client and professional) of psychodynamic psychotherapy, I’m open to alternative approaches to healing, and this workbook does provide practical approaches to human suffering as well as living a “life of quality”. However the constant “poo poo’ing” of past methods to control/soothe anxiety/worry/fears grows tiring. Worse, their grandiose claims that their workbook will provide “the answer” is a claim refuted by clinical practice.
In the end, all self-help books provide a kernel of truth towards “living well”. It’s a shame the CBT folks are exhibiting the same arrogance that psychoanalytic practitioners did 15-20 years ago. Alas, my clinical experience supports the notion that most folks benefit from practical tools (this workbook) AND insight (psychodynamic psychotherapy). To ignore one or the other is to practice an inferior therapy.
I recommend the book to anyone who eats to cope with stress, anxiety or fear. Great road map on how to take charge, lots of real life examples and exercises to get in touch with feelings. Other books suggest finding other activities to replacing eating as a way to cope with stress, anxiety or fear but as I found out they do not work long term. Once the avoiding activity is complete the mind is back to the food and the cycle continues. I have been trying unsuccessfully my whole adult life to cope with Stress, Anxiety and Fear by using food and exercise excessively. Thanks to the book I can accept my Stress, Anxiety and Fear without avoiding them through food or exercise. Avoidance never works because the root cause is not going away. The book gave me the tools to observe my feelings in a totally different way and realize that thoughts/feelings are always coming and going and by exercising some patience and reasonable logic I can accept all my feelings. With the road map I now have the confidence knowing that the feeling will pass so I continue with the activity I was doing before the feeling started, and before I know it the urge to avoid never comes up thus, there is no desire to seek food as a way to avoid.
This is one of the best and most comprehensive books I’ve ever read on anxiety and panic disorders – and I’ve read a lot of books on the subject. It stresses learning to live WITH your anxiety instead of pushing it away, which never works. The CD is also excellent and very helpful. What it does NOT offer is a quick-fix, empty promises or gimicks. So if you’re ready to take a different approach to your anxiety, I highly recommend this book. It would definitely be a welcome addition to those who study or are interested in Buddhism, meditation or mindfulness. Excellent!
If you ever have gone to a therapist for anxiety, fear or worries you know that they will tell you to change your thinking to stop your anxiety. Soon you realized that you are weak because you can’t change your thoughts. When you try to change the thoughts you think them. You are trying to change “this” thought and there you go, you have gone and thought it. So after a period of time you shrink away from therapy convinced you are too weak minded to save yourself. You feel you are doomed and embarrassed because of your self perceived weakness. Fact’s are that no one can change their reactive thoughts to fear, worry or anxiety and trying to do so is the destructive element…it makes it worse. This book teaches you the only way to overcome your phobias, worries, anxieties and fears (period). It is an important work and a big gift to anyone harnessed with anxiety.
This is the only work book I’ve ever read from cover to cover. Like another reveiwer said the authors seem entrenched into this subject matter and have an understanding of how anxiety can control the lives of many people. The book can be reptitive at times yet in my opinion it was beneficial to do so. This is a self-help book that actually contains substance. Right now all I’ve done is read the book from cover to cover without implementing the exercises. I’m going to reread it and implement the exercises. However I still picked up some practical suggestions from just reading the book. Kudos to the authors, this is defnitely a self-hep packed with understanding and compassion for the readers that are suffering from anxiety. You can tell from reading that the authors took their time and put a lot of effort into producing this laudable work.