A groundbreaking workbook to help you develop healthy coping strategies, build a solid support network, and stay on the path to recovery. If you've been in therapy for an eating disorder, such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia, your past treatment may have focused on helping you control your emotions and contain your behaviors. However, research now shows that many people with eating disorders actually suffer from emotional overcontrol. Based on more than twenty years of research, this breakthrough workbook offers skills based in radically open dialectical behavior therapy (RO DBT), a proven-effective, transdiagnostic approach for treating disorders of overcontrol (OC). With this compassionate workbook, you'll learn how to move beyond the unhealthy coping strategies that keep you feeling isolated and lonely, find tips for building a solid support network and enriching social connections, and develop your own personalized plan for staying on the path to recovery. You'll also find assessments to help you determine the root cause of your OC disorder, exercises for increasing social engagement, and skills for improving social flexibility, trust, and intimacy. Having an eating disorder can make you feel like you're alone in the world. Even if you're in recovery, you may have days when feelings of isolation are too much, and you may feel tempted to fall back into unhealthy patterns of eating or restrictive eating. This workbook will help you build your own "treatment tribe," a group of people that help lift you up and support you as you find your way to a full recovery and a rich, meaningful life.

It's a commonly heard phrase: "Stop being so sensitive." These words can be frustrating to hear, and if you are an emotionally sensitive person, they often have the opposite of the desired effect. You cannot simply switch off your emotions like you would a TV show or a radio station playing an annoying song. But there "are" effective techniques that can help you manage these emotions before they take over your life. In "The Emotionally Sensitive Person," a psychologist provides proven-effective cognitive behavioral and mindfulness techniques to help people like you who struggle with intense emotions. In the book, you will learn powerful tools for staying in the present moment, identifying emotional triggers, developing a strong and healthy identity, and experiencing overwhelming or uncomfortable emotions without becoming upset. You'll also learn how to be more relaxed in your relationships, how your personal values can affect your thoughts and actions, and how to recognize negative thought patterns before you start acting on them. If you are tired of feeling hurt and helpless when it comes to your feelings, this book will provide you with evidence-based strategies for taking charge of your emotions--whether it's at home, at work, or in your relationships.

Validation is the recognition and acceptance that a person's feelings and thoughts are true and real for him or her, regardless of whether or not those feelings make logical sense. This seemingly simple concept can determine whether a child has self-esteem or not, whether a child will grow to become an independent adult or a dependent one, and whether a child will be able to process feelings in a healthy way or express his or her emotions by throwing tantrums and acting out. Children who are validated feel reassured that they will be accepted and loved regardless of their feelings, while children who are validated less frequently become more susceptible to peer pressure and are more likely to develop behavioral problems. The Power of Validation breaks validation skills into practical steps parents can use to respond to their child's internal experiences in healthy ways without necessarily condoning their child's behaviors. Readers learn to pay attention to their child, acknowledge the child's thoughts and feelings, and help their child through the process of developing an identity of his or her own. By validating difficult emotions, but disallowing negative actions children may take in response to these emotions, parents can help their kids develop essential self-validating skills for the future that will foster self-esteem and emotional intelligence in adulthood.