A clear and effective approach to learning evidence-based DBT skills-now in a fully revised and updated second edition. Do you have trouble managing your emotions? First developed by Marsha M. Linehan for treating borderline personality disorder, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) has proven effective as treatment for a range of other mental health problems, and can greatly improve your ability to handle distress without losing control and acting destructively. However, to make use of these techniques, you need to build skills in four key areas: distress tolerance, mindfulness, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, a collaborative effort from three esteemed authors, offers evidence-based, step-by-step exercises for learning these concepts and putting them to work for real and lasting change. Start by working on the introductory exercises and, after making progress, move on to the advanced-skills chapters. Whether you're a mental health professional or a general reader, you'll benefit from this clear and practical guide to better managing your emotions. This fully revised and updated second edition also includes new chapters on cognitive rehearsal, distress tolerance, and self-compassion. Once you've completed the exercises in this book and are ready to move on to the next level, check out the authors' new book, The New Happiness Workbook. 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.

By a distinguished team of authors, this workbook offers readers unprecedented access to the core skills of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), formerly available only through complicated professional books and a small handful of topical workbooks. These straightforward, step-by-step exercises will bring DBT core skills to thousands who need it.

No matter how #blessed you are, sometimes life can feel downright overwhelming. Whether it's a breakup or divorce, the loss of a job, or even a global pandemic, you may need a little extra help managing the difficult emotions that can arise when things are not going so great. Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) is a proven-effective and evidence-based treatment that can help you find balance and improve your ability to handle adversity without losing control and acting destructively. This potent and portable guide focuses on one of the core skills of DBT: distress tolerance. With this book, you'll learn that you are strong enough to weather life's storms. You can handle whatever stress or setback life throws your way. And you can face your own difficult thoughts and feelings head on-without avoidance, anger, or despair. Life happens. But you don't have to get pulled under. With Distress Tolerance Made Easy, you'll learn tons of tips and tricks to help you keep your cool-even when those emotional triggers strike. Why not keep a copy on your nightstand, in your glove box, or on your work desk? You never know when you'll need it!

How to continue to love in the face of pain and loss * Shows how the certainty of change and loss can support rather than diminish love * Shares practices and meditations to help love endure in the face of loss, disappointment, change, or any of the ways relationships and circumstances are altered by time * Explores how to cultivate gratitude for every expression of love we encounter, strengthen compassion for others, and recognize the power of love after life Collaborating with his late son, Jordan, psychologist Matthew McKay offers five ways to keep love alive in a world of impermanence. He explores how to see and know what we love, how to actively care for what we love, how to have compassion for the suffering of others, how to set the daily intention to act with love, and how to turn toward rather than away from the pain of impermanence. McKay shares practices and meditations to help love endure in the face of loss, disappointment, change, or any of the ways relationships and circumstances are altered by time. He examines what love is and is not, including how not to mistake yearning and neediness for love, sex for love, and attraction to beauty for love. He shows how to cultivate gratitude for every expression of love we encounter, learn to care for things we don't like, and recognize the power of love after life--a love that reaches beyond death. He also provides concrete exercises for communicating with and channeling messages from loved ones who have crossed over. Ultimately, McKay shows that, by running from pain, we run from love. By avoiding pain, we lose the pathway to connection. Yet, by recognizing love in the heart of pain and loss, by knowing that change and impermanence are inevitable, we can navigate life with a compass pointing to love as true north, learning to love more deeply and making what we love more cherished.

Conquer your self-defeating beliefs and create a more fulfilling life! Do you feel like you're broken? Are you depressed because you believe that you're somehow defective, unwanted, or inferior? Do you feel self-conscious and insecure, constantly comparing yourself to others? Are you sensitive to criticism, or terrified of rejection? Feeling flawed and inadequate often stems from negative childhood experiences. If you grew up in a highly critical environment, you might feel unworthy of being loved, or have a deep sense of shame about your perceived defects. You may tell yourself there is something inherently wrong with you that prevents you from forming satisfying relationships, finding happiness, and succeeding in life. So, how can free yourself from the self-defeating beliefs that keep you trapped in the depths of depression? Grounded in evidence-based acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), this workbook will give you the tools to identify and dismiss your core beliefs of personal defectiveness, and build a life based on positive choices and values that bring vitality and a sense of personal fulfillment. You'll discover ways to develop psychological flexibility, freeing yourself from old habits and unhealthy coping mechanisms, and alleviating symptoms of depression. Finally, you'll learn to see yourself in all your wonderful complexity, with kindness and compassion. The truth is you are not broken, and painful memories of the past do not have to dictate your future. If you're ready to heal and treat yourself to the care and compassion you deserve, this book will show you how.

From balancing work and relationships to navigating financial challenges and health issues-in our hectic and busy lives, stress is simply unavoidable. Fortunately, there are proven-effective techniques you can use every day to combat the negative effects of stress and integrate healthy relaxation habits into your life. The powerful yet simple writing practices in this guided journal can help you get started today. In The Stress Relief Guided Journal, you'll explore your own stress response and triggers, and create a personalized action plan for stress reduction. Grounded in evidence-based acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), the prompts in this journal integrate a variety of stress-relieving methods you can implement in your life when stress becomes overwhelming-including progressive relaxation, self-hypnosis, visualization, and mindfulness. If you're looking to find a place of calm and respite in the midst of our busy world, this journal can be that place. Just write, explore, and make it yours. Written by renowned mental health and wellness experts, New Harbinger's Journals for Change combine evidence-based psychology with proven-effective guided journaling techniques to help you make lasting personal change-one page at a time.

A channeled guide to the life-death transition experience and how to prepare for the wonders of the afterlife * Reveals the afterlife as a fluid realm of imagination and invention, a luminous landscape created entirely of consciousness * Explains how to navigate the early stages of the afterlife, how we learn and grow in the spirit world, and how to release anxiety about the end of life * Includes exercises and meditations to prepare you for navigating and communicating in spirit There is no better source of information on death and the afterlife than someone who has died and lives in spirit. Channeling his late son, Jordan, psychologist Matthew McKay offers a postdeath guide for the living, revealing in vivid detail what to expect when we die and how to prepare for the wonders of the afterlife. Specifically describing the transition experience and the early stages of the afterlife, including how to navigate each stage, Jordan shows how death is a fluid realm of imagination and invention, a luminous landscape created entirely of consciousness. He explains how a soul that has newly crossed over is an amnesiac, arriving without senses, a nervous system, and all that has anchored us to the world. Jordan details how to navigate without a body, how we learn and grow in the spirit world, and how to release anxiety about the end of life and instead view it as another stage of being. He shows that the inferno described by Dante is an optional nightmare caused by thought projections that overwhelm the newly transitioned soul, and he reveals that the bardos are where souls who are beset with fear and false beliefs spend time learning and recovering. Providing profound relief from the fear of death, as well as exercises to prepare you for navigating and communicating in spirit, Jordan's message reveals how love is the bonding element that holds all of consciousness--and the afterlife--together. McKay also documents the unbreakable bond between the living and the dead and teaches the skill of channeling, allowing you to connect to loved ones who have passed.

Powerful and customizable tools grounded in process-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you heal emotional pain and live a vital, values-based life Do you struggle with overwhelming emotions, such as anger, anxiety, sadness, shame, or self-blame? Emotions--even intensely distressing ones--are a natural part of life. But if your emotions are so intense that they're hurting your relationships or getting in the way of your happiness, it's time for a change. Written by a team of mental health experts, Healing Emotional Pain Workbook is a step-by-step guide to understanding your emotions and enhancing your overall well-being. Rather than a one-size-fits-all treatment, this workbook takes a tailored approach to help you treat the root cause of your emotional pain--whether it's avoidance, internalization, or rumination. As a result, you'll create a personalized plan to help you overcome intense emotions and live the life you want. With this workbook, you'll learn to: Stop avoiding and start showing up to your life Replace self-blame with self-compassion Make decisions based on your values, not your emotions Break free from repetitive negative thinking Increase psychological flexibility Accept your thoughts and emotions--rather than trying to outrun them! When our emotions spiral out of control, they can result in chronic mental suffering. This workbook can help you change the way you react to emotions, before they negatively impact your life.

You are stronger than your anxiety! That's the message best-selling authors Matthew McKay, Michelle Skeen, and Patrick Fanning tell readers in this evidence-based guide for moving past anxiety. Based in proven-effective cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), this practical workbook offers a breakthrough exposure-based approach to help readers understand and overcome fears and worries-rather than avoid them.

Love takes work, but, when it comes to relationships, it pays to work smarter. This book, a revised and updated edition of a therapist-recommended classic, shows you how to work smarter in your relationship. This book helps you improve communication, cope better with problems, and resolve conflicts in healthy and creative ways. Each chapter teaches an essential skill, based on cognitive behavioral therapy, which can lead to greater happiness and deeper intimacy. New in this edition is a chapter on using acceptance skills, developed from the revolutionary new acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which help you learn to accept your partner without judgment and structure your relationship based on a consciously chosen set of core values.

Since its publication in 1987, Self-Esteem by Matthew McKay and Patrick Fanning has set the standard for self-help books that seek to improve self-esteem. With more than 600,000 copies sold through its three editions, Self-Esteem has helped hundreds of thousands of readers learn to think more positively about themselves, bringing them greater happiness, success, and peace of mind. But Self-Esteem is more than just one book. The Self-Esteem Companion, published in 1999, distilled the best techniques of the original book into sixty simple exercises that readers could learn and use when and wherever they went. Now, the people who brought you Self-Esteem and The Self-Esteem Companion have once again adapted the inspiring techniques from the original book into a new and exciting project. This book uses a technique known as guided journaling to help readers teach themselves to vocalize their feelings, conquer self-doubt, discover their strengths-and generally change the way they think and feel about themselves for the better. The Self-Esteem Guided Journal offers you a ten-week program of writing exercises that will help you shift your focus from the things wrong with your life to the things that are right. The book begins with a week of journaling about non-judgment-regarding everything from people in the news to your own behavior. Weeks two and three guide you to discover your strengths and redefine your weaknesses. The exercises in weeks five and six help you review your past to see how formative events have affected your self-esteem. Week seven focuses on the impact of thoughts, while week eight works to help you learn how to hold to your own truths and stand up for yourself. In week nine, you'll directly explore your experiences with your own self-esteem Achilles heel, and finally, week ten helps you create daily opportunities to experience your personal worth and serves as a launching pad for future journaling activities.

Self-esteem is essential for psychological survival. It is an emotional sine qua non - without some measure of self-worth, life can be enormously painful, with many basic needs going unmet. One of the main factors differentiating humans from other animals is the awareness of self: the ability to form an identity and then attach a value to it. In other words, you have the capacity to define who you are and then decide if you like that identity or not. The problem of self-esteem is this human capacity for judgment. It's one thing to dislike certain colors, noises, shapes, or sensations. But when you reject parts of yourself, you greatly damage the psychological structures that literally keep you alive. Judging and rejecting yourself causes enormous pain. And in the same way that you would favor and protect a physical wound, you find yourself avoiding anything that might aggravate the pain of self-rejection in any way. You take fewer social, academic, or career risks. You make it more difficult for yourself to meet people, interview for a job, or push hard for something where you might not succeed. You limit your ability to open yourself with others, express your sexuality, be the center of attention, hear criticism, ask for help, or solve problems. This book is about stopping the judgments. It's about healing the old wounds of hurt and self-rejection. How you perceive and feel about yourself can change. And when those perceptions and feelings change, the ripple effect will touch every part of your life with a gradually expanding sense of freedom.

The comprehensive workbook for radically transforming your life—now in a fully revised and updated 40th anniversary edition!If you are depressed, anxious, angry, worried, confused, frustrated, upset, or ashamed, please remember that you are not alone in your struggle with painful feelings and experiences. Everybody experiences emotional distress sometimes. It’s normal. But when the pain becomes too strong and too enduring, it’s time to take that important first step toward feeling better.This fully revised and updated fifth edition of Thoughts and Feelings outlines twenty evidence-based techniques you can mix and match to create your own personal treatment plan for overcoming a range of mental health concerns—including worry, panic attacks, depression, low self-esteem, anger, and emotional and behavioral challenges of any kind. Customize your plan to address multiple concerns at once, or troubleshoot the thoughts and feelings that bother you most.Used and recommended by the most renowned and respected therapists, this comprehensive mental health workbook offers all of the best psychological tools for quickly regaining mastery over your moods and emotions. It has already helped thousands of readers: ·Challenge self-sabotaging patterns of thinking ·Practice relaxation techniques to maintain self-control in stressful situations ·Change the core beliefs that drive painful emotions ·Identify and prioritize values for a more focused, fulfilling life Using proven-effective methods based in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness, habit reversal, self-compassion, and more, this book will help you balance your emotions and start feeling better—about yourself, and about the world around you. It’s time, finally, to feel fully alive.

Parental anger is a real problem for children and parents. Children may react by being less caring and concerned for others, less accepting of themselves. They are more likely to develop problems at school, in relationships, with drugs, and the law. This book helps parents who know they are angry too often to identify the trigger points that lead to anger, and to see these points as mistaken beliefs about their children's behaviour, temperament, needs and development. It gives parents a realistic understanding of why their children act the way they do, and dissipate their anger as a result. By changing trigger-happy thoughts into problem-solving discussions, this is a book that can really change parenting for better for both the parents and the children.

You are stronger than your anxiety! In this important workbook, best-selling authors Matthew McKay, Patrick Fanning, and Michelle Skeen offer a breakthrough anxiety solution based in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you understand and overcome your fears and worries, rather than try to avoid them. If you suffer from an anxiety disorder, you may try to avoid situations that cause you to feel worry, fear, or panic. You may even believe that terrible things will happen to you if you face the things that make you anxious. But avoidance isn't a long-term solution, and in the end it may result in more anxiety. This book shows you how the simple belief that you can endure your worries and fears-both mentally and physically-can be an extremely powerful treatment. Using a breakthrough approach combining proven-effective CBT and exposure therapy, this workbook helps you understand how worry and rumination drive anxiety, and offers practical exercises to help you adopt new habits of observing your thoughts, rather than accepting them as the "ultimate truth." You'll also develop mindfulness and self-soothing coping skills to help you manage anxiety in the moment, rather than avoid it. Over time these practices will show you that you are more powerful than your anxiety. If you've been stuck in a cycle of anxiety and avoidance, this workbook will help you make the changes you need to get your life back.

Many people assume that good communicators possess an intrinsic talent for speaking and listening to others, a gift that can't be learned or improved. The reality is that communication skills are developed with deliberate effort and practice, and learning to understand others and communicate your ideas more clearly will improve every facet of your life. Messages has already helped thousands of people build communication skills and cultivate better relationships with friends, family members, coworkers, and partners. With this fully revised and updated fourth edition, you'll discover new skills to help you communicate your ideas more effectively and become a better listener. Learn how to: - Read body language - Develop skills for couples communication - Negotiate and resolve conflicts - Communicate with family members - Handle group interactions - Talk to children - Master public speaking - Prepare for job interviews This new edition features a much-needed chapter on digital communication. Effective communication can easily be compromised when you're not able to read your conversation partner's body language, facial expression, or vocal tone. This chapter teaches you how to express yourself well via phone, email, texting, and video-all the skills you need to thrive in the digital age.

Do you often lash out at people? Do you let your emotions rule your interactions with others? Do you find it difficult to see things from others' point of view? You are not alone. Despite the fact that we all have to deal with other people our daily lives, many of us have difficulties with interpersonal relationships. Written by psychologist and bestselling author Matthew McKay, The Interpersonal Problems Workbook combines research and evidence-based techniques for strengthening relationships in all areas in life-whether it's at home, at work, with a significant other, a parent, or a child. The skills in this workbook are based in both schema therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and are designed to help you connect and communicate effectively with those around them. ACT has been proven effective in helping people improve their relationships with others. The ACT skills detailed in this book include present moment awareness, diffusion, and flexibility-all of which will help you to improve your relationships with others. In this book you will learn what your schema is, and how to act on your values to communicate and get along with others. If you are ready to stop building walls and start connecting with those around you, this book presents powerful, effective tools for change.