The Everything Guide to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Learn Positive and Mindful Techniques to Change Negative Behaviors

by Ellen Bowers

A step-by-step guide to a positive outlook and a happier life!

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a popular method of therapeutic treatment that involves examining both your thoughts and your actions. Proven to be an effective treatment for anxiety, depression, and eating and mood disorders, CBT helps you change dysfunctional emotions and thinking into positive, mindful, and compassionate behavior--toward yourself and others. The Everything Guide to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is an informed but sensitive beginner's guide to this process, offering guidance

If you've been looking for a way to change your behavior or improve a negative mindset, this book is ideal for you. The Everything Guide to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the first step in embracing a mindful, healthy outlook on life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2013

Reviews

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be honest, I just kind of thumbed through most of this one once I realized it wasn't what I was looking for. This reads more like one long encyclopedia entry on the topic rather than specific and helpful tips. This would have been more useful as a resource for writing a paper, because it touches on a lot of things but doesn't delve into any of them too deeply. All the tips are very vague or surface level, like meditating or creating vision boards. I'm sure these techniques are helpful to some, but I'm more interested in tips to help rewire my thinking or better cope with everyday stressors. While this book touches on those things, it never delves into them with any real detail.

Also, the chapter on positive affirmations was kind of silly. I agree that positive affirmations are important, but a lot of their examples were ridiculous. Like suggesting I tell myself "All of life is my sky." or "The lavish abundance of life washes over me today and every day." Again, I'm happy if these can help you, but I feel like they should be simpler and more specific to given situations. Maybe "I'm good at my job." or "I'm important to my loved ones."

Because this book was so vague and general, it just felt really impersonal. Like someone who has never had real dealings with anxiety trying to explain it (not saying this is the case, just describing how apathetic the writing felt). I just feel like there have to be better cognitive behavior therapy books out there. The search continues.

[Evelyn Westbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Informative!

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overall review of the topic. I felt it needed more exercises to try but perhaps that’s a workbook type publication for another time.

[Phillias · Rating 1 out of 5]

aka idiots guide

[Jonathan Karmel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This seemed like a good overview of a lot of different things that therapists do to help patients change their attitudes and behaviors. I'm not sure how much anyone could get out of just reading this book alone, but a lot of the topics seemed intriguing, and there were references to other books and sources that seemed like they might be really interesting to me. I will probably check out a couple of the books that were in the bibliography of this book to learn more about some of the things the author of this book was saying.

[Muhannad · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book have some useful and good content, but for the majority it was repeated, oversimplified and boring content. I had to dig deep for some useful content, especially when I finished the first half. It would have been more effective to write it in half the pages and effort. Every now and then the reader is reminded of how CBT can help in this situation or that, but there isnt enough techniques or original ideas on how to do this.
I wouldnt recommend reading it, and I bought another book about CBT to read.

[Jakamo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way too long-winded for the amount of actual helpful strategies and methods it provides. If one wanted to research how CBT can be applied to every different problem a person possibly might have, I suppose this would be a relatively ok source. If a person has one or two things in mind they want to change, the information is very limited and the book overall very repetitious. One would benefit much more from a CBT book for their specific problem than this "everything" book.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent book. The author describes a number of practical exercises to modify the behaviours.