Shrinking the Smirch: A Practical Approach to Living with Long Term Health Conditions

by Jo Johnson

Shrinking the Smirch is a unique workbook for anybody who is living with a long term physical or psychological condition including MS, Parkinson's, brain injury, epilepsy, chronic fatigue, epilepsy, stroke, cancer, depression, eating disorders, trauma or anxiety. The workbook asks the reader to think about their symptoms as something external to them - a smirch. A smirch is an annoying little imaginary creature who seeks to make humans sad and unhealthy. It helps you work out what your smirch makes you think, feel and do and create an image or description of your own smirch. It includes twenty practical ways to shrink your smirch ideas, based on psychological approaches that have been proven to work including narrative therapy, CBT, ACT, systemic and solution focused models as well as mindfulness and positive psychological. This book offers a dynamic approach to managing mental and physical health challenges. Written in an accessible but unpatronising manner with marvellous pictures and some positive humour make it an easy read and will be a very useful resource for individuals with health conditions as well as therapists, teachers, life coaches and health professionals.

96 pages, Paperback

Published April 15, 2014

About the author

I’m very excited to announce my second novel.

Surviving Her is dual-narrative, domestic suspense. It combines engaging, complex characters with a fast-moving plot that explores what goes on behind fancy doors!

I’m told it’s a timely page turner, it’s a novel novel and I have a unique voice (my kids say a scratchy and irritating one but hey!)

I qualified as a clinical psychologist in 1992 specialising in neurology since 2000. I worked for fifteen years within the NHS but in 2008 made an impulsive decision to leave in order to write and explore new projects.

I continue to practise psychology hoping one day to become perfect at it! In my spare time I love writing fiction and given my day job I believe I can write characters who could be real.

Reviews

[K N · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliantly written workbook to help kids and young adults understand how to experience GOOD mental health. Vital in an age where social media seems too loud and influential, Shrinking the Smirch helps provide robust tools and strategies to quieten those narratives and space to build your own.