Cognitive behavioural therapy for dummies / by Rob Willson and Rhena Branch.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"We all have aspects of ourselves that we would like to change, but many of us believe that a leopard can't change its spots - if that's you, stop there! Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies will help identify unhealthy modes of thinking - such as "a leopard can't change it's spots"! - that have been holding you back from the changes you want. CBT can help whether you're seeking to overcome anxiety and depression, boost self-esteem, lose weight, beat addiction or simply improve your outlook in your professional and personal life."

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 1)
• About This Book (p. 1)
• Conventions Used in This Book (p. 2)
• What You're Not to Read (p. 2)
• Foolish Assumptions (p. 3)
• How This Book Is Organised (p. 3)
• Icons Used in This Book (p. 5)
• Where to Go from Here (p. 6)
• Part 1 Introducing CBT Basics (p. 7)
• Chapter 1 You Feel the Way You Think (p. 9)
• Using Scientifically Tested Methods (p. 9)
• Understanding CBT (p. 11)
• Combining science, philosophy, and behaviour (p. 11)
• Progressing from problems to goals (p. 12)
• Making the Thought-Feeling Link (p. 12)
• Emphasising the meanings you attach to events (p. 13)
• Acting out (p. 13)
• Learning Your ABCs (p. 14)
• Characterising CBT (p. 16)
• Chapter 2 Spotting Errors in Your Thinking (p. 19)
• Catastrophising: Turning Mountains Back Into Molehills (p. 20)
• All-or-Nothing Thinking: Finding Somewhere in Between (p. 21)
• Fortune-telling: Stepping Away from the Crystal Ball (p. 23)
• Mind-Reading: Taking Your Guesses with a Pinch of Salt (p. 24)
• Emotional Reasoning: Reminding Yourself That Feelings Aren't Facts (p. 26)
• Overgeneralising: Avoiding the Part/Whole Error (p. 27)
• Labelling: Giving Up the Rating Game (p. 28)
• Making Demands: Thinking Flexibly (p. 30)
• Mental Filtering: Keeping an Open Mind (p. 31)
• Disqualifying the Positive: Keeping the Baby When Throwing Out the Bathwater (p. 33)
• Low Frustration Tolerance: Realising You Can Bear the 'Unbearable' (p. 34)
• Personalising: Removing Yourself from the Centre of the Universe (p. 35)
• Chapter 3 Tackling Toxic Thoughts (p. 39)
• Catching NATs (p. 39)
• Making the thought-feeling link (p. 40)
• Becoming more objective about your thoughts (p. 40)
• Stepping Through the ABC Form I (p. 40)
• Creating Constructive Alternatives: Completing the ABC Form II (p. 44)
• Chapter 4 Behaving like a Scientist: Designing and Conducting Behavioural Experiments (p. 49)
• Seeing for Yourself: Reasons for Doing Behavioural Experiments (p. 50)
• Testing Out Predictions (p. 50)
• Seeking Evidence to See Which Theory Best Fits the Facts (p. 53)
• Conducting Surveys (p. 55)
• Making Observations (p. 57)
• Ensuring Successful Behavioural Experiments (p. 57)
• Keeping Records of Your Experiments (p. 58)
• Chapter 5 Pay Attention! Refocusing and Retraining Your Awareness (p. 61)
• Training in Task Concentration (p. 62)
• Choosing to concentrate (p. 62)
• Tuning in to tasks and the world around you (p. 65)
• Tackling the task concentration record sheet (p. 66)
• Becoming More Mindful (p. 68)
• Being present in the moment (p. 68)
• Letting your thoughts pass by (p. 68)
• Discerning when not to listen to yourself (p. 69)
• Incorporating mindful daily tasks (p. 70)
• Part II Charting the Course: Defining Problems and Setting Goals (p. 71)
• Chapter 6 Exploring Emotions (p. 73)
• Naming Your Feelings (p. 74)
• Thinking What to Feel (p. 75)
• Understanding the Anatomy of Emotions (p. 76)
• Comparing Healthy and Unhealthy Emotions (p. 77)
• Spot the difference in thinking (p. 86)
• Spot the difference in behaving, and ways you want to behave (p. 88)
• Spot the difference in what you focus on (p. 89)
• Spotting Similarities in Your Physical Sensations (p. 90)
• Identifying Feelings about Feelings (p. 91)
• Defining Your Emotional Problems (p. 92)
• Making a statement (p. 92)
• Rating your emotional problem (p. 93)
• Chapter 7 Identifying Solutions That Cause You Problems (p. 95)
• When Feeling Better Can Make Your Problems Worse (p. 95)
• Getting Over Depression Without Getting Yourself Down (p. 97)
• Loosening Your Grip on Control (p. 97)
• Feeling Secure in an Uncertain World (p. 98)
• Surmounting the Side Effects of Excessive Safety-Seeking (p. 100)
• Wending Your Way Out of Worry (p. 102)
• Preventing the Perpetuation of Your Problems (p. 103)
• Helping Yourself: Putting the Petals on Your Vicious Flower (p. 104)
• Chapter 8 Setting Your Sights on Goals (p. 107)
• Putting SPORT Into Your Goals (p. 107)
• Homing In on How You Want to Be Different (p. 108)
• Setting goals in relation to your current problems (p. 109)
• Making a statement (p. 110)
• Maximising Your Motivation (p. 110)
• Identifying inspiration for change (p. 110)
• Focusing on the benefits of change (p. 111)
• Completing a cost-benefit analysis (p. 111)
• Recording your progress (p. 113)
• Part III Putting CBT into Action (p. 117)
• Chapter 9 Standing Up to Anxiety and Facing Fear (p. 119)
• Acquiring Anti-Anxiety Attitudes (p. 119)
• Thinking realistically about the probability of bad events (p. 119)
• Avoiding extreme thinking (p. 120)
• Taking the fear out of fear (p. 120)
• Attacking Anxiety (p. 122)
• Winning by not fighting (p. 122)
• Defeating fear with FEAR (p. 122)
• Repeatedly confronting your fears (p. 123)
• Keeping your exposure challenging but not overwhelming (p. 123)
• Shedding safety behaviours (p. 125)
• Recording your fear-fighting (p. 125)
• Overriding Common Anxieties (p. 125)
• Socking it to social anxiety (p. 126)
• Waging war on worry (p. 126)
• Pounding on panic (p. 126)
• Assaulting agoraphobia (p. 127)
• Dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (p. 127)
• Hitting back at fear of heights (p. 127)
• Chapter 10 Deconstructing and Demolishing Depression (p. 129)
• Understanding the Nature of Depression (p. 130)
• Looking at What Fuels Depression (p. 131)
• Going Round and Round in Your Head: Ruminative Thinking (p. 132)
• Catching yourself in the act (p. 133)
• Arresting ruminations before they arrest you (p. 134)
• Activating Yourself as an Antidepressant (p. 135)
• Tackling inactivity (p. 135)
• Dealing with the here and now: Solving problems (p. 136)
• Taking care of yourself and your environment (p. 138)
• Getting a Good Night's Sleep (p. 138)
• Setting realistic sleep expectations (p. 139)
• Making your bedroom oh so cosy (p. 140)
• Managing Suicidal Thoughts (p. 141)
• Chapter 11 Overcoming Obsessions (p. 143)
• Identifying and Understanding Obsessional Problems (p. 144)
• Understanding obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (p. 145)
• Recognising health anxiety (p. 146)
• Understanding body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) (p. 147)
• Identifying Unhelpful Behaviours (p. 149)
• Acquiring Anti-obsessional Attitudes (p. 149)
• Tolerating doubt and uncertainty (p. 150)
• Trusting your judgement (p. 150)
• Treating your thoughts as nothing more than thoughts (p. 151)
• Being flexible and not trying too hard (p. 151)
• Using external and practical criteria (p. 152)
• Allowing your mind and body to do their own things (p. 152)
• Normalising physical sensations and imperfections (p. 153)
• Facing Your Fears: Reducing (And Stopping) Rituals (p. 153)
• Resist! Resist! Resist! (p. 154)
• Delaying and modifying rituals (p. 154)
• Being Realistic about Responsibility (p. 155)
• Dividing up your responsibility pie (p. 155)
• Retraining your attention (p. 157)
• Chapter 12 Overcoming Low Self-esteem by Accepting Yourself (p. 159)
• Identifying Issues of Self-Esteem (p. 159)
• Developing Self-Acceptance (p. 160)
• Understanding that you have worth because you're human (p. 161)
• Appreciating that you're too complex to globally measure or rate (p. 161)
• Acknowledging your ever-changing nature (p. 163)
• Accepting your fallible nature (p. 165)
• Valuing your uniqueness (p. 165)
• Using self-acceptance to aid self-improvement (p. 166)
• Understanding that acceptance doesn't mean giving up (p. 168)
• Being Inspired to Change (p. 168)
• Actioning Self-Acceptance (p. 170)
• Self-talking your way to self-acceptance (p. 170)
• Following the best-friend argument (p. 171)
• Dealing with doubts and reservations (p. 172)
• Selecting the Self-help Journey to Self-Acceptance (p. 173)
• Chapter 13 Cooling Down Your Anger (p. 175)
• Discerning the Difference between Healthy and Unhealthy Anger (p. 175)
• Key characteristics of unhealthy anger (p. 176)
• Hallmarks of healthy anger (p. 177)
• Assembling Attitudes That Underpin Healthy Anger (p. 178)
• Putting up with other people (p. 179)
• Forming flexible preferences (p. 180)
• Accepting other people as fallible human beings (p. 181)
• Accepting yourself (p. 182)
• Developing high frustration tolerance (p. 182)
• Pondering the pros and cons of your temper (p. 183)
• Imparting Your Indignation in a Healthy Way (p. 184)
• Asserting yourself effectively (p. 184)
• Coping with criticism (p. 185)
• Using the disarming technique (p. 186)
• Dealing with Difficulties in Overcoming Anger (p. 187)
• Part IV Looking Backwards and Moving Forwards (p. 189)
• Chapter 14 Taking a Fresh Look at Your Past (p. 191)
• Exploring How Your Past Can Influence Your Present (p. 191)
• Identifying Your Core Beliefs (p. 192)
• The three camps of core beliefs (p. 194)
• Seeing how your core beliefs interact (p. 195)
• Detecting Your Core Beliefs (p. 195)
• Following a downward arrow (p. 195)
• Picking up clues from your dreaming and screaming (p. 196)
• Tracking themes (p. 197)
• Filling in the blanks (p. 197)
• Understanding the Impact of Core Beliefs (p. 198)
• Spotting when you are acting according to old rules and beliefs (p. 198)
• Understanding that unhealthy core beliefs make you prejudiced (p. 199)
• Making a Formulation of Your Beliefs (p. 200)
• Limiting the Damage: Being Aware of Core Beliefs (p. 203)
• Developing Alternatives to Your Core Beliefs (p. 204)
• Revisiting history (p. 205)
• Starting from scratch (p. 207)
• Chapter 15 Moving New Beliefs from Your Head to Your Heart (p. 209)
• Defining the Beliefs You Want to Strengthen (p. 209)
• Acting As If You Already Believe (p. 211)
• Building a Portfolio of Arguments (p. 212)
• Generating arguments against an unhelpful belief (p. 212)
• Generating arguments to support your helpful alternative belief (p. 214)
• Understanding That Practice Makes Imperfect (p. 215)
• Dealing with your doubts and reservations (p. 215)
• Zigging and zagging through the zigzag technique (p. 216)
• Putting your new beliefs to the test (p. 218)
• Nurturing Your New Beliefs (p. 220)
• Chapter 16 Heading for a Healthier and Happier Life (p. 223)
• Planning to Prevent Relapse (p. 223)
• Filling In the Gaps (p. 224)
• Choosing absorbing activities (p. 224)
• Matchmaking your pursuits (p. 225)
• Putting personal pampering into practice (p. 225)
• Overhauling Your Lifestyle (p. 226)
• Walking the walk (p. 227)
• Talking the talk (p. 229)
• Getting intimate (p. 229)
• Chapter 17 Overcoming Obstacles to Progress (p. 233)
• Tackling Emotions That Get in the Way of Change (p. 233)
• Shifting shame (p. 233)
• Getting rid of guilt (p. 234)
• Putting aside pride (p. 235)
• Seeking support (p. 236)
• Trying a little tenderness (p. 236)
• Adopting Positive Principles That Promote Progress (p. 237)
• Understanding that simple doesn't mean easy (p. 237)
• Being optimistic about getting better (p. 238)
• Staying focused on your goals (p. 238)
• Persevering and repeating (p. 239)
• Tackling Task-Interfering Thoughts (p. 239)
• Chapter 18 Psychological Gardening: Maintaining Your CBT Gains (p. 243)
• Knowing Your Weeds from Your Flowers (p. 243)
• Working on Weeds (p. 244)
• Nipping weeds in the bud (p. 244)
• Spotting where weeds may grow (p. 246)
• Dealing with recurrent weeds (p. 247)
• Tending Your Flowers (p. 248)
• Planting new varieties (p. 249)
• Being a compassionate gardener (p. 251)
• Chapter 19 Working with the Professionals (p. 253)
• Procuring Professional Help (p. 253)
• Thinking about the right therapy for you (p. 255)
• Meeting the experts (p. 256)
• Tracking Down the Right CBT Therapist for You (p. 257)
• Asking yourself the right questions (p. 257)
• Speaking to the specialists (p. 259)
• Making the Most of CBT (p. 261)
• Discussing issues during sessions (p. 261)
• Being active between sessions (p. 263)
• Part V The Part of Tens (p. 265)
• Chapter 20 Ten Healthy Attitudes for Living (p. 267)
• Assuming Emotional Responsibility: You Feel the Way You Think (p. 267)
• Thinking Flexibly (p. 268)
• Valuing Your Individuality (p. 269)
• Accepting That Life Can Be Unfair (p. 269)
• Understanding That Approval from Others Isn't Necessary (p. 270)
• Realising Love's Desirable, Not Essential (p. 270)
• Tolerating Short-Term Discomfort (p. 271)
• Enacting Enlightened Self-Interest (p. 272)
• Pursuing Interests and Acting Consistently with Your Values (p. 273)
• Tolerating Uncertainty (p. 273)
• Chapter 21 Ten Self-Esteem Boosters That Don't Work (p. 275)
• Putting Others Down (p. 275)
• Thinking You're Special (p. 276)
• Trying to Get Everyone to Like You (p. 276)
• Placing Yourself above Criticism (p. 277)
• Avoiding Failure, Disapproval, Rejection, and Other Animals (p. 278)
• Avoiding Your Emotions (p. 278)
• Attempting to Feel More Significant by Controlling Others (p. 278)
• Over-Defending Your Self-Worth (p. 279)
• Feeling Superior (p. 279)
• Blaming Nature or Nuture for Your Problems (p. 280)
• Chapter 22 Ten Ways to Lighten Up (p. 281)
• Accept That You Can - and Will - Make Mistakes (p. 281)
• Try Something New (p. 282)
• Stamp on Shame (p. 282)
• Laugh at Yourself (p. 283)
• Don't Take Offence So Easily (p. 284)
• Make Good Use of Criticism (p. 284)
• Settle into Social Situations (p. 285)
• Encourage Your Creativity to Flow (p. 286)
• Act Adventurously (p. 286)
• Enjoy Yourself: It's Later than You Think (p. 287)
• Chapter 23 Ten Books to Add to Your Library (p. 289)
• Cognitive Therapy - Basics and Beyond (p. 289)
• Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders (p. 289)
• Full Catastrophe Living (p. 290)
• Overcoming (p. 290)
• Overcoming Anger (p. 290)
• Oxford Guide to Behavioural Experiments in Cognitive Therapy (p. 290)
• Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy (p. 291)
• Reinventing Your Life (p. 291)
• Status Anxiety (p. 291)
• A Woman in Your Own Right (p. 291)
• Appendix A Resources (p. 293)
• Organisations in the United Kingdom (p. 293)
• Organisations in the United States (p. 294)
• Other Organisations (p. 296)
• Appendix B Forms (p. 297)
• The 'Old Meaning-New Meaning' Sheet (p. 297)
• The Cost-Benefit Analysis Form (p. 299)
• The 'Tic-Toc' Sheet (p. 301)
• The Zigzag Form (p. 303)
• The Vicious Flower (p. 305)
• The Task Concentration Sheet (p. 306)
• The ABC Form I (p. 307)
• The ABC Form II (p. 308)
• Index (p. 309)

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Rhena Branch, MSc, Dip CBT, is an accredited CBT therapist and works with the Priory Hospital North London as a CBT therapist. She also has her own practice in North London and supervises on the Masters' course at Goldsmith College, University of London.