Healing Emotional Pain Workbook: Process-Based CBT Tools for Moving Beyond Sadness, Fear, Worry, and Shame to Discover Peace and Resilience

by Matthew McKay PhD, Patrick Fanning, Erica Pool PsyD, Patricia E. Zurita Ona PsyD

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781648480218
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	04/01/2022
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	514,790
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.70(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Matthew McKay, PhD, is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has authored and coauthored numerous books, including The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, Self-Esteem, and Couple Skills, which have sold more than a million copies combined. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and specializes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression.

Patrick Fanning is a professional writer in the mental health field, and founder of a men’s support group in Northern California. He has authored and coauthored twelve self-help books, including Self-Esteem, Thoughts and Feelings, Couple Skills, and Mind and Emotions.


Erica Pool, PsyD, earned her doctorate at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA; and has clinical and research experience at the University of California, Berkeley; and the VA Northern California Health Care System; and has consulted with mental health start-ups. The goal of her work is to understand processes at the core of human suffering to help craft individualized and culturally responsive treatments.
 

Patricia E. Zurita Ona, PsyD, “Dr. Z,” is a psychologist specializing in working with and creating compassionate, research-based, and actionable resources for overachievers and overthinkers to get them unstuck from worries, fears, anxieties, perfectionism, procrastination, obsessions, and ineffective ‘playing it safe’ actions. She is founder of the East Bay Behavior Therapy Center—a boutique practice where she offers therapy and coaching services based on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and contextual behavioral science (CBS). She has been nominated as a fellow of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science for her contributions to the applications of ACT to specific fear-based struggles.
 

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Assessment: Comprehensive Coping Inventory-55 7

1 Engagement: From Behavioral Avoidance to Action 17

2 Courage: From Safety Seeking to Inner Safety 49

3 Passion: From Emotion-Driven Behavior to Values-Driven Choices 73

4 Resilience: From Distress Intolerance to Pain Acceptance 89

5 Openness: From Emotion Avoidance to Emotion Acceptance 107

6 Peace: From Thought Avoidance to Thought Acceptance 121

7 Clarity: From Cognitive Misappraisal to Flexible Thinking 136

8 Self-Esteem: From Self-Blame to Self-Compassion 161

9 Patience: From Blaming Others to Compassion 180

10 Serenity: From Worry and Rumination to Balanced Thinking 202

11 Relapse Prevention 216

Appendix: The Comprehensive Coping Index-55 221

References 225

Interviews

McKay, Fanning, Pool, and Zurita Ona each reside in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Editorial Reviews

This book is an excellent, practical companion and support for anyone who wishes to take better control of their own life—especially their inner life and the often-disturbing personal experiences of emotional pain. The authors have provided a tremendous resource that is easy to access and utilize, while also revealing an achievable pathway toward necessary healing. Based in science and established research, this book is also an invitation to move beyond healing as the only goal, and to discover the beautiful possibility of a happier, more compassionate, and wiser life.”
—Jeffrey Brantley, MD, emeritus consulting professor in Duke University Medical Center’s department of psychiatry and human behavior, and author of Calming Your Anxious Mind

Jeffrey Brantley

This book is an excellent resource for working on yourself. I’m especially impressed with how the authors have combined savvy cognitive behavioral modification strategies with superb mindfulness acceptance—integration—resolution skills for difficult emotional states. Very thorough and will be helpful for both novices and those more experienced on the psychological journey.”
—John Ruskan, author of Emotional Clearing and Deep Clearing

John Ruskan

Survivors of abuse desperately need help when it comes to finding safer and more effective coping mechanisms. This well-written and organized workbook offers powerful strategies such as distress tolerance skills, emotion acceptance, and flexible thinking skills along with teaching important practices such mindfulness, self-compassion, patience, serenity, and relapse prevention. I highly recommend it if you are a survivor of childhood abuse or adult emotional, physical, or sexual abuse.”
—Beverly Engel, LMFT, author of Healing Your Emotional Self

Beverly Engel

Healing Emotional Pain Workbook offers an integration of skills and perspectives cultivated from the best of mindfulness-infused Western psychology. The exercises provide access to the underlying sense of wellness and agency we all carry within us, when not identified with our negative thought patterns. Highly recommended for those desiring to know the truth of who they are, free from the conditioning of maladaptive beliefs.”
—Kate Gustin, PhD, clinical psychologist, founder of PoZitive Strides psychoeducational services, and author of The No-Self Help Book

Kate Gustin

Healing emotional pain is one of the deepest journeys one can make in life—to make peace with yourself and the world. This wise and compassionate workbook points to a way.”
—Bob Stahl, PhD, coauthor of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Living with Your Heart Wide Open, Calming the Rush of Panic, MBSR Every Day, and more

Bob Stahl

Healing Emotional Pain Workbook is an artful collaboration of four authors who have developed a highly effective, integrative approach to self-healing. Get this practical, research-based workbook. Do the revealing self-assessment and complete the comprehensive worksheets to heal the emotional pain that has been keeping you stuck.”
—Paul Aurand, MHt, author of Essential Healing, and award-winning master hypnotherapist who has worked in the field for more than thirty years

Paul Aurand

Healing Emotional Pain Workbook will be a go-to book for anyone looking to find their wise mind when emotional intensity, anxiety, or depression derail you from your own goals and values. With dozens of tools and self-reflection worksheets, you can learn to navigate what the authors call ‘emotional storms.’ The case examples make understanding and applying these tools easy to do. This is a terrific tool kit!”
—Lara Honos-Webb, PhD, author of Six Super Skills for Executive Functioning and The Gift of Adult ADD

Lara Honos-Webb