Rewire: Change Your Brain to Break Bad Habits, Overcome Addictions, Conquer Self-Destruc tive Behavior

by Richard O'Connor

Overview

The bestselling author of Undoing Depression offers a brain-based guide to permanently ending bad habits

Richard O’Connor’s bestselling book Undoing Depression has become a touchstone in the field, helping thousands of therapists and patients overcome depressive patterns. In Rewire, O’Connor expands those ideas, showing how we actually have two brains—a conscious deliberate self and an automatic self that makes most of our decisions—and how we can train the latter to ignore distractions, withstand temptations, and interrupt reflexive, self-sabotaging responses. Rewire gives readers a road–map to overcoming the most common self-destructive habits, including procrastination, excessive worrying, internet addiction, overeating, risk-taking, and self-medication, among others. By learning valuable skills and habits—including mindfulness, self-control, confronting fear, and freeing yourself from mindless guilt—we can open ourselves to vastly more successful, productive, and happy lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780147516329
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/21/2015
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	166,547
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

RICHARD O’CONNOR, PHD, is a practicing psychotherapist with offices in New York and Connecticut, where he currently lives.

Read an Excerpt

Each time we engage in a bad habit, we make it more likely we'll do it again in the future. But in the same way, each time we engage in a good habit, we make it more likely that we’ll do it again. You can learn to program your own brain so that making the right choices and exercising willpower comes to seem easy and natural.

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Excerpted from "Rewire"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Richard O'Connor.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Chapter 1 Two Brains, Not Working Together 1

Chapter 2 The Autodestruct Mechanism 19

Chapter 3 Fear Incognito 47

Chapter 4 Rebels Without Causes 75

Chapter 5 Because You're Special 97

Chapter 6 Waving the Red Flag 115

Chapter 7 The Enemy Is Us 133

Chapter 8 Trauma and Self-Destructive Behavior 155

Chapter 9 Watching the Parade Go By 177

Chapter 10 Brainwashed and Burnt Out 191

Chapter 11 You're Hooked: Addictions 209

Chapter 12 Gloom and Dread 221

Chapter 13 Facing the Undertow 239

Notes 261

References 271

Index 281

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Rewire gives readers the tools to understand their bad habits and change their lives for the better. This highly practical book offers compelling and measured advice on how to change behaviors and improve lives.”—Jeffrey M. Schwartz, MD, author of You Are Not Your Brain and Brain Lock

“Rewire is essential reading for people and clinicians trying to improve their own life and the lives of everyone around them. Fascinating and powerful advice on ending negative thoughts and behaviors and improving your brain."—Andrew Newberg, MD, author of Words Can Change Your Brain

Editorial Reviews

Rewire gives readers the tools to understand their bad habits and change their lives for the better. This highly practical book offers compelling and measured advice on how to change behaviors and improve lives.”—Jeffrey M. Schwartz, MD, author of You Are Not Your Brain and Brain Lock

“Rewire is essential reading for people and clinicians trying to improve their own life and the lives of everyone around them. Fascinating and powerful advice on ending negative thoughts and behaviors and improving your brain."—Andrew Newberg, MD, author of Words Can Change Your Brain

From the Publisher

Overeating; passive aggression; staying in bad relationships; binge drinking; self-medication; procrastination; risk taking; chronic worrying: All of us want to stop indulging in our worst behaviors, but even once banished, our bad habits crawl back and resume control. According to psychotherapist and author Richard O'Connor (Undoing Depression; Happy at Last), our lack of success isn't because we're weak-willed; it's because we have two brains. One, of course, is the conscious, thoughtful brain that appears to rule the day. The other, though less ruminative, is no less potent: It is the automatic brain that takes charge most of the time. In Rewire, Dr. O'Connor sets out to show how cutting-edge research about how the brain really works can help us change our worst habits in the most effective possible way.

06/15/2014
Psychotherapist O'Connor's (Happy at Last) latest offering combines his previous work explicating neuroscientific advances for the general reader and suggesting concrete methods for changing behaviors and feelings. This time he targets specifically self-destructive behaviors such as poor self-care, addictions, and relationship wrecking. In a work that is well researched without sounding academic, O'Connor presents a solid overview of several clinical points of view, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychotherapeutic methods, in his explanation of the motivations for self-destructive behavior. Case studies are well integrated into the text, and a number of destructive-thinking paradigms are specifically addressed, including anger, fear, narcissism, attention seeking, guilt, and trauma. The author's emphasis on mindfulness practice as an effective cognitive intervention is shown in a variety of exercises developed to address specific destructive-thinking patterns. O'Connor's experience with depression and recovery sets his work apart from that of other self-help authors and contributes to the down-to-earth quality of this volume. VERDICT Personal and friendly in tone, this title combines solid, current research on change and consciousness with explicit reader exercises.—Kellie Benson, Oakton Community Coll. Libs., Des Plaines, IL

Library Journal