Change for the better : self-help through practical psychotherapy

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Change for the Better is for anyone interested in making lasting changes in both their inner and outer lives. It uses a conversational style to help readers identify their own learned patterns of thinking and relating that underlie and contribute to emotional suffering such depression, anxiety, phobia, eating disorders, relationship and psychosomatic problems. It shows readers how to reflect upon their difficulties, identify problems in relating, and stop and revise attitudes that are out of date. Mindfulness- based experiential exercises are incorporated throughout to help nourish self awareness and change.

This bestselling book has helped many people find ways of dealing with everyday emotional difficulties, and also practitioners of psychotherapy work with their patients. It′s continuing popularity has prompted this fourth edition which features up to date thinking and practice from Cognitive Analytic Psychotherapy and from mindfulness.

Elizabeth Wilde McCormick has been in practice as a psychotherapist for over thirty years. She is also a teacher, trainer and writer. She is a founder member of The Association for Cognitive Analytic Therapy at Guy′s Hospital, London, and the author of a number of best-selling self-help books.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• About the Author (p. ix)
• Foreword (p. x)
• Acknowledgements (p. xi)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• About Cognitive Analytic Therapy (p. 4)
• About Mindfulness (p. 6)
• Part 1 Who Are We?
• What are we made of? What can change? (p. 7)
• 1 Change is possible (p. 9)
• Part 2 The Building Blocks of Who We Are Feelings, emotions and relationships: with ourselves and others (p. 35)
• 2 Understanding relating: reciprocal relationship procedures (p. 37)
• 3 Problems and dilemmas within relationships (p. 47)
• Part 3 Getting Off the Symptom Hook Naming the problem (p. 67)
• 4 Traps (p. 69)
• 5 Dilemmas (p. 90)
• 6 Snags and self-sabotage (p. 117)
• Part 4 The Tip of the Emotional Iceberg Emotional states, depression and symptoms (p. 125)
• 7 Unbearable and unmanageable feelings (p. 127)
• 8 How unmanageable feelings and beliefs become symptoms (p. 136)
• Part 5 The Emotional Roller-Coaster (p. 157)
• 9 The challenge of shifting states (p. 159)
• 10 Living on the borderline (p. 165)
• Part 6 Gathering Information (p. 175)
• 11 Examining the impact of our beginnings (p. 177)
• Part 7 Making the Change (p. 209)
• 12 Writing our life story (p. 211)
• 13 Targeting the procedures that create problems and deciding on aims for change (p. 227)
• 14 Putting a diagram in your pocket (p. 235)
• 15 Techniques for working through the process of change (p. 244)
• Part 8 Changing within a Relationship (p. 263)
• 16 Love is not enough (p. 265)
• Part 9 Holding on to Change (p. 285)
• 17 Creative ways of practising with and holding on to change (p. 287)
• Part 10 Resources for Students and Therapists and for Co-counsellors (p. 295)
• 18 The theory and practice of CAT (p. 297)
• Appendices
• Appendix 1 The Psychotherapy File: an aid to understanding ourselves better (p. 310)
• Appendix 2 Mindfulness exercises and meditations (p. 320)
• Appendix 3 List of resources available on the companion website (p. 323)
• References (p. 324)
• Index (p. 327)