Customer Reviews

The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Move Through Depression and Create a Life Worth Living (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Strosahl and Robinson follow in the path of "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life" but focus specifically on depression. A little New Age-y here & there, which initially might or might not be a turn-off, depending on how you feel about such things - but stick with it, because there's lots of powerful material here:

- Strong and useful explanation of why we get depressed in the first place. Blaming biology or history doesn't help us; a more useful stance, as the authors explain, is to look not just at the pain in our lives, but at how we react to that pain. Avoidance pushes us into depression, acceptance and action pull us back into life.

- A full chapter on how our mind tricks us with reasons & stories that seem to "make sense," but actually keep us stuck.

- Nice accompanying CD with guided meditation exercises of various sorts, some for learning mindfulness skills, others for getting in touch with our intuition about what we really want to do in life.

- Good closing chapters on building ACT habits that will last rather than fizzle.

See full review on my blog - www.raburgess.com/wholesight - or just check it out for yourself. You'll be challenged, but you won't be sorry.

I've struggled with depression for the majority of my life and have tried many different tools to help me heal - for exmaple psychoanalysis, self-help books, homeopathy, antidepressants, acupuncture, etc. While I won't say that those tools did not help me (I really needed therapy to move through the most acute traumas of my past), I will say that this workbook has really helped me at this point in my life, helping me to understand how the depression has influenced my current behaviors and ways of coping with my past. Having been through nearly 3 years of therapy, and there working through past issues, I was ready to start taking action in my life *now* for a better future. This workbook has helped me frame what's most important to me, what I want to experience, and find ways to actually begin creating those changes for myself. I look forward to the personal time I spend with this workbook, and I feel I've benefitted greatly from it.

I'm a long-time practitioner (though not consistently so) of mindfulness - insight meditation. This is a great D-I-Y program for learning to pay attention in order to avoid depression. One key "learning" so to speak: As the authors state, depression is something we do, not something we have. Therefore, we can learn how "not to do" and live a more satisfying life. I've gotten way too good at "doing depression" over the decades; this workbook is helping me understand how to be less successful at such self-defeating behavior!

This book is great to work with a group or on your own. The cd has a great selection of music with meditation exercises to follow along with. The stories shared vary in different areas of how depression can affect people in many differnt ways. I am using this book as material and reference in a womens support group. It has already made an impact within the group. The women are opening up and sharing. I am glad I chose this book. Karla H.

This book and ACT have some very good and refreshing points. However, the authors started off with a number of statements that had me immediately reacting with more than a bit of negativity. On page 2 they state, "Depression never springs out of an otherwise healthy, vital, purposeful life." My grandmother saw her entire extended family murdered when she was a child. She got depressed. Was that because she didn't have a healthy, vital, purposeful life?

On page 63 they say, "In chapter 1, we mentioned that every year in the U.S. more than one in four people will develop a serious problem with their emotional health and well-being. Statistics like this are downright scary..." What's scary is that what they said in chapter 1 on page 13 was, "The pervasiveness of these types of problems corresponds to the substantial lifetime risk of depression: approximately 25 percent for women and 20 percent for men." Sorry, but there's a very big difference between "every year" and "lifetime". Also, not to be picky, but "25 percent for women and 20 percent for men" is also not "more than one in four". I hope that the accuracy of whatever academic studies they've done is not this abysmal quality.

Sure, maybe I'm being picky again, but there are a number of misspellings like on page 83 where they refer to "a PRINCIPLE cause of human misery". It's just kind of hard to take whatever valuable points they might make seriously when the professors make stupid statements and can't spell or do basic math.

I'd give them passing grades for chapters 1-4, but they certainly flunked chapter 5, where they attempt to explain Relational Frame Theory. This is supposed to be a workbook for people who are depressed. Trying to figure out what the heck they are saying in chapter 5 is enough to get one depressed. I went to fancy schools and have a graduate degree in psychology, and I've got a headache trying to make out their "simplified" explanation of the theory. They mention a couple of times that "this is definitely science geek stuff", so why do they include their mumbo-jumbo when they know that you can't understand what they're saying? That did it for me, but then I know that I have something to learn about acceptance.

After a lifetime of living in the self-help section, I can honestly say this is one of the top books ever read. I am attending the workshop that accompanies the book. It has helped my PTSD and depression better than any one-on-one therapy. Highly recommended. Still crazy after all these years, but now I RECOGNIZE it and can fix it before I implode.

I truly appreciate the content and process this book reflects in assisting individuals making sense of their depression through expression of an individual's life journey(case studies) and making choices to get better..... A real "health conscious" approach to addressing depressive symptoms and seeking ways of functionality and cope in life. This is an excellant manual for any health care practitioner's library.

I'm a little confused about this Kindle version. There are icons in the book indicating that there are worksheets on the accompanying CD. How do I access these worksheets?

Time is scarce these days for me so choosing to read a book is something I do very carefully. From when I first skimmed through this book I could tell there were many valuable insights that I could apply in my life.
Further the book has many useful exercises that have been tested and I found to be very worthwhile.

It is really a book to learn about yourself and to create a vision / context for your life and make your life a success.

I recommend it.

Well organised, well written with excellent written and CD exercises. A very useful book for professionals treating clients suffering from depression.