Neural Path Therapy: How to Change Your Brain's Response to Anger, Fear, Pain, and Desire [Paperback]

Matthew McKay (Author), David Harp (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2005

When we set out to describe the problems this book can help fix-the stressful and anxiety-provoking conditions of everyday living-we quite simply ran out of space. It's no secret that life is tough, and that each passing year isn't making it any easier. Whether you're more stressed by politics, the environment, your relationships, major life changes, or just the daily task of keeping food on the table, it's easy to let life knock you down and hard to get back up again. But this book offers readers a chance at a different way of life. It shows them how to accept their lives as they are, regard the events of each day with nonjudgmental awareness, and stop obsessive thoughts from compounding their feelings of helplessness and frustration.

The first part of the book introduces you to the basics of neural network learning theory. The basic idea is that neural pathways strengthen with use and weaken with disuse. While certain events are likely to provoke a hardwired neural response in us, we are capable of creating new neural paths with no more than a thought. Instead of letting automatic triggers dictate our responses to painful events, we can use this characteristic of our nervous systems to short-circuit the responses that lead to painful thoughts and emotions.

The second part teaches you five easy-to-learn skills for dealing with stress-breath counting, thought watching, compassionate awareness, softening to pain, and wise mind. Together, they make up a set of skills that readers can take with them anywhere, a kind of portable therapy.

Once learned, the techniques in this book can be used to cope with many different situations. Combined with each other, they become a powerful tool for creating happiness, compassion, and well-being.

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the Publisher

Two best-selling authors team up to provide five proven-effective methods to help readers change their emotional reactions to situations, thoughts, and feelings, leaving them better equipped to deal with life's daily challenges.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 141 pages
• Publisher: New Harbinger Publications; 1 edition (September 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572244267
• ISBN-13: 978-1572244269
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #540,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Matthew McKay, Ph.D., is a psychologist and author of numerous books including When Anger Hurts, The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, Thoughts and Feelings, Messages, and Self-Esteem. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Neural Path Therapy - Simple and effective, November 13, 2005

By 

M. Bussey - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Neural Path Therapy: How to Change Your Brain's Response to Anger, Fear, Pain, and Desire (Paperback)

I don't usually read self-help books. My girlfriends give them to me (implying there is something seriously wrong with me) and I read them out of respect. I find the area sometimes interesting but rarely useful. The problem, as I see it with most of these books, is that either they are so academic that you can't apply what you learn to your own life, or they are so filled with stories about "people just like you" that you spend most of your time self-diagnosing from someone else's life. Neural Path Therapy goes straight to the issues: it is one of the few therapy books that provides a useful and practical plan for the stresses in life that often overwhelm us. This is a book you can use.
Neural Path Therapy begins by explaining how our sometimes puzzling brains work, on a neurological level. When we think, when we respond to outside stimuli, we develop neural pathways: neurological routings in our brain for all those thoughts. I tried to think of this as if the brain was setting up it own postal delivery system. The thoughts/emotions had to be driven from point A to point B for delivery. The more you drive from A to B the deeper the ruts in the road get. But what if the "package" being delivered is the equivalent of a letter bomb? How many of our thoughts are unwanted: stressful thoughts, angry thoughts, depressive, disturbing thoughts, thoughts of self-doubt or ugly self-image thoughts - thoughts that undermine who you are and what you achieve. How do we stop the delivery of negative thoughts - how do we get out of those ruts we've created? The authors McKay and Harp don't try to steal you away from other methods of professional therapy or treatment you might be following, they just want to supply you with a simple, readily available tool to manage these thoughts.

The authors first help you become aware of the thoughts that act as "triggers" to emotional discomfort; they encourage you to recognize the mental pathways that engender self-destructive thinking. Through simple breathing exercises you are taught to step back and observe these thoughts, to see them as "mental objects" which are within your ability to manipulate. Then you choose how to react to these thoughts. As simple as this sounds, it is extremely effective. While the book goes into greater depth later about how to "react" when you are examining these thoughts, just getting to the point where I can see my anger, or pain, or angst as only a damaging "object" inside my mind has been extraordinarily helpful to me. The system McKay and Harp have provided in their book expects only that it be applied - like any good methodology it requires practice. I can't recommend this book strongly enough.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You are Breathing Anyway, You Might As Well Do It to Feel Better!, February 8, 2009

By 

Pavel Somov, Ph.D., author of "Lotus Eff... - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Neural Path Therapy: How to Change Your Brain's Response to Anger, Fear, Pain, and Desire (Paperback)

Do not walk past this book!

This is the next step in problem-focused relaxation training - the book combines several self-help technologies:

-innovative relaxation training designed to override the limbic highjacking/neural sequestration that floods us with stimulus-bound emotion;
-the book offers inoculation and exposure-response prevention strategies; the book turbo-charges the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy by (essentially) taking out the self-talk part of CBT and amplifying emotional self-regulation component;
-the books offers no-nonsense forgiveness and empathy training that is both conceptual and sensation-driven;
-the book offers craving/impulse-control training as well as psychological pain/suffering management training;
-the book offers a zero-hardware biofeedback relaxation traing that requires nothing other than your lungs, a sheet of paper and a pen;
-the book offers a normalizing, de-pathologizing view of our limbically trigger-happy brains and clearly established that the business of psychology is nother other than neural plasticity.

Another great classic from New Harbinger Publications!

Pavel Somov, Ph.D. author of "Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time" (New Harbinger 2008)
[...]

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, practical, and easy to follow, April 11, 2006

By 

Grey Wolf (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Neural Path Therapy: How to Change Your Brain's Response to Anger, Fear, Pain, and Desire (Paperback)

This book offers simple and effective guidance on changing your thought patterns. If you are looking for a way to let go of fear, anger and anxiety caused by thoughts that seem to "take over" and keep you in a "mental maze" that gets you nowhere, the easy steps outlined in this book will help change the way you think. The authors really make it easy to learn to change from automatic "fight or flight" responses to "relax and release."