Stop Overreacting: Effective Strategies for Calming Your Emotions [Paperback]

Judith Siegel PhD LCSW (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2010

When you are criticized or rejected, do you have a tendency to lash out or withdraw entirely? Both types of knee-jerk reactions can have lasting and unintended consequences, affecting our friendships, careers, families, and romantic relationships. The truth is, overreacting hurts us as much as it hurts the people around us. You may see overreacting as an unchangeable part of your personality, but in reality, this tendency, like any other, can be unlearned.

Stop Overreacting helps you identify your emotional triggers, discover a new way of processing impulsive thoughts and feelings, and understand how your emotions can undermine your ability to think rationally in moments of crisis and stress. You'll learn how to neutralize overwhelming emotions and choose healthy responses instead of flying off the handle. Ready to make a change for the better? It's time to stop overreacting and start feeling collected and in control.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A marriage and family therapist, and associate professor at NYU's Ehrenkranz School of Social Work, Siegel became interested in neurobiology, the connection between the brain and emotions, when she saw first-hand the self-destructive impact of overreactions on not only those who suffer them, but on their family, friends, and co-workers as well. Using extensive research, poignant and identifiable case studies from her own 30 years of clinical experience, and pointed inquiries and exercises, Siegel painstakingly examines the why and how of overreacting. Since "mind and body, present and past are all parts of the puzzle that make up an emotional overreaction," the memories and defenses we have assembled since childhood, coupled with the way our parents dealt with problems and handled stress, help determine whether we "cry, rage, withdraw or become deeply pessimistic" when pushed to react. With analysis for understanding what triggers these behaviors, chapters that tackle stressful home and workplace situations, and methods for challenging old emotional memories and harmful family myths or expectations, Siegel's call to action will help overreactors, and anyone who suffers them, to stop.
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Review

"Judith Siegel has given us a book with the force of revelation. Using exciting new research findings on brain physiology, she connects the emotional self to the body in which it lives in a manner that is both readable and wonderfully engaging. Stop Overreacting is a real tour de force; a book that is impossible to put down."
—Maggie Scarf, author of Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage and Secrets, Lies, Betrayals: The Body/Mind Connection

"Judith Siegel's Stop Overreacting captures the essential emotional problems that cause people distress. Even better, she clearly delineates very useful and accessible strategies for resisting emotional overload and destructive responses to emotional situations. Stop Overreacting is a valuable guidebook for navigating the basic struggles of our emotional world."
—Beth Jacobs, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, adjunct faculty member of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and author of Writing for Emotional Balance

"Finally, a practical book that gets at what the real triggers are for overreacting in everyday situations. A terrific integration of varied ideas about how to understand present-day overreactions in light of past experiences, especially past relationship experiences. This book goes way beyond most guides to help readers think rationally and mindfully."
—Alan S. Gurman, Ph.D., emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: New Harbinger Publications; Original edition (July 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572247231
• ISBN-13: 978-1572247239
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #233,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The most helpful psychology I've ever read. Life-changing, even! February 23, 2011

By Pre-Code Maven

Format:Paperback

I'm so thrilled with this book. The author has a wonderful way of letting us realize that many of our emotional reactions are due to negative instances from our childhood, yet she doesn't assign blame on our parents. I'm coming to realize, thanks to this book, that many of my negative emotions do not reflect who I really am or what I am truly experiencing in the moment. The questions she has us ponder brought me back to sadness from when I was a kid and helped me realize that a lot of my insecurities stem from habits formed when I was young and too immature and inexperienced to know what was really going on. I thought if someone was unkind to me, that was because of my lacking as a person. I see now how fallacious that was. I feel more secure socially now (though I think it will take continued work and reflection on my part) since realizing exactly why I get so emotional (in my case retreating from people, which is so unhealthy) is not really based on who I am now.

I've read about being "in the moment" many times before but this book explains it in a way that made more sense than anything I've read about it. I'm more understanding of myself now and feel much more emotionally healthy since reading this book. I'm enjoying reflecting on my past now - it's less painful and I can now be more objective and less self-conscious. I've read about emotional triggers before but finally realize now, through this book, what that really means. My triggers are less powerful now that I know where they come from!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent November 21, 2010

By M. Ehlers

Format:Paperback

This is one of those books that you could highlight every page. Heavy on wisdom and helpful strategies, and light on the fluff. I borrowed this from the library, but I am going to purchase my own copy because I will refer back to it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent book August 9, 2011

By JOY2012

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who struggles due to past psychological wounds. The book helps to look at one self from deep inside, and how one's prgrammed perception would affect his/her relationship or interaction with others. Basically, the book tells you that your emotions were programmed when you were young while you were interacting with you caregiver, most likely your parents. That programmed emotions, which have been occupied since your childhood, subject to be triggered whenever you encounter similar situations that you had before. As kids, you were powerless to learn proper skills to deal with the difficult situation so you just react to the situation inappropriately and that improperly learned reaction would display in your adulthood. So the author called it, "overreaction" to overwhelming situation. The reaction might be either imploded or exploded. Personally, I believe that a person who reacts in imploded way, can also react in exploded way depends on the person's perception of whom he/she is dealing with.
Anyway, the book gives a lot of insights about yourself in terms of why you act certain way in certain situations. Even if you're not a person who's struggling due to past wounds, just reading it will benefit to know yourself from deep inside.