The Act on Anxiety Workbook: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety, Phobias, and Worry (Workbook Workbook)

By Georg H. Eifert, John P. Forsyth, Georg H. Eifert PhD

Book Overview

Is anxiety and fear a problem for you? Have you tried to win the war with your anxious mind and body, only to end up feeling frustrated, powerless, and stuck? If so, you're not alone. But there is a way forward, a path into genuine happiness, and a way back into living the kind of life you so desperately want. This workbook will help you get started on this new journey today Now in its second edition, The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety offers a new approach to your anxiety, fears, and your life. Within its pages, you'll find a powerful and tested set of tools and strategies to help you gain freedom from fear, trauma, worry, and all the many manifestations of anxiety and fear. The book offers an empowering approach to help you create the kind of life you so desperately want to live. Based on a revolutionary approach to psychological health and wellness called acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), this fully revised and updated second edition offers compelling new exercises to help you create the conditions for your own genuine happiness and peace of mind. You'll learn how your mind can trap you, keeping you stuck and struggling in anxiety and fear. You'll also discover ways to nurture your capacity for acceptance, mindfulness, kindness, and compassion, and use these qualities to weaken the power of anxiety and fear so that you can gain the space do what truly matters to you. Now is the time. Nobody chooses anxiety. And there is no healthy way to "turn off" anxious thoughts and feelings like a light switch. But you can learn to break free from the shackles of anxiety and fear and take back your life. The purpose of this workbook is to help you do just that. Your life is calling on you to make that choice, and the skills in this workbook can help you make it happen. You can live better, more fully, and more richly with or without anxiety and fear. This book will show you the way. -- Recent studies support for the effectiveness of ACT-based self-help workbooks as a low-cost treatment for people experiencing anxiety. (Ritzert, T., Forsyth, J. P., Berghoff, C. R., Boswell, J., & Eifert, G. H. (2016). Evaluating the effectiveness of ACT for anxiety disorders in a self-help context: Outcomes from a randomized wait-list controlled trial. Behavior Therapy, 47 , 431-572.)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 162625334X
• ISBN13: 9781626253346
• Release Date: April 2016
• Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 8.0" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

A Breath of Fresh Air

After years of struggling with stress and anxiety, trying everything under the sun to fix my problems (with some stuff making things distinctly worse!), the message behind ACT was like a breath of fresh air. My problem wasn't the anxiety itself - it was with my struggles and ineffective coping methods. After some good work and reading books like this one, I can happily say that I am living a meaningful live in the service of what matters most to me. I've been a member of the ACT community going on four years now. I've read several of the books, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety Disorders so I eagerly anticipated the arrival of this new workbook. It's safe to say I wasn't disappointed. I can say hands down this is the most powerful and useful self-help book out there for people who are struggling with anxiety. Period. The authors approach this work with gentleness, humility, and compassion. If you're like many people who have been suffering from excessive stress, fear, or anxiety, you don't need more information or knowledge. You need something that works, and that's just what they're offering in this new workbook. The emphasis is on finding workable ways of living a more valued and meaningful life. Here it is in plain English. If you're struggling with worry, fear, stress, or anxiety, and what you've been doing to control or manage your problems isn't working, get this workbook. It might just change your life.

very helpful in my practice

I've enjoyed integrating ACT into my practice. I feel it is a solid approach and frankly haven't had much luck with other approaches. I do not believe that this or any other form of therapy is the be all and end all, however for clinicians and patients who are unfamiliar with the ACT philosophy, this book is practical and accessible.

A Very Different Approach, LOVE This WorkBook

I have been to therapy in the past (for childhood abuse issues and anxiety) and read other material on anxiety, and it truly did give me significant relief from my symptoms, and helped my life overall. But the goal was to totally get rid of anxiety for me. So I was always left with the hang ups that came when I had anxiety, which every human has, and is unavoidable. I would see the anxiety as proof that something was wrong with me, I wasn't coping well, etc. It fed into negative thoughts about life and myself. So I had obsessions and hangups surrounding the residual anxiety itself. In the past several months I had started coming to some of the viewpoints in the workbook on my own, so when I found out about it, it just clicked with me on a deep level. It has been so helpful already to me, and enriched my life. When I started identifying my values (an important step in the workbook), I realized for the first time that a lot of what I have tried to do with my life, was about things other people cared about and not me. I finally saw what *I* cared for. It has already shifted the focus of my life. For instance, I'm 29 years old tomorrow, and I always thought I "should" be going out and having drinks with friends periodically. Or doing the things people my age "should" do. But I never really cared about that, OR got any real enjoyment out of it. That's just a small example, but to me was a big epiphany. The things I care about are my children, raising them WELL. My marriage, my family, learning, doing something meaningful with my life that helps others...etc. So I kind of found myself in this book, and I'm not apologizing for who I am anymore. I always felt "too serious". But I was judging by someone else's standards. In the realm of anxiety, I have been practicing mindfulness and acceptance, and I keep getting these just awe inspiring moments. Where you just think, Wow! I feel like I'm getting in touch with something much bigger than myself, a place much bigger than me, where anxiety, worries, and fears are a very small and inconsequential thing. Another thing that has really changed my perception of anxiety and worries is the realization that there is much more "space" in me than just what I'm feeling at a particular time. There is "room" for a lot more in me than I thought. Room for the anxiety or fear to be there, and room for me to bring acceptance to them at the same time, and then peace. And no matter what, my values are always there, they are a constant. And they have within them much more energy than my fears to tap into. I've been feeling very spiritually peaceful and joyous at random times throughout the day since practicing this workbook. Even my dreams have changed. Like last night I dreamt of riding an airplane and looking down at the world, viewing a beautiful sunrise, etc. It's a dream I've never had. I'm very hopeful and excited about living life this way, in acceptance. Something I've never been able to ac

NOT JUST FOR ANXIOUS FOLKS!

First off, I usually hate workbooks. I can't stand to pay money for a bunch of pages filled with lines that I'm supposed to fill in, as if I am writing the book myself. THIS BOOK IS NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL. It's brief but thorough, with great ideas on every page. It takes you by the hand and explains in detail, but does it in a way that you don't feel talked down to. Second, about half the people out there touting acceptance these days don't have any idea what they're talking about. There are a bunch of psychobabblers who go to one Steve Hayes workshop and think that since they read some Zen twenty years ago they know the whole ACT paradigm. John and Georg are really immersed in this work, and it shows up in the gentle way that they explain the key concepts. The subtle way they frame examples also shows their deep understanding of what this framework is all about. Because they understand it so well, the exercises flow from the central themes, so you can see how they build to an understanding of emotion. Readers will find themselves more forgiving of themselves and their own feelings. It's not a bunch of cognitive hoop-jumping that you see from other books that don't really understand this paradigm. Instead, you finish with the sense that this is really a way of life. Last, you don't have to be anxious to benefit from reading this book! Much as I would love to pretend that I picked it up just to help clients and supervisees, I get wound up and freaked out like the next person. This book helps me identify moments of willingness, however brief and infrequent, and gets me to cultivate mindfulness throughout the day.

Highly Effective for anxious individuals

I am a psychologist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety. I found this to be a highly effective program for my anxious teens and adults. For many, it is life changing, liberating, and results in a level of peace they have not accessed before. I especially welcomed alternative ways of addressing and conceptualizing anxiety. I have found the approaches and philosophies outlined in this program to be well-received by patients. It is a great stand-alone program but is also a great adjunct to more traditional CBT approaches. The book is well written and easy to read, the illustrations are powerful, and the CD allows forms to be printed and contains excellent guided meditation exercises. What a great addition to the field of workbooks for anxious individuals!