Books
ACT with Love by Russ Harris
“Popular myths about love set us up for a struggle with real life. The inconvenient truth is there’s no such thing as a perfect partner, all couples fight, and feelings of love come and go like the weather. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a joyful, intimate, and loving relationship. ACT With Love is a simple and empowering program for healing, rebuilding or strengthening your relationship, using the revolutionary new mindfulness-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Through the scientifically-proven principles of ACT, you can learn to handle painful thoughts and feelings more effectively, and engage fully in the process of living and loving.”
Finding Life Beyond Trauma by Victoria M Follett and Jacqueline Pistorello
“If you’ve experienced trauma-whether as a result of common life events like accidents or abusive personal relationships or extraordinary experiences like war or natural disasters-you may find that the pain and emotional unease you feel don’t go away over time. In fact, they may get worse. But the trauma you experienced lies in the unchangeable past. Because of your strength and perseverance, you survived, and now the rest of your life stretches before you. How do you want to live it? Finding Life Beyond Trauma is about living life well after a traumatic event. It uses the powerful techniques of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help you take a different approach to painful feelings and chart a new course for a rich and meaningful life.
First, you’ll learn to accept the pain, sadness, and anxiety that can arise in connection to your trauma. By exploring mindfulness techniques, you’ll be able to remain present with painful feelings and stop avoiding the thoughts and situations that bring them up. Instead of focusing on the past, you’ll clarify what you want your life to be about right now and in the future. With your values clearly in mind, commit to actions that will express them in your life-guided by the powerful tools you’ll find in this book.”
A Liberated Mind by Steven C Hayes
“A Liberated Mind is the summary of Steven’s life’s work which will teach listeners how to live better, happier and more fulfilled lives by applying the six key processes of ACT. Put together these processes teach us to pivot: to ‘defuse’ rather than fuse with our thoughts; to see life from a new perspective; and to discover our chosen values, those qualities of being that fuel meaning.
Steve shares fascinating research results like how ACT techniques decreased typing errors on a clerical test or showed that positive affirmations actually increase negative emotion. And he weaves them with stories of clients and colleagues as well as his own riveting story of healing himself of a severe panic disorder, which is how the idea of psychological flexibility was born.”
Living Beyond Your Pain by Joanne Dahl and Tobias Lindgren
“Here is an approach to living with chronic pain unlike any you’ve seen before, one that breaks through pain to help you live the rich and full life you deserve. Based on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), one of the most promising and fastest growing psychotherapies in use today, this book breaks with conventional notions of pain management, the traditional “feel good” approaches—including the use of pain-killing medication—that work to prevent painful sensations.
But the ACT approach to living with pain is different. It helps you recognize pain as an event in your life that doesn’t need to interfere with the way you live. In fact, attempts to avoid pain can often cause more harm than good, both to your body and to your peace of mind. By accepting and learning to live with pain, you can limit the control it exerts over your life. Mindfulness exercises, in particular, can help you transform pain from a life-defining preoccupation to a simple experience. From this strong position, you can make choices that will lead you to the life you’ve always wanted. Committed action is the way to make it happen.”
The Confidence Gap by Russ Harris
“Is there a gap between where you are right now and where you want to be? Is a lack of confidence holding you back? We’ve all been stuck in the ‘confidence gap’. We want to find a better job, pursue a romantic relationship, enrol in a course, expand our business, or pursue our greatest dreams; but fear gets in the way and we don’t take action.
Medical practitioner and life coach Dr Russ Harris has helped thousands of people overcome fear and develop genuine confidence. He uses a scientifically-proven approach known as Acceptance and Commitment Training, which employs ‘mindfulness’ – a state of openness, focus and awareness – to enable authentic long-lasting change. Compassionate, practical and inspiring, The Confidence Gap will help you identify your passions, succeed at your challenges and create a life that is truly fulfilling.”
The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris
“This easy-to-read self-help book is firmly based on the principles of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy. The title reflects a key theme: that popular ideas about happiness are misleading, inaccurate, and often make us miserable. The book covers in detail how to use mindfulness skills, values, and effective action to enhance health, vitality, and life satisfaction.”
The Mindful Couple by Robyn D Walser and Darrah Westrup
“All of us want to be fully accepted in our relationships, yet it can be difficult to fully accept our partners for who they are. This insightful guide for couples is based on a simple concept: Act out of kindness, love, and acceptance, and you will open your relationship for the creation of greater kindness, love, and acceptance.
With strategies drawn from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), a powerful therapeutic approach, this book will help you identify your core values and discover, as a couple, the beauty that is available to you and your partner when you bring greater awareness and values-guided behavior to your relationship. Each chapter explores a key issue, such as passion, fidelity, and the balance between dependence and independence, and includes specific practices you can do alone or with your partner to help you build a vital relationship.”
The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety by John P Forsyth and Georg H Eifert
“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.”
The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression by Patricia J Robinson and Kirk D Strosahl
“There are hundreds of books that will try to help you overcome or put an end to depression. But what if you could use your depression to change your life for the better? Your symptoms may be signals that something in your life needs to change. Learning to understand and interpret these signals is much more important than ignoring or avoiding them-approaches that only make the situation worse. This workbook uses techniques from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to offer a new treatment plan for depression that will help you live a productive life by accepting your feelings instead of fruitlessly trying to avoid them.
The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Depression will show you, step-by-step, how to stop this cycle, feel more energized, and involve yourself in pleasurable and fulfilling activities that will help you work through, rather than avoid, aspects of your life that are depressing you. Use the techniques in this book to evaluate your own depression and create a personalized treatment plan. You’ll enrich your total life experience by focusing your energy not on fighting depression, but on living the life you want.”
The Reality Slap by Russ Harris
“The ‘reality slap’ takes many different forms. Sometimes it is so violent it’s more like a punch: the death of a loved one, a serious illness, a major injury, a freak accident, a shocking crime, a disabled child, the loss of a job; bankruptcy, betrayal, fire, flood, divorce or disaster. Sometimes it’s a little gentler: envy, loneliness, resentment, failure, disappointment or rejection. But whatever form it takes, one thing’s for sure: it hurts! And most of us don’t deal with the pain very well. Within these pages, you will learn how to cope effectively when life hurts: not just how to survive, but how to thrive.”
Your Life on Purpose by Matthew McKay, John P Forsyth and Georg H Eifert
“So many of us postpone pursuing our goals and dreams because we think we’ll get to them later, when we have more time or feel we’re worthy of them. As a result, many of us go through life feeling weighed down by daily responsibilities and our own self-doubts, entirely disconnected from a sense of real purpose.
Based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and powerful mindfulness practices,Your Life on Purpose is about doing what matters to you every day instead of waiting for the perfect time to feel fulfilled and alive. With this book as your guide, you’ll learn to move past daily distractions, fear of failure, and self-judgment, and zero in on the passions that connect you with your true self. You deserve to live a life of purpose, aligned with your deepest values. It’s time.”
