Managing Your Mind: The Mental Fitness Guide / Edition 2

by Tony Hope, Gillian Butler

Overview

Originally published in 1995, the first edition of Managing Your Mind established a unique place in the self-help book market. A blend of tried-and-true psychological counseling and no-nonsense management advice grounded in the principles of CBTand other psychological treatments, the book straddled two types of self-help literature, arguing that in one's personal and professional life, the way to success is the same. By adopting the practical strategies that mental health experts Butler and Hope have developed over years of clinical research and practice, one can develop the "mental fitness" necessary to resolve one's personal and interpersonal challenges at home and work and to live a productive, satisfying life. The first edition addressed how to develop key skills to mental fitness (e.g., managing one's time better, facing and solving problems better, keeping things in perspective, learning to relax, etc.), how to improve one's relationships, how to beat anxiety and depression, and how to establish a good mind-body balance. For this new edition, Butler and Hope have updated all preexisting material and have added five new chapters-on sexuality and intimate relationships; anger in relationships; recent traumatic events and their aftermath; loss and bereavement; and dealing with the past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195314526
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	03/28/2007
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	544
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Gillian Butler, Ph.D., is Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Warneford Hospital, Headington, Oxford, and is a researcher in the University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry. She is married with two grown children.
Tony Hope, M.D., a clinical psychiatrist, is leader of the Oxford Practice Skills Project at the University of Oxford and co-author, with J.M. Longmore, of The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine. He is married to a physician and they have two young children.

Table of Contents

Preface     v
Introduction     1
What to Expect from This Guide     3
The Scientific Background     8
Two Principles Underlying Mental Fitness     13
Valuing Yourself     15
Recognizing That You Can Change     20
The Seven Basic Skills     29
Managing Yourself and Your Time     31
Facing the Problem     45
Treating Yourself Right     52
Problem-Solving: A Strategy for Change     61
Keeping Things in Perspective: Help from Cognitive Therapy     71
Building Self-Confidence and Self-Esteem     89
Learning How to Relax     104
How to Improve Your Relationships     117
The Importance of Relationships     119
The First Key to Good Relationships: Be Fair to Yourself and to Others     127
The Second Key to Good Relationships: Recognizing Voices from the Past     144
The Third Key to Good Relationships: Relationships as Systems     158
Anger in Relationships     170
Sexuality and Intimate Relationships     190
The Twin Enemies of Good Mood     215
Anxiety
Getting the Better of Anxiety and Worry, or Defeating the Alarmist     217
Overcoming Fears and Phobias     235
Stress: How to Live with the Right Amount of It     254
Dealing with Panic: Controlling the Alarm System     270
Depression
Depression-The Common Cold of the Mind     283
Digging Yourself Out of Depression     294
How to Become Less Vulnerable to Depression     315
Traumatic Experience     323
Loss and Bereavement     325
Dealing with the Past     342
Recent Traumatic Events and Their Aftermath     367
Mind and Body     387
Breaking Habits and Stopping Smoking     389
Averting Problems with Alcohol     406
Overcoming Sleep Problems     423
Good Eating Habits     434
The Working Mind     447
The Fundamentals of Effective Study     449
Key Study Skills: Reading, Taking Notes, and Using the Material     457
How to Improve Your Memory: Part 1: The Palest Ink and Other External Memory Aids     470
How to Improve Your Memory: Part 2: Internal Memory Aids     477
Making Decisions     492
Thinking Straight     502
Notes     513
Further Reading     515
Index     519

Editorial Reviews

Self-help and personal betterment tomes are often so earnest and so zealous to help everybody have a perfect life that they are off-putting to readers who merely want some advice. Butler and Hope's low-key compendium of mental self-help is refreshingly free of such obsessiveness. Bright, readable, and insightful, it offers modest goals that are bracingly achievable by means of "skills, understanding, and strategies to suit your circumstances and inclinations." This may sound foggy or indefinite, but it is positively precise and reasonable for works in this genre. Butler and Hope present problems in broad contexts, indicated by such chapter titles as "Treating Yourself Right," "Good Eating Habits," and "Making Decisions." Then, drawing on their clinical experience, they dissect and illuminate specific complaints and offer simple advice. Consider the resulting wide-ranging adviser a fitness book for the mind, rather like a Kathy Smith workout video for the sexiest, rather than the bounciest, part of your body.

Mike Tribby

"Offers modest goals that are bracingly achievable....Consider the resulting wide-ranging adviser a fitness book for the mind, rather like a Kathy Smith workout video for the sexiest, rather than the bounciest, part of your body."—Booklist

"A well-written, thoughtful guide."—Library Journal

From the Publisher