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The User's Guide to the Human Mind: Why Our Brains Make Us Unhappy, Anxious, and Neurotic and What We Can Do about It
Your mind is not built to make you happy; it’s built to help you survive. So far, it’s done a great job! But in the process, it may have developed some bad habits, like avoiding new experiences or scrounging around for problems where none exist. Is it any wonder that worry, bad moods, and self-critical thoughts so often get in the way of enjoying life? Based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), The User’s Guide to the Human Mind is a road map to the puzzling inner workings of the human mind, replete with exercises for overriding the mind’s natural impulses toward worry, self-criticism, and fear, and helpful tips for acting in the service of your values and emotional well-being—even when your mind has other plans. •Find out how your mind tries to limit your behavior and your potential
•Discover how pessimism functions as your mind’s error management system
•Learn why you shouldn’t believe everything you think
•Overrule your thoughts and feelings and take charge of your mind and your life
•Discover how pessimism functions as your mind’s error management system
•Learn why you shouldn’t believe everything you think
•Overrule your thoughts and feelings and take charge of your mind and your life
216 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
December 20, 2011
Shawn T. Smith's "The User's Guide to the Human Mind" delivers exactly what it promises: a guide to using your brain to work for you. It's very much a help to overcoming one's inner critic by employing a systematic method to understanding why our brains react the way they do to certain events, tendencies, and otherwise work against us in functional pursuits.
One of the things I like about this guide is that it does approach some of the human body's natural "fight or flight" tendencies and explains that some of the inner fears that people have serve a purpose - being more of a protective response rather than simply a negative emotional reaction that should be sequestered immediately. Instead of ignoring the signs, Smith suggests being able to embrace and release them in a healthy way, and provides quite a bit of citations to support his statements. Smith approaches it in a light, sometimes humored/off-beat way, though at the same time, I think there were parts of it where he somewhat makes the same point a little too often, even for the point of emphasis. The information in itself is good though, and I appreciated it on the whole.
I approached this work on two levels - looking at the scientific part to satisfy my inner science nerd (because I Have an interest in research regarding the brain and maintaining health and wellness, including psychological), and to see if I could put some of these methods into practice for myself as well as a general sense of helping others. The information is presented in a concise format that's easy to read and digest based on the headings and measures it covers. There's some technicality, followed up with concrete advice and examples through the work. It clarifies the dangers in "all-or-none" thinking, attributions that we may make based on our experiences, and how to check oneself when these issues arise.
The only other constructive note I would make about the guide is that while the text is easy to read and sectioned in bits that are easy to move through, I don't know if the organization is as easy to navigate as in other guides of this nature. In my ebook reference, it's easy to jump from one chapter to another by the hyperlinks just in case a person wants to review a particular section for reference, but I imagine it would be a little more difficult for someone using the print version. I think in retrospect, the sections could've been organized a bit better so that the reader could follow the progression more in a linear building exercise.
This was well worth the read and I would recommend it, even considering its caveats.
Overall: 3.5/5
Note: I received this as an ARC under NetGalley from the publisher New Harbinger Publications.
One of the things I like about this guide is that it does approach some of the human body's natural "fight or flight" tendencies and explains that some of the inner fears that people have serve a purpose - being more of a protective response rather than simply a negative emotional reaction that should be sequestered immediately. Instead of ignoring the signs, Smith suggests being able to embrace and release them in a healthy way, and provides quite a bit of citations to support his statements. Smith approaches it in a light, sometimes humored/off-beat way, though at the same time, I think there were parts of it where he somewhat makes the same point a little too often, even for the point of emphasis. The information in itself is good though, and I appreciated it on the whole.
I approached this work on two levels - looking at the scientific part to satisfy my inner science nerd (because I Have an interest in research regarding the brain and maintaining health and wellness, including psychological), and to see if I could put some of these methods into practice for myself as well as a general sense of helping others. The information is presented in a concise format that's easy to read and digest based on the headings and measures it covers. There's some technicality, followed up with concrete advice and examples through the work. It clarifies the dangers in "all-or-none" thinking, attributions that we may make based on our experiences, and how to check oneself when these issues arise.
The only other constructive note I would make about the guide is that while the text is easy to read and sectioned in bits that are easy to move through, I don't know if the organization is as easy to navigate as in other guides of this nature. In my ebook reference, it's easy to jump from one chapter to another by the hyperlinks just in case a person wants to review a particular section for reference, but I imagine it would be a little more difficult for someone using the print version. I think in retrospect, the sections could've been organized a bit better so that the reader could follow the progression more in a linear building exercise.
This was well worth the read and I would recommend it, even considering its caveats.
Overall: 3.5/5
Note: I received this as an ARC under NetGalley from the publisher New Harbinger Publications.
January 31, 2018
Definitely have to read this one!
December 27, 2011
This book is amazing! It is a clear, concise guide to why our minds work the way that they do. I was impressed with the humorous personal anecdotes, and I appreciated the exercises Dr. Smith gives to his readers to utilize our perfectly normal tendencies toward neuroses! It's difficult to find a psychology book that doesn't have a patronizing tone. The information in this book is funny and informative - I can't recommend it enough!
August 29, 2021
Took me 9 months to finish this well thought and well researched book (i’m a slow reader and have so little time so yep, 9 months for a 200+ page-book!!) this is good if you wanna know how our worry machines work 😅 and how to slightly disobey them for our own sanity.
Minus one star because there are parts that I can’t connect or relate to. 🤷🏽♀️
Minus one star because there are parts that I can’t connect or relate to. 🤷🏽♀️
August 12, 2015
قرأت النسخة العربية من الكتاب، الترجمة معقولة ولكن ليست ممتازة، كذلك اجد في الكتاب الكثير من التكرار وقلة الترابط في بعض الصفحات. يمكن للكاتب اختصاره في كتيب من 20 الى 50 صفحة. لمست ايضا بأن الكاتب غير متخصص ونفس الفكرة تعاد كل مرة ولكن باسلوب وكلمات مختلفة وكانها موضوع جديد.
May 18, 2021
I liked ‘The Tactical Guide To Women’ enough that I have recommended it to friends and wanted to read more of Shawn T Smith’s work. I found it had that quality of being useful both as a professional and in my personal life. This work was a refresher of everything I know about the mind and strategies for working with it. I like that it is written to be easily understood by non-clinicians and certainly not written to impress academics. The language is clear and easy to understand.
Smith is strongly influenced by the work of Steven Hayes (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), and I liked his explanation of ‘self as content’ and ‘self as context’. I can also see aspects of mindfulness and some psychodynamic approaches. He uses what we have learned from evolutionary psychology in a clear easy to understand manner, equating dog training with the psychology of how we can train our minds. Smith reminds use again to moderate our use of sugar, caffeine, and alcohol, whilst ensuring adequate sleep, exercise, and a balanced diet. These may seem like small things, but my experience of working with mental health for the past 25 years suggests if you can do the small things right, the big things follow. The old adage if you take care of the penny’s, the pounds take care of themselves.
I like his discussion of Pascal and the advantages of acting “as if” God exists. I am coming to faith through the “as if” concept. It is a suggestion to investigate the work of Pascal more. The concept of “as if” is obviously not new. Working with this concept over the past five year has been influential in my own ontology.
I chewed this book up in just over a week. It was a great reminder of simple strategies of living a good life and maintaining mental health. I have become fan boy over Shawn T Smith, next I will read The Woman’s Guide to How Men Think: Love, Commitment, and the Male Mind.
Smith is strongly influenced by the work of Steven Hayes (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), and I liked his explanation of ‘self as content’ and ‘self as context’. I can also see aspects of mindfulness and some psychodynamic approaches. He uses what we have learned from evolutionary psychology in a clear easy to understand manner, equating dog training with the psychology of how we can train our minds. Smith reminds use again to moderate our use of sugar, caffeine, and alcohol, whilst ensuring adequate sleep, exercise, and a balanced diet. These may seem like small things, but my experience of working with mental health for the past 25 years suggests if you can do the small things right, the big things follow. The old adage if you take care of the penny’s, the pounds take care of themselves.
I like his discussion of Pascal and the advantages of acting “as if” God exists. I am coming to faith through the “as if” concept. It is a suggestion to investigate the work of Pascal more. The concept of “as if” is obviously not new. Working with this concept over the past five year has been influential in my own ontology.
I chewed this book up in just over a week. It was a great reminder of simple strategies of living a good life and maintaining mental health. I have become fan boy over Shawn T Smith, next I will read The Woman’s Guide to How Men Think: Love, Commitment, and the Male Mind.
December 8, 2011
This is a very easy book with a lot of cognitive psychology to help people coping with their recurrent problem like anxiousness, self induced depression and stress coping. It gives easy tips and advices and, in the same time, help to understand better oneself.
THANKS TO NETGALLET AND NEW HARBINGER PUBBLICATIONS FOR THE PREVIEW
THANKS TO NETGALLET AND NEW HARBINGER PUBBLICATIONS FOR THE PREVIEW
December 17, 2016
لماذا عقولنا تقلق؟ لماذا ترغمنا عقولنا على فعل أشياء لا نريدها، كالإفراط في الاكل أو تذكر ذكريات سيئة؟ يحاول هذا الكتاب المجاوبة على هذا السؤال اعتمادا على نظرية العقل البدائي والعقل المنطقي. كتاب جميل جدا ينجح في تقديم طرق لعصيان رغبات العقول والتحكم بها.
August 13, 2017
This book is rather easy to read through. Maybe i have been reading similar kind of book recently that i found this book doesn't go deeper as I expected. It's more like general guideline for the beginners.
Overall, it says our unhappiness, anxiety are part of evolution, our reptile brain reacts very fast when we encounter whatever dangers, and it remembers the traumas so we could avoid same mistakes or damages. We could survive thanks to we got fear. When pessimistic mind takes over our brain, it slows us down to not do impulsive reactions, which is not bad if we don't allow it take fully control.
Our mammal brain is more rational, but if your left side of brain, which is in charge of languages, reason got damages, our right side of brain will take over, which is creative, impulsive somehow. People have OCD need to train themselves to do exercises of "delayed gratification", and this experiment has been seen in many books like The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life. Waiting and patience can be trained.
Last but important is about the food we eat, sugar and carbs are actually not very good for our brains (we keep saying our brains need sugar function, but that is not correct. ) Workout regularly and sleep enough like 7 hours per day are all the key to lead you have a healthier brain and mind.
Overall, it says our unhappiness, anxiety are part of evolution, our reptile brain reacts very fast when we encounter whatever dangers, and it remembers the traumas so we could avoid same mistakes or damages. We could survive thanks to we got fear. When pessimistic mind takes over our brain, it slows us down to not do impulsive reactions, which is not bad if we don't allow it take fully control.
Our mammal brain is more rational, but if your left side of brain, which is in charge of languages, reason got damages, our right side of brain will take over, which is creative, impulsive somehow. People have OCD need to train themselves to do exercises of "delayed gratification", and this experiment has been seen in many books like The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life. Waiting and patience can be trained.
Last but important is about the food we eat, sugar and carbs are actually not very good for our brains (we keep saying our brains need sugar function, but that is not correct. ) Workout regularly and sleep enough like 7 hours per day are all the key to lead you have a healthier brain and mind.
January 10, 2024
Your mind is concerned with your survival. Everything else is secondary, including your happiness.
That's the starting point for Shawn Smith's whirlwind CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) guide to why we think the way we think, even when those thoughts seem like self-sabotage.
Despite the self-help title, the book is filled with anecdotes drawn from clinical experience and backed by scores of references to scientific studies. The remaining half of the book consists of tips for recognizing the mind's biases, paranoias, and blind spots, and tactics for putting them to better use. This is one I'll return to... regularly.
That's the starting point for Shawn Smith's whirlwind CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) guide to why we think the way we think, even when those thoughts seem like self-sabotage.
Despite the self-help title, the book is filled with anecdotes drawn from clinical experience and backed by scores of references to scientific studies. The remaining half of the book consists of tips for recognizing the mind's biases, paranoias, and blind spots, and tactics for putting them to better use. This is one I'll return to... regularly.
January 4, 2018
مقدمة رائعة لغير المتخصصين في علم النفس، للتعرف على طرق التفكير الواعية وغير الواعية للعقل البشري، بطريقة عملية بعيدة عن التنمية البشرية.
يبدأ الكتاب شيقًا في فصوله الأولى، لكنه يفقد تشويقه بمرور الوقت، ويكرر كثيرً من الأفكار والجمل بشكل ممل ، حتى يصبح الوصول لآخر صفحاته عبئا كبيرا، ولكنه رغم ذلك يستحق القراءة.
يبدأ الكتاب شيقًا في فصوله الأولى، لكنه يفقد تشويقه بمرور الوقت، ويكرر كثيرً من الأفكار والجمل بشكل ممل ، حتى يصبح الوصول لآخر صفحاته عبئا كبيرا، ولكنه رغم ذلك يستحق القراءة.
April 18, 2018
This book fixing me inside i'm so thankful
I read it when i was young maybe 14 or 15
It just help me to be confident because I was shy and broking it just made proud of myself and change me 100% 👌🏻
I read it when i was young maybe 14 or 15
It just help me to be confident because I was shy and broking it just made proud of myself and change me 100% 👌🏻
June 19, 2022
Pretty interesting insights into a (my) human mind.
There are some exercises you should do to self improve your perception of yourself and your environment.
There are some exercises you should do to self improve your perception of yourself and your environment.
September 22, 2022
very repetitive.
March 1, 2017
I was interested in the relationship between ACT and the modern secular mindfulness movement, and decided to pick up this book. It was well worth it. Shawn's playful style made reading very enjoyable.
April 23, 2013
“The User’s Guide to the Human Mind” Book Review
The User’s Guide to the Human Mind is a book about the human mind and why it does the things it does. Such as make us anxious, unhappy, depressed, and many other things. It was written by Shawn T. Smith PsyD, who is a psychologist in the Denver area. The book covers areas of the brain that give people feelings or thoughts like optimism, pessimism, anxiety, and much more. Shawn T. Smith describes our brains in two different areas. Our primitive mind, which is where survival instincts come from, and the higher, more rational mind which is where people get their thoughts that almost go against our primitive minds. In addition to that, the book is sort of a self help piece of literature. When i started reading this, it made me feel sort of weird because I was reading a self help book. But once you get into the book, you start to realize that although it is a self help book, it also is a big eye opener. The text is filled with thought provoking activities, self reflection activities etc. It is really full of amazing facts and it makes you make connections back to yourself referring to psychology and your brain on every page.
Even though it is a good read, it can sometimes be repetitive and easy to follow. Being a self help book though, I can see that the author may have wanted to be repetitive to drill thoughts into peoples heads who were actually reading the book for self improvement. If you are not completely tuned into the book itself, you can find yourself drifting into La La Land while reading it. Or at least i did sometimes.
There may seem like there is not a theme to the book, but there is actually a pretty deep, underlying theme to the book. The theme is that you may think you are crazy or abnormal because your mind is giving you depression or anxiety, but it happens to everyone because that it what the human mind is programmed to do and you are completely normal. I think the theme of the book gives people who are reading it for help reassurance that they are going to be ok and that what their minds are doing is normal. People who are interested in psychology and the human mind should most definitely read this book. I would recommend this book to high school level readers and up as it has extensive vocabulary use and is sometimes hard to follow. Overall, I would rate this book a 7 out of 10 because it is sometimes hard to follow and may not be interesting to some audiences. Despite that it was a good piece of literature.
The User’s Guide to the Human Mind is a book about the human mind and why it does the things it does. Such as make us anxious, unhappy, depressed, and many other things. It was written by Shawn T. Smith PsyD, who is a psychologist in the Denver area. The book covers areas of the brain that give people feelings or thoughts like optimism, pessimism, anxiety, and much more. Shawn T. Smith describes our brains in two different areas. Our primitive mind, which is where survival instincts come from, and the higher, more rational mind which is where people get their thoughts that almost go against our primitive minds. In addition to that, the book is sort of a self help piece of literature. When i started reading this, it made me feel sort of weird because I was reading a self help book. But once you get into the book, you start to realize that although it is a self help book, it also is a big eye opener. The text is filled with thought provoking activities, self reflection activities etc. It is really full of amazing facts and it makes you make connections back to yourself referring to psychology and your brain on every page.
Even though it is a good read, it can sometimes be repetitive and easy to follow. Being a self help book though, I can see that the author may have wanted to be repetitive to drill thoughts into peoples heads who were actually reading the book for self improvement. If you are not completely tuned into the book itself, you can find yourself drifting into La La Land while reading it. Or at least i did sometimes.
There may seem like there is not a theme to the book, but there is actually a pretty deep, underlying theme to the book. The theme is that you may think you are crazy or abnormal because your mind is giving you depression or anxiety, but it happens to everyone because that it what the human mind is programmed to do and you are completely normal. I think the theme of the book gives people who are reading it for help reassurance that they are going to be ok and that what their minds are doing is normal. People who are interested in psychology and the human mind should most definitely read this book. I would recommend this book to high school level readers and up as it has extensive vocabulary use and is sometimes hard to follow. Overall, I would rate this book a 7 out of 10 because it is sometimes hard to follow and may not be interesting to some audiences. Despite that it was a good piece of literature.
February 16, 2017
Average book
Has many benefits and important knowledge but without real solutions for our problems.
The writing style is a little bit boring.
Has many benefits and important knowledge but without real solutions for our problems.
The writing style is a little bit boring.
February 13, 2012
The User's Guide to the Human Mind is a wonderful book to get the insight of why the brain reacts the way it does. We expect ourselves to be civilized since the time we considered our ancestors as barbarian and primitive. After so many millenium, our brains have not move forward. It is still functioning in a primitive mode of trying to protect us. Our past environment was hostile to us at the most and our brains did the best it could.
This book identify why we act the way we do and it provides exercise to overcome our thinking. The author is correct that the more we fight our minds, the worst it becomes. God knows we all have days like those. It is like fighting an experience debater who know all the inexperience competitor's push-button.
Our minds do not operate on trying to be happy or rational. It has just one purpose and that is to protect us. All we can do is try to learn how to keep our minds from reaching our goals. The best thing to do is to do the exercises in the books and monitor our behaviors and then figure what to do when our minds put us in those situations.
This book identify why we act the way we do and it provides exercise to overcome our thinking. The author is correct that the more we fight our minds, the worst it becomes. God knows we all have days like those. It is like fighting an experience debater who know all the inexperience competitor's push-button.
Our minds do not operate on trying to be happy or rational. It has just one purpose and that is to protect us. All we can do is try to learn how to keep our minds from reaching our goals. The best thing to do is to do the exercises in the books and monitor our behaviors and then figure what to do when our minds put us in those situations.
May 21, 2012
Dr. Shawn Smith does an amazing job of communicating the experience so many people struggle with, our relationship with our mind. Shawn takes a very complicated concept and communicates it simply, meaningfully and with humor. His approach throughout the book is engaging, thought provoking, and powerful. The book provides tangible tools and resources to assist in evaluating your current life challenges from a refreshing and alternative perspective while also providing you with a road map to create a meaningful and fulfilling life. As a clinical psychologist, I plan to encourage those I work with to utilize this valuable resource. I have already recommended this book to both friends and family. It's a MUST READ!!
May 26, 2012
စိတ္က အျမဲတမ္းကြ်န္ေတာ္တို ့ကို စိုးရိမ္ျပီး ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ေနပံု Survival လုပ္ဖို ့အတြက္စိုးရိမ္ျခင္းဆိုတာ ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို ့စိတ္ထဲမွာအျမဲတမ္းရွိေနပံု ဒါေၾကာင့္တစ္ခါတစ္ရံ လုပ္သင့္တယ့္အလုပ္ေတြကိုေတာင္ စိတ္ရဲ ့စိုးရိမ္ပူပန္မွုကမလုပ္ႏိုင္ေအာင္လိုက္တားဆီးတတ္ပံု စိတ္ကစိုးရိမ္တဲ့အရာကိုရပ္ေအာင္အတင္းလုပ္ရင္ ပိုဆိုးလာတတ္ပံု စိတ္ကစိုးရိမ္တာကို လက္ခံျပီး
ဒါစိတ္ရဲ ့လုပ္ငန္းေဆာင္တာကိုစိတ္ကေဆာင္ရြက္ေနတာပဲလို ့နားလည္ေပးလိုက္ရင္စိုးရိမ္မွုတို ့ေလွ်ာ့က်သြားပံု
အျမဲတမ္းစိုးရိမ္ေနတဲ့စိတ္ကို ကိုယ့္ကိုအရမ္းဂရုစိုက္တဲ့ အကိုၾကီးတစ္ေယာက္လိုနားလည္ေပးသင့္သည္ အစရွိသည္ျဖင့္စံုစံုလင္လင္ေရးထားတဲ့ ဒီစာအုပ္ေလးဟာ ေတာ္ေတာ္ေလးအသံုး၀င္ပါတယ္။
ဒါစိတ္ရဲ ့လုပ္ငန္းေဆာင္တာကိုစိတ္ကေဆာင္ရြက္ေနတာပဲလို ့နားလည္ေပးလိုက္ရင္စိုးရိမ္မွုတို ့ေလွ်ာ့က်သြားပံု
အျမဲတမ္းစိုးရိမ္ေနတဲ့စိတ္ကို ကိုယ့္ကိုအရမ္းဂရုစိုက္တဲ့ အကိုၾကီးတစ္ေယာက္လိုနားလည္ေပးသင့္သည္ အစရွိသည္ျဖင့္စံုစံုလင္လင္ေရးထားတဲ့ ဒီစာအုပ္ေလးဟာ ေတာ္ေတာ္ေလးအသံုး၀င္ပါတယ္။
December 21, 2013
If there has ever been a rational thought. Mr. Prefrontal cortex why must you judge me, and make life so tough on me, I just want to live my life happy, completely ignoring why I'm not happy. I love this book. I advocate heavily that all high school students should be required before graduating. I would have at least some steps ahead of getting past my emotional drama. Simply put our thoughts can sometimes be very irrational at times. Poor likable Luke will do anything to be liked, just like some people anything for attention. This book is a great tool, anxiety is to stress, like sadness is to depression, all chronic conditions that can be helped. With so love, knowledge and understanding.
October 3, 2021
استفدت منه في معرفة مصطلح التشاؤم الدفاعي
February 11, 2012
The book was a good read. It reminded me a lot of some of NLP concepts in terms of dealing with the mind.
It's full of research based information which made it very interesting. I found the exercises a bit boring which I skipped.
The survival instinct didn't convince me much, since the mind is intelligent I believe there should be another explanation to why the mind acts the way it is.
I liked the mood chapter (chapter 4) which is in my opinion an eye opener to me.
I recommend the book to those who are fascinated with how the mind works and how to deal with thoughts.
It's full of research based information which made it very interesting. I found the exercises a bit boring which I skipped.
The survival instinct didn't convince me much, since the mind is intelligent I believe there should be another explanation to why the mind acts the way it is.
I liked the mood chapter (chapter 4) which is in my opinion an eye opener to me.
I recommend the book to those who are fascinated with how the mind works and how to deal with thoughts.
April 14, 2012
"The User's Guide to the Human Mind” is very informative and easy to follow. The book has a nice flow with good examples and gives detailed explanation of how the mind tries to help us or protect us. Great insight is given in the way our mind works. There are exercises detailed in the book and when done are useful for understanding and awareness.
The book is very informative and enjoyable to read, I would recommend it.
The book is very informative and enjoyable to read, I would recommend it.
November 11, 2012
Want to make your mind work for you? Read this book. Well written with excellent examples, and a fun read while learning about yourself, and the world around you. Well referenced, and intriguing for the reader.
This book opens up new possibilities in thinking, and behaving. Excellent for the professional or layperson in psychology or related fields. Also great for self help!
Thanks for the entertaining and interesting read!
This book opens up new possibilities in thinking, and behaving. Excellent for the professional or layperson in psychology or related fields. Also great for self help!
Thanks for the entertaining and interesting read!
October 22, 2013
The User's Guide to the Human Mind blends research, personal experience, and patient testimony to shed new light on the basis behind anxiety and depression. Shawn T. Smith, a psychologist in private practice, takes the explanation a step further by offering practical solutions to managing troubling psychological and emotional symptoms. For anyone dealing with, or who has ever experienced neurotic behavior, the book will aid understanding. More importantly, it will facilitate recovery.
September 9, 2016
The books main premise is that we can consciously observe the activities of the mind, and in doing this, we can reduce it's ability to respond in ways that are not in our best interests. It's a bit like shining a light on something that was scaring us only to find that it was harmless. I've been trying the exercises in the book and they seem quite effective so far.
May 11, 2014
A really interesting book on the relationship between anxiety and depression, with practical skills for anyone with anxiety. Its written in a relateble and easy-to-read way, while also providing interesting and important insight into how the mind works.
December 8, 2012
A useful and thoughtfully written guide to the way we develop thought processes and memories with usable ideas for making changes.
March 15, 2012
I enjoyed Shawn T. Smith's perspective on how our brains work. The descriptions were written for the average reader. I definitely learned some strategies that I will use personally.
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