Stop Overreacting: Effective Strategies for Calming Your Emotions

by Judith Siegel PhD, LCSW

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781572247239
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	07/01/2010
Series:	Unassigned Series
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	650,918
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Judith P. Siegel, PhD, LCSW, is associate professor at Silver School of Social Work at New York University. She has published extensively in the field of family therapy and has presented throughout the United States. She has also appeared on the Today Show and Good Morning America.

Editorial Reviews

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. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"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

From the Publisher