I got a digital galley of the book via NetGalley and loved the book. As someone who has been struggling with depression for a long time, I can say with confidence that this is a book that did help me understand how depression works and how to keep the same at bay. The biggest take away is for me to start working on my values and the importance of journalling.

If you are or know someone who is struggling with depression, this book is highly recommended.

I’ve recently read The ACT Workbook for Depression & Shame by Matthew McKay, PhD, Michael Jason Greenberg, PsyD, & Patrick Fanning. This is quite a weighty book in scope & subject matter, so it’s not an easy read. It’s a helpful read & workbook for people who are ready to dig deep into themselves and work to better understand how they work & the influences they’re feeling. I’m a fan of workbooks because the active nature of going through them and I think this one could be very helpful for the right person.

Thank you to NetGalley for the complimentary copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

This is an interesting resource for people suffering from depression. I've had depression most of my life, and have read a lot of books on the subject, but I was still able to get something out of this book. I like the idea of a workbook for helping the reader work on their feelings.

Definitely a helpful resource for those looking to work through their shame and depression. It offers excellent advice and exercises to help the reader along on their journey. Triggers, coping skills, etc.

The ACT Workbook for Depression and Shame by Matthew McKay is a non-fiction book written to help the reader work through their depression and shame using an interactive workbook. This book is based on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) which uses mindfulness techniques to separate yourself as a person from your thoughts. The book also helps the reader identify their values to create values-based behaviors that are healthy to combat feelings of defectiveness. The reader will first take a questionnaire at the beginning. The book provides a plethora of examples and anecdotes of patients which are helpful the reader. Each chapter provides background information that is well-written and research-based with citations. Following material, there are questions and other exercises to reflect upon the background information provided with examples of how to use it. This is a good book for someone that is new to these types of books and is facing specifically depression and shame. The author has written other books for anxiety, OCD, etc so if you have those diagnoses you will be better served by the other workbooks. I recommend this book for anyone that enjoys having exercises and is willing to actually fully participate in the exercises.

Many thanks to the publisher New Harbinger Publications, Inc. and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

This is a great book for those seeking advice and techniques to monitor their mental health and help themselves.
The book also features helpful exercises, lists, and worksheets for coping behaviors, coping skills, emotional responses, triggers, self-assessment etc. that can be used by both counselors with their patients and people who don't feel comfortable going to therapy or are not able to.
I enjoyed reading about the concept of creative hopelessness, acceptance and mindfulness too.

The ACT Workbook for Depression & Shame is written by psychologists Matthew W. McKay, Michael Jason Greenberg, and Patrick J. Fanning. It’s based on acceptance and commitment therapy and focused on addressing the defectiveness schema in depression.

The book begins and ends with a series of several self-assessment questionnaires to let you see how much progress you’ve made while working through the book.

Quite a few worksheets are included in the book. These are simply laid out, and clear examples are provided. The example scenarios included in the text were relatively lengthy; I would have preferred it if they were a bit shorter.

A key concept mentioned throughout the book was defensive coping behaviours. These behaviours served a purpose at the time, but continue even after they’re no longer helpful. The book notes that they often fall within the categories of overcompensation, surrender, and avoidance. It explains that “When you follow the urge to engage in the DCB, you reduce your pain in the moment, but this ensures that your defectiveness remains unchallenged.”

One of the strategies the authors suggest is “creative hopelessness,” which means recognizing that what you’re doing isn’t working, so it’s time to come up with something new.

There’s a chapter on mindfulness that ties into defense coping behaviours, including work on identifying the moments when you choose to use a defensive coping behaviour. There’s also a chapter on values, and defensive coping behaviours are framed as taking you away from your values. Other topics covered included cognitive defusion, avoidance, self-compassion, and relapse planning.

I felt an immediate sense of pushback to this bit:

“You became depressed because your life evolved into being about avoiding shame and defectiveness feelings. You became less and less the person you wanted to be as you engaged in more avoidance and more DCBs. There is the basic choice in life: doing what matters, doing what you care about, or having your days focused on trying to escape pain.”

I could rant, but I’ll skip that. Other than that, though, there wasn’t anything else that was cringe-inducing for me.

Given that I’m a fan of ACT, and I was really impressed by Matthew McKay’s other book, the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, I had high expectations for this book. In the end, for me, it didn’t live up to those expectations. The book isn’t terrible by any means; it just wasn’t a standout for me.



I received a reviewer copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

I think that anyone who suffers from depression, should read this book. It has many exercises and it talks about coping skills. I can see myself going through this book again so I can work on the exercises. The kindle version is a little harder than the actual book, because you don't have a place to write or keep track of your answers. You have to write them down instead. I don't have any complaints about this book, and I thank netgalley for letting me read this in exchange for an honest review.

Highly recommend this book for therapists working with clients that struggle with depression and shame. Tons of scales, exercises, questionnaires that can be used with clients.

Though I have never really struggled with depression, I have struggled with the shame of not feeling like enough, which lead me to perfectionist and high achiever tendencies, which I finally overcame some years ago. But memories from past trauma still haunt me from time to time, causing distress and anxiety to arise on occasion, so I picked up this book.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a powerful tool to overcome shame, depression and trauma. I can’t give this book anything less than five stars because it is practical, useful, comprehensive, well written and expertly formatted for the practitioner or the person looking for progressive healing. The worksheets are helpful and constructive tools to help you recognize a schema that leads to your distress.

If you are ready to accept negative stimuli and mindfully defuse your reaction to them, or if you work with clients who need this process facilitated for them, I would highly recommend this book to you.