(A big thank you to NetGalley for supplying a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!)

Like many writers, I consider myself to be an emotional person. In certain ways, I’m grateful for this personality trait. For instance, I like to think my emotional self finds joy in the smaller things in life. Like the existence of mint-chocolate chip ice cream or standing in a surprisingly short line at the DMV. It also allows me to experience a range of emotions that makes life more “colorful.” You know, emotions like crippling embarrassment, debilitating depression, etc. (Kidding. Sort of.) But I also get to experience incredible happiness, contentment, peace, and joy from merely existing.

That being said, I do sometimes allow myself to let emotions dictate my actions to a negative degree. And so, I downloaded this workbook to see if it could shed some light on my thought processes.
It's important to note that this book isn’t so much a straightforward self-help book as it is a workbook, which means you’ll likely not need (or want) to read it straight through. Some sections may apply to you while many may not.

After a short introduction, you’re encouraged to complete a self-assessment that serves to identify any coping mechanisms that you struggle with. The assessment is easy. Just assign a numerical value that reflects your level of agreement with several statements.

Once you’ve calculated your score for each section of the assessment, you’ll pick the top two or three coping mechanisms you’re lacking. My main three trouble areas are:
• Passion (learning how to switch from emotion-driven behavior to value-driven behavior)
• Clarity (learning how to think flexibly instead of negatively)
• Serenity (learning how to balance my thinking instead of ruminating on negative thoughts)

Each subsequent chapter focuses on a different coping mechanism. Structured in the same format, each chapter begins with a general description of the coping mechanism and what it looks like when you struggle with using it. The bulk of each chapter is devoted to introducing a range of action steps you can take to shift your behavior. Drawing from a range of mindfulness techniques, the authors offer several simple steps you can take to improve your response to stressful situations.

For example, in Chapter 3, the reader is encouraged to visualize their ideal behavior in a situation that would typically result in their shutting down or lashing out in anger. This visualization strategy is intended to help the reader develop a plan to combat stressors.

Similarly, Chapter 7 (which focuses on shifting away from over-the-top negative thinking), the authors propose alternatives to falling into thought patterns that center around catastrophes or assuming another person is thinking the worst about you. Instead, the reader is encouraged to think realistically, asking themselves questions like: How likely is it that this negative event will occur? Additionally, the reader is prompted to assign a percentage to the situation, reflecting its likelihood of actually occurring.

Similarly, when I’m worried someone may perceive me negatively, I can create a list of other reactions the person could be having instead. The technique doesn’t rule out a negative thought, but it does offer alternatives.

This workbook succeeded in doing just what it set out to do: make your daily life a little less painful, at least mentally. I definitely give this book the green light for anyone interested in learning practical tips for worrying less and feeling less of a mental toll.

I'm a therapist when I'm not busy reading and reviewing. I like to read my books that are worth recommending to clients and others who may benefit.

I particularly liked the assessment tool it was very accurate although the math element of the scoring was unusual.

This is a great book for pinpointing your coping skills whether good or needing work and helps you to discover new more helpful ways of coping.

Highly recommend this to both clinicans and clients who are working on coping skills.

I received an arc of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Healing Emotional Pain Workbook is a workbook that focuses on teaching coping mechanisms that can be used to treat disorders. The book begins with a self-assessment in regard to negative coping behaviors. A blend of different treatment methodologies including: CBT, DBT, and ACT are used. It addresses 11 different negative coping mechanisms and provides strategies on how to fix them. This is a step by step guide that can be used over and over again. I highly recommend this book. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

I will strongly recommend this book for anyone that is suffering from emotional pain or emotional trauma. Also this workbook helped me recognize my emotions and how to work through them.

“Healing Emotional Pain Workbook: Process-Based CBT Tools for Moving Beyond Sadness, Fear, Worry, and Shame to Discover Peace and Resilience” is a type of book that I would’ve preferred having a physical copy over an ebook version. I found it a bit difficult because it was kind of glitchy. This is something that you can skip around if you want. Read what you want and leave the rest. What’s nice is that digital worksheets/downloads are included to follow along, and you don’t have to mark in the book if you don’t want to. You can do the activities as many times as you wish. I enjoyed “Healing Emotional Pain Workbook: Process-Based CBT Tools for Moving Beyond Sadness, Fear, Worry, and Shame to Discover Peace and Resilience” overall. It was helpful because it is both informational and activity-based. You get what you want out of it. As long as you put in the work, it can help you.

The Healing Emotional Pain Workbook by Matthew McKay, Patrick Fanning, Erica Pool, and Patricia E. Zurita Ono uses process-based cognitive behavioural therapy to address the eleven negative coping mechanisms that are most responsible for emotional disorders. Process-based CBT focuses on coping mechanisms that may be used regardless of diagnosis rather than focusing on treating specific disorders. As such, this book could be used for people with a variety of mental illnesses or elements of mental distress without having a particular diagnosis.

The book covers these ineffective coping mechanisms and change processes:
-Engagement: from behavioural avoidance to action
-Courage: from safety-seeking to a sense of inner safety
-Passion: from emotion-driven behaviour to values-driven choices
-Resilience: from distress intolerance to pain acceptance
-Openness: from emotion avoidance to emotion acceptance
-Peace: from thought avoidance to thought acceptance
-Clarity: from cognitive misappraisal to flexible thinking
-Self-esteem: from self-blame to self-compassion
-Patience: from blaming others to compassion
-Serenity: from worry and rumination to balanced thinking

The book begins with a test called the Comprehensive Coping Inventory-55 to help readers determine which areas they need to focus on. There are five questions for each coping mechanism, and they’re scored based on the frequency with which they’re used.

Each chapter begins with processes that will help to reduce the use of the ineffective coping mechanism, and then moves on to processes that can help to increase the use of the more effective coping mechanism. While CBT is the main therapeutic approach used in this book, it also draws on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) concepts, like cognitive defusion and using values to guide actions, and dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) concepts, like the opposite action skill and distress tolerance skills.

The chapter on courage identified common safety behaviours, like distraction, procrastination, overpreparation, reassurance-seeking, checking, and escape/avoidance, which provide temporary relief but actually reinforce anxiety in the longer term. Exposure and response prevention is described as a way to reduce the use of these safety behaviours, and values are used to guide exposure choices.

The chapter on moving from worry and rumination to balanced thinking used acceptance and commitment strategies like the thoughts as leaves on a stream metaphor and repeating the word milk until it loses its meaning and just becomes a jumble of sounds. Processes to promote balanced thinking include mindfulness meditation, being aware of the five senses, and being mindful of the present moment in everyday life.

Finally, there’s a chapter on relapse prevention that guides readers through identifying warning signs, including red flag emotions, and high-risk situations.

While you may find that all of the chapters are relevant to you, the authors explain that you should begin by focusing on the areas where you have the highest scores on the Comprehensive Coping Inventory. I liked the blend of ACT, CBT, and DBT, and there’s plenty of space to go through worksheets (plus more downloadable worksheets available from the publisher’s website). Each chapter has a number of specific processes for you to work on over time, and I think this book would be a good fit if you’re looking for fairly specific guidance as to if you do [x], you should do [y] and [z]. There are some descriptions of why things work, but the emphasis is on the processes rather than on theory.

Overall, this book didn’t strongly grab me, but I still thought it was pretty well done. If a few of these problematic coping mechanisms sound pretty familiar to you and you recognize they need work, this book could be a really good choice for you.


I received a reviewer copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

5 stars. Highly recommend to anyone trying to heal from emotional pain.

Healing Emotional Pain Workbook is a step-by-step guide to understanding your emotions and enhancing your overall well-being. That is how this workbook is described, and it's entirely accurate. First, you start with a test to see where you are, and then you can move forward into the explanation of those areas with great tools of how to process those specific areas step by step by listing them and/or rating them, and even in the explanations, they go back and expand on the original lists and/or rating systems of how they would do it. There are enough examples for each area that you are not left wondering if you are doing it right. While I read the book quickly, I can see this being a tool that people can use for much longer periods of time as it has you really take the time to reflect and think about where you are and how to move forward. The only negative I have is that in the book, there are several references to a webpage for the test and other printable tools, and the webpage does not work. Even searching the site, you cannot find these items by name. Otherwise, I highly recommend this as it is very thorough and detailed in creating an awareness, moving toward an actionable plan, and how to walk it out, as well as how to create change to move in a new and healing direction. Very well done.
*I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This review is my own opinion*

As a clinician working with folks with profound emotional pain, I found this workbook to be insightful, challenging, and a beautiful catalyst for inward change. I will be surely be recommending this workbook to my clients.

This is an incredible workbook. It has a minimal but very informative opening section about emotional pain and goes right into worksheets and formulas on how to work on these issues that you may be dealing with. I've found that most self help books/workbooks spend a lot of time explaining the problems you may be dealing with and giving a small amount of work to do, but this is a real workbook with prompts and pages to fill out to give you a hands on approach. I found this workbook is essentially therapy in a book to help without seeing a professional, which should not be done on its own but alongside of outside help.

I have always been wary of CBT because I’ve had some not great experiences with it in therapy. That being said, I enjoyed reading through this book and found the exercises useful. Although I don’t think CBT is the best strategy for me, personally- I thought that being able to work through the exercises myself was a lot less stressful and more motivating than when I had done it before. It felt like the stakes were lower and therefore I didn’t feel so much anxiety about it. I definitely felt like I got something out of this and I will definitely revisit the ARC copy i have while I still have access to it! It’s definitely something I am interested in purchasing after the pub date as well. I find that workbook style self help books are always the most useful and this definitely fits the bill. Definitely recommend!

This a self-help workbook, which will be published in this April. At the beginning of the book we have a description of what it is for and an explanation of how to use it. Personally, I would buy it on paper in time, because there are a lot of exercises inside that can be filled in directly.

From the very first pages, the reader takes a test to determine which areas are most needed to work on. The book has a link to a site where you can take this test, and there you will automatically calculate the results. I admit that I was lazy and clicked the link, but fate had decided not to encourage my laziness and the link did not work. So, long story short, I had to count the points myself.

The manual emphasizes eleven negative emotions (as well as the sections of the test), which you can replace with positive ones. It was clarified at the beginning that it is not necessary to work on all at once. Not even recommended. The authors encourage starting with up to three emotions, working with them for a few weeks, and then moving on to the rest. After the test, the emotions with the highest number are the ones to start with. I was not surprised that my anxiety comes first, as well as the fact that I have been reacting quite impulsively to various situations lately. However, I have taken a look at the other chapters and will start working on the most urgent for the moment. I will share in time how the exercises affect me and whether the tool had the desired effect on me.