Build Your Resilience: CBT, mindfulness and stress management to survive and thrive in any situation

There are a number of self help books and programs designed to build and maintain resilience. Donald Robertson's 'Build Your Resilience' draws upon established resilience training programs but is perhaps the first to also offer a powerful toolkit of therapeutic techniques and strategies from ancient stoic philosophy right the way though to the cutting edge new wave cognitive behavioural therapies of acceptance and commitment and mindfulness meditation. If you think this sounds dry and overly academic think again.I found the book to be practical and action orientated. It starts with a thorough explanation of resilience then goes on to teach the reader how to build and maintain it.Early on in the book Robertson emphasises that resilience does not mean completely eliminating anxiety, stress, worry or any of the other common emotional problems that we all experience at some point in our lives. In fact struggling to control unpleasant thoughts and feelings can backfire. Most resilient people will experience strong emotions but cope well with them. Build your resilience will teach the rest of us how to accept unpleasant thoughts and strong emotions while moving on with healthy goals and personal values. The book also covers .. *Progressive and applied relaxation *Worry postponement *Problem-solving training *Assertiveness and social skills *Stoic philosophy and resilience. The book will appeal to the general reader as well as to therapists and coaches who may wish to recommend it to there clients. We all have some resilience or at least the potential for resilience. This book teaches the reader how to put that into practice. I highly recommend it. Michael Cohen author of Identifying,understanding and solutions to stress The power of accepting yourself

Excellent

Takes some getting through. Was recommended by a CBT therapist. I found it very helpful.Go back to it from time to time to review.

good content overall

If you are looking to help or coach someone, or are looking for ideas to improve your own response to challenges then I suggest you look elsewhere. There are very few do-able tasks in this book. The exercises, if they can be called that, are often just vague suggestions. They are not very well written either, so I found I often re-read paragraphs to try to understand what the author was saying. If, on the other hand you are looking for a more academic view on the psychology of personal values then this is the book for you. The first third of the book is all about personal values and discovering what you aspire to be and admire in others. Not much use if you are advising a friend, dealing with a job loss or divorce, or coping with relationship or work problems. The style is also a bit dry. There are some ideas in the book, but they are deeply hidden and I would suggest that its difficult style might make it less useful in a crisis. The book is slow and will almost certainly not help with coaching anyone through a crisis. By half way through I still could not work out what this book had to do with resilience since it was all about living ones life in accordance with core values. I really could not see a parent at their wits end turning to this book getting any use from that. Finally, core values are all great if one has the luxury of them. But most people are happy to make it through another day.