Product Description

Most people know what it is like to experience high or low spirits. For some individuals, however, emotional extremes can seriously disrupt their lives, either because they happen too frequently or because the mood swings are intense and are accompanied by other symptoms of depression or mania. This book is a self-help manual for those who have experienced mood swings and gives background information on depression and mania. The author uses tried and tested practical techniques that will help people identify and manage their mood more effectively, and achieve a more stable emotional state. It contains a complete self-help programme and monitoring sheets.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #113608 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 247 pages

About the Author
Professor Jan Scott is an internationally known expert in the use of cognitive therapy in the treatment of depression. She is a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the International Association of Cognitive Psychotherapists and is a trustee of the Mental Health Foundation. She is currently head of the Psychiatry Department at the Gartnavel Royal Hospital in Glasgow.

Customer Reviews

Didn't work for me - more report than guide, sadly flawed.
This book is an extended essay sketching out how to be your own CBT therapist- with considerable flaws. Very interesting, I know a lot more about CBT and Bipolar disorder than i did, with lots to think about and what looked like good advice, but very difficult to make any use of it because being too academic it manages to fall foul of and exacerbate rather than work around problems that are classic features of mood disorder. As a self-help book it's pants.

There's not enough support here- you have to be academically-gifted, focused, balanced, in control and emotionally literate enough to whizz through and select useful and appropriate information and techniques, form an action plan and think about and work on quite complicated exercises by yourself without getting bogged down, when you are in fact likely to not be concentrating very well, over-thinking, distractable and easily over-whelmed and/or turned into a dogged stress-ball and end up either feeling awful because you can't draw up a very good life chart/mood chart/schedule or sort of god like with the agitated intellectualising and wide-angle, long term perspective - or both. Very difficult - I failed miserably, got into quite a state many times with this book. The information is also weak in relation to mixed states, rapid cycling and other conditions which involve mood swings and intense disruptive moods.

By the title, and from what i knew about CBT, I expected a 'guided' simple yet comprehensive, practical user-friendly presentation. I needed a guide that drew out of me the relevant information for understanding what was wrong and how to deal with it and that would take me through a programme. Whilst some people might get on fine with this book, I don't think my problems with it were anything out of the ordinary for people experiencing mood problems.

I've lost many days and tears to this book which should have been more helpful. It is a real shame: I warmed to the author despite my struggle with this as a book. Face to face therapy and acedemic writing skills are both very different to what was really needed in a book presenting CBT models and techniques for self-help. In future, Jan Scott and the series editor, Peter Cooper, would do well to collaborate with someone who writes good modern guided learning material, experts in learning psychology as it relates to making useful books.

Overcoming Mood Swings
Excellent book with pratical excercises. Wish I had access to it years ago. Given that there is currently a six month waiting list for CBT in Glasgow, a combination of the excercises in this book and Mary Ellen Copeland's Wellness Recovery Action Plan, should be offered to every client in a simple, user friendly form. Hopefully, this would reach a wider audience and not a select few. Keep up the good work, it is very much appreciated.

I don't care, I'm Tansley
I think it’s fair to say I used to be a bit of a care-free ‘out there’ kind of a guy who was always up for the rock and roll… until one night I had a breakdown in a nightclub car park. It was down to some serious circumstances at the time and I was going through more than most will in their lifetime. Ever since that fateful night I have struggled to contain both my moods and comments.

I’ve gone from happy to sad in the space of a minute and life often seems brill at one moment and rubbish the next. Doing weight lifting and working as a dancer in Club Sailor helped me with the swings in mood in the short-term but soon enough I was back to my old ways. This leads me onto this book, which I stumbled upon whilst looking for a 52” Plasma TV (one of my eccentricities), it has allowed me to work through my emotions and become more balanced and positive. Only the other day I was preparing myself to travel to meet my friend but couldn’t in the end – I was philosophical and realised it just wasn’t mean to be.

I’ve moved in with my boyfriend after reading this book – something I never thought I’d do whilst I was up and down all the time.

Do you work out? Cus you look like a man that does.