Mind Over Mood (2nd ed.)

Citation

Gulliford, L. (2016), "Mind Over Mood (2nd ed.)", Journal of Public Mental Health, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 178-178. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPMH-04-2016-0020

Mind Over Mood offers a wealth of practical, straightforward advice to succeed in achieving exactly what its subtitle promises: to change how you feel by changing the way you think. This guidance takes the form of reflective exercises and action plans to help readers to examine and dispute beliefs that are holding them back across a range of domains. It tackles depression, anxiety, anger, guilt and shame by means of a cognitive-behavioural approach. I was pleased to see that elements of positive psychology, such as keeping a gratitude journal, featured in the exercises. Strategies like these are to be commended, not only for increasing happiness and subjective wellbeing for those who practise them, but also for their other-centred focus, which offers another means of changing key beliefs about the self in relation to other people. The positive focus of these activities offers a counterpoint to the predominantly problem-fixing strategies of mainstream cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT).

The book falls into three main sections: Chapters 1-4, which give the reader background information about the assumptions of CBT; Chapters 5-12, which constitute the book’s “core” strategies; and Chapters 13-16, which apply the strategies to common human problems; depression, anxiety, anger, guilt and shame. Methods through which people can maintain their gains can be found in Chapter 16. The authors suggest that the book can be read to prioritise individuals’ needs, rather than from cover to cover – a suggestion I thought was very helpful. The fictional case studies in the book (Ben, Marissa, Linda and Vic) provide scope for illustrating particular domains in which CBT might be useful. This brings the challenges and the strategies for tackling them to life.

There is a sense in which this book needs no special overtures from a reviewer; the fact that over a million copies have been sold in twenty three languages rather speaks for itself! Mind Over Mood would be of special interest to practitioners and clients. However, I would recommend it enthusiastically not only to those of us facing a clinical diagnosis of anxiety, depression or other challenge, but to all people who are looking to find ways of improving their lives, setting goals, countering automatic thinking and testing unhelpful assumptions about the world. Buy and use this book – you will be glad you did!