Hardcore Self-Help: F**k Anxiety and F**k Depression
A friend of mine was looking for a self-help book for her pragmatic husband that wouldn’t immediately piss him off. A typical reaction to “woo, woo, psychology crap” is to discount it as flowery BS that probably won’t help. Many people have a negative reaction when you give them the latest self-help book for homework. F**k that!
Adults don’t like homework. Ok, really who does? But sometimes we all need a little homework and self-reflection. I don’t wanna! Join the club and then once you have struggled enough, decide to give it the old college try. Life experiences, trauma, and our own brain chemicals can damage our self-image and skew patterns of thinking. It takes effort and practice to change your thoughts. If your arm atrophied due to injury, then you wouldn’t expect to get back your full abilities without a lot of hard work and practice to retrain and develop the muscles. The difference is that we experience an arm as a ‘part’ of the body and we experience our mind as ‘who’ we are.
No one wants to be told that ‘who’ they are is not ok. If you struggle with anxiety or depression, then on some level you know you need to do something to improve your quality of life. Knowing you need to do something is frustrating when you don’t know what to do, people around you are making dumb suggestions about writing in a journal, and you find the whole psychology thing either stupid or embarrassing.
If only you could find a book that speaks in a way you can hear it, giving you relateable examples with actionable steps, without the flowery BS and over explanation of psych theory. Good news for the non-psych majors out there!
Robert Duff, Ph.D. has your back and wrote two outstanding books that are easy to read, understand, and apply. I have been trying to explain some of these concepts for years and Duff nails the translation. It speaks to the rebels, the nay-sayers, the cool kids, and my friends’ husband. It was delightful to have him laughing and saying “that does sound like me!” while he was reading F**k Depression. His wife is also reading the book and working through the activities. Now that’s a marriage!
I devoured both books immediately and kept having to restrain myself because I was getting excited and wanting to explain the psychology behind things. Keep it together Springer. Over-enthusiasm will scare the norms!
The first book is for everyone because we have all had anxiety issues either intermittently, or for some lucky people, all the time.
Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety (Volume 1)
The second book is for people who experience depression, like me.
Hardcore Self Help: F**k Depression (Volume 2)
Obviously, if the titles of the books make you squirm, then you will be shocked by the straight-talking, sailor-esque vernacular, and common-sense advice. And that is cool, these books are not for you. Unless you want a stretch assignment?! Go read one of the many awesome books by Dr. Albert Ellis, a pioneer in the cognitive behavioral (CBT) and rational emotive behavioral (REBT) therapies.
Full disclosure, I am a bit of a CBT/REBT groupie. Ellis’ works have made a big difference in my personal life over the years. ABC’s anyone? 🙂