Embracing Fear: and Finding the Courage to Live Your Life - Hardcover

Rutledge, Thom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062517740 ISBN 13: 9780062517746

Publisher: HarperOne, 2002

Synopsis

Fear takes many forms -- dread, worry, panic, anxiety, self-consciousness, superstition, and negativity -- and manifests itself in many ways -- avoidance, procrastination, judgment, control, agitation, and perfectionism, to name just a few. Fear is our constant companion. It haunts us day and night and prevents us from living to our potential. Whether we are afraid of the dark or of being alone, failure or commitment, public speaking or flying, fear dominates our lives, affecting nearly every decision we make.

Embracing Fear challenges us to confront and move beyond the destructive control of unhealthy fear. Utilizing the acronym F-E-A-R, psychotherapist Thom Rutledge maps out a step-by-step methodology:

Face it
Explore it
Accept it
Respond to it

Instead of repressing or ignoring the voices of panic and dread, we learn that it is only through facing, exploring, accepting, and responding to fear that we free ourselves from its paralyzing grip. Combining compelling stories from the author's twenty-year practice, examples from his own struggles with addiction and depression, and practical exercises and tools, Embracing Fear does not pretend to teach the impossible and eliminate fear, but rather shows us that once we understand it we can live beyond its tyrannical control. This powerful life-transforming guide is for everyone who constantly worries about the what-ifs, but is ready and willing to triumph over fear's pervasive presence once and for all.

About this title

About the Author

Thom Rutledge has over twenty-five years' experience as a psychotherapist. Thom's trademark sense of humor, a down-to-earth practicality, and his own compassion are the common threads that run throughout his unique brand of self-help psychology. Thom also writes regularly for self-help/recovery publications around the country, including Steps for Recovery (Los Angeles), The Phoenix (Minneapolis), and Recovery Today.

From Library Journal

As with most popular books written by therapists, Rutledge's includes many anecdotes from his practice. Unlike most, his examples are equally balanced, with accounts of his own challenges and recoveries. As a recovering alcoholic and a therapy patient himself, as well as a syndicated columnist and national lecturer, Rutledge is uniquely qualified to give advice about overcoming fear and addiction. Although the writing is not exciting, it is simple and accessible to most readers; Rutledge expresses his opinions very candidly. The book lacks the "how-to" call-out boxes and "to do" lists that break up the text in many other psychology books, but the author does share with us a few tools he uses, such as the metaphors of facing the wall and going down the rungs of a ladder, the FEAR acronym, and the identification of "the bully" and "the ally." Recommended for all public library psychology collections. David Leonhardt, Toronto
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0062517740
• ISBN 13: 9780062517746
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224