Calming the Emotional Storm: Using Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills to Manage Your Emotions and Balance Your Life

When you have difficulties managing your emotions, it can feel like you’re losing control of your whole life. Anger, hurt, grief, worry, and other intense feelings can be overwhelming, and how you react to these emotions can impact your ability to maintain relationships, succeed at work, or even think straight! If you find it difficult to understand, express, and process intense emotions—and most of us do—this book is for you.

Calming the Emotional Storm is your guide to coping with difficult emotions calmly and responsibly by using powerful skills from dialectical behavior therapy. This method combines cognitive behavioral techniques with mindfulness practices to change the way you respond to stressful situations. By practicing these skills, you can stop needless emotional suffering and develop the inner resilience that will help you weather any emotional storm.

This book will teach you how to:

• Establish a balanced life for an everyday sense of well-being
• Let go of unwanted worries and fears
• Become better at accepting yourself and others
• Work through a crisis without letting emotions take over

Sheri Van Dijk, MSW, is a mental health therapist in private practice and at Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket, ON, Canada. She specializes in the treatment of bipolar disorder and other psychiatric disorders using dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and mindfulness practice. She is author of The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder and Don’t Let Your Emotions Run Your Life for Teens, and coauthor of The Bipolar Workbook for Teens. You can visit her online at www.sherivandijk.com.