8 Keys to Eliminating Passive-Aggressiveness (8 Keys to Mental Health) - Softcover

Brandt, Andrea

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393708462 ISBN 13: 9780393708462

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013

Synopsis

Guidance for dealing with this common and frustrating form of behavior.

Many people often say “yes” to something when they’d rather say “no.” They offer cooperation through words but follow up with how they really feel―in actions that contradict their words. That’s passive-aggression. At its heart, passive-aggression is about being untrue to oneself, which makes it impossible to have a clean relationship with others. Passive-aggression as a communication method doesn’t make someone “bad.” It is simply a strategy learned in childhood as a coping mechanism, a hard-to-break habit. Changing passive-aggressive behavior requires knowledge, tools, and practice, as outlined here.

The book offers effective methods for transforming passive-aggression into healthy assertiveness to communicate in constructive ways through eight keys: Recognize Your Hidden Anger; Reconnect Your Emotions to Your Thoughts; Listen to Your Body; Set Healthy Boundaries; Communicate Assertively; Interact Using Mindfulness; Disable the Enabler; and Problem-Solve for Better Outcomes. Hands-on exercises are featured, enabling readers to better understand themselves.

About this title

About the Author

Andrea Brandt, PhD, has more than thirty years of experience working with individuals, couples, groups, and children. She is a sought-after television and radio show guest and lives in Santa Monica, California.

Babette Rothschild, MSW, has been a practitioner since 1976 and a teacher and trainer since 1992. She is a bestselling author of six books, all published by WW Norton and translated into more than a dozen languages. She is also the creator and Series Editor of the 8 Keys to Mental Health Series.

After living and working for 9 years in Copenhagen, Denmark she returned to her native Los Angeles where she is writing her next books while she continues to lecture, train, consult, and supervise professional psychotherapists of all sorts worldwide.

Review

“Brandt offers easy-to-follow explanations and workable methods to combat [passive-aggressiveness] . . . I now feel more equipped to recognize it in myself and in those around me and to replace it with more positive forms of expression.”
- PsychCentral

“Brandt has created a fluid narrative using expertly drafted anecdotes taken from her clinical experience and practical exercises to illuminate concepts. . . . The key strength of this book is the anecdotal stories that line the pages. . . . General readers will gain intimate knowledge of their own behavior and suggestions for eliminating passive-aggressiveness. Likewise, practicing psychotherapists will be exposed to relevant exercises that can immediately incorporated in the clinical setting.”
- International Journal of Psychotherapy

“Andrea Brandt’s 8 Keys to Eliminating Passive-Aggressiveness is a fabulous book. . . . [F]or starters, it’s fabulous because, in language all of us can understand, it explains this common behavior. . . . Brandt, who is a psychotherapist and anger management specialist, makes it clear that we all do at least occasionally commit passive-aggression.”
- Parenting Press Newsletter

“A clear and practical guide to tackling the enormously frustrating problem of passive-aggressive behavior, an issue that plagues both personal and business relationships. The 8 keys are powerful tools designed to end the reflexive suppression of anger, which later shows up as an infuriating ‘Huh? Me? What did I do?’ Dr. Brandt has done a masterful job providing strategies for dealing with the malignant passive-aggressive behaviors that secretly lie at the root of entrenched, perpetual problems. I wholeheartedly recommend this guide.”
- Diana Shulman, JD, PhD, Certified Gottman Couples Therapist,?Los Angeles, CA

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0393708462
• ISBN 13: 9780393708462
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224