This book, by Australian clinical psychologist Dr Sarah Edelman, is about how to use cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) techniques to better manage everyday life challenges.
While the word “conflict” doesn’t actually appear in the book’s index, it is mentioned explicitly and implicitly throughout the book, as many of our challenges arise from, or create, conflict!
The book explains how to use basic CBT processes (e.g. identifying the activating event, our beliefs about it, the consequences; and then challenging our beliefs and adapting our behaviours) to overcome situations such as frustration, anger, anxiety, self-esteem and communication breakdown.
There’s a great chapter on recognising faulty thinking, and we see so many of these examples in conflict situations. There are also many terrific socractic questions to use in challenging our thinking and default responses.
This book provides a clear and simple overview of CBT, and practical suggestions (including many case study examples) to apply it to our everyday challenges. Coaches, mediators, teachers, parents, and anyone who is interested in improving the way we ourselves, and others, think and feel will find very simple and effective tools in this accessible book.
