Emotional Schema Therapy Illustrated Edition

I heard about his book and author at a Cognitive Behavioral therapy training. As a substance abuse professional, I can say truly say that the information in this book has elevated my understanding to a greater level. 15 years in the field and for a while being intellectually stagnant, this book was reignited my desire to seek out information.

Emotional Schema Therapy provides an excellent explanation of “where the heart is” in cognitive-behavioral therapy. This book is rich, integrative, and erudite, drawing from established bio-evolutionary and psychosocial models to explain the role of emotions in people’s lives, and shows how a better understanding of emotions in therapy can empower patients that much more. Leahy explains that many evidence-based therapeutic procedures (such as exposure techniques for post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and avoidant personality disorder; and emotional self-regulation in DBT for borderline personality disorder) require patients to learn to tolerate emotional discomfort in the pursuit of greater self-efficacy and living a values-drive life. Emotional Schema Therapy does a great job in describing and illustrating how therapists help their patients to acknowledge, learn (and grow) from, and make peace with their emotions as part of a meaningful life. The clinical vignettes are highly informative and often touching. I greatly enjoyed Leahy’s use of philosophy through the ages to make many clinical points that are pertinent to evidence-based therapy in the present. This book will enrich anyone who reads it, whether they are a professional counselor or not.

Robert Leahy is a consummate scholar, not just of traditional Cognitive Therapy and Schema Therapy, but of social cognition in general and in particular metacognition. In this volume, Dr. Leahy shares the results of his research group's empirical investigations into the associations between metacognitive appraisals and emotional disorders, but with an exclusive focus on treatment interventions that target dysfunctional beliefs about emotions. Having witnessed Dr. Leahy present at the Metacognitive Conference in Manchester, UK, I can place Leahy's work solidly within the metacognitive tradition established there, but this volume is written using language and concepts that seem quite deliberately more familiar to Americans. In this way, Leahy has provided meta-therapy to American therapists; he is urging all of us to become more metacognitive in our work than ever imagined by traditional cognitive therapy or schema therapy, and by doing so, is contributing to the growth of our field, not to the fragmentation into meaningless branding. This volume will exert a strong evolutionary force on the future development of CBT worldwide.

This is an important book that will be useful for clinicians of all theoretical orientations. In recent years there has been a growing interest in emotion within the cognitive-behavioral world. Leahy’s unique contribution in this book is to explore the role of people’s thoughts about their emotions. Drawing on Beck’s concept of schemas as networks of beliefs, he demonstrates how maladaptive attitudes towards emotion leads to problematic coping strategies. This is an evidence-based model. After an impressive tour of shifting attitudes toward emotion throughout cultural history and philosophy, Leahy reviews research on emotion in the clinical and social psychological literature. He then describes his own research program, which finds that maladaptive beliefs about emotion correlate with anxiety, depression, personality disorders, substance abuse and marital dissatisfaction. His model provides an important link not only between first, second and third-wave CBT models, but also between CBT and psychoanalytic and humanistic approaches. As good as the theoretical chapters are, the book really begins to sing in the clinical section. Leah’s case examples are rich and complex, like the patients we see in real life, and he provides an impressive array of cognitive, behavioral, experiential and mindfulness-based interventions to modify patients beliefs about their emotions. As I read the book I found myself thinking about challenging cases of my own and how the emotional schema model could be helpful. I suspect this is a book I will refer to many times and I believe other clinicians will find it similarly helpful.

This is an excellent book. Bob Leahy is an expert in the field of CBT. Using the lens of emotion to conceptualize clients and plan treatment greatly enriches our understanding of why people think and act the way they do--and helps make treatment more effective.

I agree with the other reviewer / I checked this out and it appears to be an adaptation of Jeff Youngs Schema Therapy model only without the same randomized controlled studies. Honestly - if you are looking for a comprehensive Schema Therapy model, look for Jeff Young and Arnaud Arntz's work. Completely evidence based and effective.

Interesting book, but this is an adapted version of the Schema Therapy model that does not appear to have an evidence base.

Leahy's books are insightful and easy to read. This one is not an exception.**What I would like to point out - this is not a book about the Schema therapy. One of the commentators wrote that they were disappointed with this book because it was not about Young's schema therapy. Well, Yes, this is about Emotional Schema Therapy that focuses on beliefs about emotions and strategies of emotional regulation. I'd like to think this model has more in common with ACT than pure schema therapy.

Extremely helpful for my work as a schema therapist, really gives a lot of insight about analyzing emotions.

This is a great book with lots of insights about emotions and our personal theories we hold about emotions