It's Not Always Depression - by Hilary Jacobs Hendel (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The Change Triangle" is a map. It's a guide to carry you from a place of disconnection back to your true self. It's a step-by-step process for feeling better. When you work the Change Triangle, you are using a tool that is at the center of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), an emerging therapeutic method that teaches patients to identify the defenses and inhibitory emotions (shame, disgust, anxiety) that prevent them from being in touch with their core emotions (joy, anger, sadness, fear, and excitement) that lead us to an openhearted state of the authentic self: it's where we are calm, curious, connected, compassionate, confident, courageous, clear. In this book, Hendel tells stories of working the Change Triangle with patients and teaches us how to apply these principles to our daily lives"--

Book Synopsis

Fascinating patient stories and dynamic exercises help you connect to healing emotions, ease anxiety and depression, and discover your authentic self.

Sara suffered a debilitating fear of asserting herself. Spencer experienced crippling social anxiety. Bonnie was shut down, disconnected from her feelings. These patients all came to psychotherapist Hilary Jacobs Hendel seeking treatment for depression, but in fact none of them were chemically depressed. Rather, Jacobs Hendel found that they'd all experienced traumas in their youth that caused them to put up emotional defenses that masqueraded as symptoms of depression. Jacobs Hendel led these patients and others toward lives newly capable of joy and fulfillment through an empathic and effective therapeutic approach that draws on the latest science about the healing power of our emotions.

Whereas conventional therapy encourages patients to talk through past events that may trigger anxiety and depression, accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP), the method practiced by Jacobs Hendel and pioneered by Diana Fosha, PhD, teaches us to identify the defenses and inhibitory emotions (shame, guilt, and anxiety) that block core emotions (anger, sadness, fear, disgust, joy, excitement, and sexual excitement). Fully experiencing core emotions allows us to enter an openhearted state where we are calm, curious, connected, compassionate, confident, courageous, and clear.

In It's Not Always Depression, Jacobs Hendel shares a unique and pragmatic tool called the Change Triangle--a guide to carry you from a place of disconnection back to your true self. In these pages, she teaches lay readers and helping professionals alike

- why all emotions--even the most painful--have value.
- how to identify emotions and the defenses we put up against them.
- how to get to the root of anxiety--the most common mental illness of our time.
- how to have compassion for the child you were and the adult you are.

Jacobs Hendel provides navigational tools, body and thought exercises, candid personal anecdotes, and profound insights gleaned from her patients' remarkable breakthroughs. She shows us how to work the Change Triangle in our everyday lives and chart a deeply personal, powerful, and hopeful course to psychological well-being and emotional engagement.

About the Author

Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, received her BA in biochemistry from Wesleyan University and an MSW from Fordham University. She is a certified psychoanalyst and AEDP psychotherapist and supervisor. She has published articles in The New York Times and professional journals. Jacobs Hendel also consulted on the psychological development of characters on AMC's Mad Men. She lives in New York City.