Stop Overreacting: Effective Strategies for Calming Your Emotions

Why is it that some people can reflect and respond to stressful situations in an honest but calm way, and others simply explode? Why do some people cling to interpretations of events that are exaggerated or even distorted? According to Judith Siegel, the answers to these questions are deeply rooted in our past memories, but habitual overreaction can be overcome by facing these memories and recognizing the emotional triggers that cause us to lose control.

Stop Overreacting presents Siegel's model for coping with intense reactions to difficult or overwhelming emotions. First, readers examine their unprocessed feelings about past events in their lives and discover how past relationships and events have continued to influence their current interpersonal relationships and needs. The book explains the concepts of splitting (seeing things in black and white and acting accordingly) and flooding (reacting to all similar intense emotional experiences in the past, rather than focusing on the instance at hand). Then, readers learn new skills for neutralizing emotional triggers and returning to the moment when they feel overwhelmed instead of lashing out or retreating into depression and/or anxiety. This book specifically addresses challenges in parenting, intimate relationships, and the work environment.

“"Judith Siegel's Stop Overreacting captures the essential emotional problems that cause people distress. Even better, she clearly delineates very useful and accessible strategies for resisting emotional overload and destructive responses to emotional situations. Stop Overreacting is a valuable guidebook for navigating the basic struggles of our emotional world." -Beth Jacobs, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, adjunct faculty member of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, and author of Writing for Emotional Balance”

"Finally, a practical book that gets at what the real triggers are for overreacting in everyday situations. A terrific integration of varied ideas about how to understand present-day overreactions in light of past experiences, especially past relationship experiences. This book goes way beyond most guides to help readers think rationally and mindfully." --Alan S. Gurman, Ph.D., emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health "Judith Siegel's Stop Overreacting captures the essential emotional problems that cause people distress. Even better, she clearly delineates very useful and accessible strategies for resisting emotional overload and destructive responses to emotional situations. Stop Overreacting is a valuable guidebook for navigating the basic struggles of our emotional world." --Beth Jacobs, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, adjunct faculty member of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, and author of Writing for Emotional Balance "Judith Siegel has given us a book with the force of revelation. Using exciting new research findings on brain physiology, she connects the emotional self to the body in which it lives in a manner that is both readable and wonderfully engaging. Stop Overreacting is a real tour de force; a book that is impossible to put down." --Maggie Scarf, author of Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage and Secrets, Lies, Betrayals: The Body/Mind Connection

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