Understanding Your 7 Emotions: A CBT Self-Help Guide for Emotions and Mental Health Difficulties

Understanding Your 7 Emotions explains how emotions help us to respond to the world around us and are fundamental to our existence.

The book provides a detailed understanding of the main human emotions - fear, sadness, anger, disgust, guilt, shame and happiness - showing how to live with them and how to resolve problems with them. Each of the seven chapters also includes an ’emotional trap’ to highlight what happens when we get stuck responding in unhelpful ways and explains how to get out of the trap. Grounded in emotion science and cognitive behavioural therapy, the book provides a powerful alternative to mental health diagnosis. Examples and exercises are provided throughout to help apply the ideas in everyday life and achieve health and happiness.

This easy-to-read guide will help anybody who is interested in emotions or is struggling with common mental health problems to better understand how emotions work and improve their own and others’ mental health and emotional wellbeing. It will also be an invaluable resource to those working in the caring professions.

Dr Lawrence Howells is a clinical psychologist and lecturer specialising in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Emotion Science. He works clinically with adolescents and adults using these approaches, and is the author of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Adolescents and Young Adults.