Who isn't experiencing "intense emotions" in 2020? This little book about emotional balance is a great resource for all of us trying to be more compassionate (even with ourselves) and less reactive to all the emotional triggers we encounter. There are suggestions, questions to consider, exercises, and other resources. It's the type of book you can take your time working through again and again.

I enjoyed this Pocket Therapy book and feel that it's a valuable tool in learning more about the science behind emotions and how to best manage your feelings.  The book provides practical skills and techniques based in DBT that are easy to comprehend and implement in one's life.  While an easy and helpful read initially - this would be a great resource to have on one's bookshelf for everyday reference during emotional struggles.

*thank you to Netgalley, New Harbinger Publications, Inc and Matthew McKay for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*


4 stars.


A great book on dealing with hard emotions. I liked that this book was kept short and to the point. The messages it was sending were easy to understand and follow. 

I'd have to say that my favourite piece of this is that it isn't just something that you read and learn from but it is also interactive by asking you a lot of questions to really help you dig deep into whatever it is that you are wanting help for. Highly recommend.

This short, easy-to-read book provides exercises for how to deal with overwhelming emotions. It helps you to identify unhealthy behaviors and thought patterns, and replace them with healthier ones.. It focuses on dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), which was originally developed for borderline personality disorder. But this book may also be helpful for people suffering from other affective disorders. The book's website contains bonus content you can download, which is also useful. 

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received.

I like the format and design. Even though it's a pocketbook, you'll find a lot of information inside this book. The book is based on DBT - Dialectical Behaviour Therapy - but you don't need any prior knowledge. It covers topics: how to identify your emotions, distract yourself, use relaxation, meditation, mindfulness, and more. I like that this is a pocketbook because you can easily find what you are looking for, and it is easy to understand.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this! All opinions are my own.

This practical guide is useful for those who struggle with feeling overwhelmed with emotions. The book offers some suggestions and techniques that can help manage and process emotions.⁠
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The book is based on DBT: Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, with a focus on emotional regulation. It explains primary and secondary emotions and the link between emotions and physical sensations. It also covers identifying emotions and recognizing them as a source of information. The book doesn’t get into theoretical elements of DBT or any kind of diagnostic labeling and offers a practical approach of describing your emotions, it creates a sort of container around them to decrease overwhelm.⁠
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There are some great tips for worrying less, being mindful, and to cope. It also tells the reader how to include daily mediation in life and is a great reminder to be compassionate with oneself. ⁠
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Thank you @Netgalley & @newharbinger for this ARC. ⁠

This book is part of a series in which help is offered to those struggling a bit in daily life. I previously reviewed and recommend Pocket Therapy for Anxiety, another title in this series. Each book is written by experts in the field.

In this title, three practitioners offer thoughts on how to cope with the kinds of intense emotions that can be overwhelming in the moment. The techniques come from the field of dialectical behavior therapy. The chapter headings offer a good guide to what is in the book. A few of these include Identify Your Emotions, Take a Rest, Try Radical Acceptance and Cope on the Spot.

No book can take the place of working with a mental health practitioner if a person’s situation is overwhelming in a scary way that does not dissipate. But for those who are looking to better understand themselves and who can benefit from the coping strategies included in this book, it is a very good resource.

Note: This book is also a resource for therapists who are looking to review their knowledge base or to increase it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

Pocket Therapy for Emotional Balance by Matthew McKay, Jeffrey C. Wood, and Jeffrey Brantley is part of a series of pocket therapy books from New Harbinger Publishers. The book is short, the chapters are bite-sized, and it’s very easy to read.

The book is based on dialectical behaviour therapy, with a focus on emotional regulation. It’s very practical, and doesn’t get into theoretical elements of DBT or any kind of diagnostic labelling.

The book explains primary and secondary emotions, and the link between emotions and physical sensations. It also covers identifying emotions and recognizing them as a source of information. Through describing your emotions, it creates a sort of container around them to decrease overwhelm.

Speaking of overwhelm, a skill covered early in the book that’s referred back to repeatedly is REST: Rest, Evaluate, set an Intention, Take action. Other topics/skills include distraction (which is differentiated from avoidance), taking a time out for self-care, progressive muscle relaxation, and building positive emotions and self-compassion.

Mindfulness is a major theme in DBT, and this book talks about things like present-moment awareness, mindful breathing, and time-travelling (when our minds pull us in the direction of the past or future).

The book also guides you through preparing coping thoughts and radical acceptance coping statements. While that kind of thing could easily get a bit hokey, this book didn’t go there.

I think this book would be a good fit for someone looking to learn some therapy skills without having to do a lot of reading. It doesn’t require any prior familiarity with DBT, and it’s geared towards emotional overwhelm in a general sense rather than any particular diagnosis. Everything is clearly explained without a lot jargon. It’s a therapy book for people who might not otherwise be inclined to read a therapy book.




I received a reviewer copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

This was a very straightforward, simple approach to emotion regulation strategies. You don't need to have therapy experience or a psychology degree to understand these recommendations. Very helpful physical and mental techniques are included.

This book packed quite a bit of helpful insight for people seeking "emotional regulation" (which in these times, perhaps should be most of us10 I for one found the suggestions both workable and practical. I particularly appreciated the R.E.S.T. acronym for approaching situations that might be particularly provocative or triggering. For this type of publication, I prefer not to have to slog through evidence to convince me of the authors' competency. I just want to read "what do I have to do?" Assuming the "homework" before me is sensible, I prefer to just roll up my sleeves and get to work. I liked that the book had examples of how to apply the processes. I'd have preferred a different word choice and description on the chapter about distracting. Perhaps because I have attention deficit challenges, the idea of distracting myself is a pre-existing problem. Overall though, I liked the length and the content of this book. I have already recommended it to a few friends. I think it dovetails nicely with the inventory process of 12 Step programs that look at anger and fear and conduct in personal relationships. 

I received a courtesy copy of this book from Net Galley but it did not influence my honest review. 
#Netgalley #PocketTherapyforEmotionalBalance

hi everyone!
This book is very useful to the ones that sometimes struggle with being overwhelmed with emotion and with working through them. It has some suggestions and techniques that can help to control emotions.
The other pocket therapy about anxiety from my point of view was more helpful, because I don't really struggle with emotional balance, but if you or a friend do, you should definitely try the out!

I enjoyed this book and learned a few helpful tips while reading it!  I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading about this or who is also lookin for any help in this area.

A useful little guide  , full of handy techniques and coping mechanisms to help teach and guide you to controlling your emotions, learning about them and it’s concise and to the point. Very helpful 

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Emotions are very complex elements of human beings. Good or bad, they are the driving force of our life and when this force becomes overwhelming, that's when our emotions start troubling us. I picked this book because I am/was going through some very distressing situations and I needed to handle my emotions before they might have started negatively affecting my life. After reading many books on mindfulness and meditation, I knew some techniques to deal with them but I wanted to understand and learn them even more precisely and this book helped me to do that. 
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‘Pocket Therapy for Emotional Balance' is simply a handbook that helps its readers to understand their emotions and teaches some very beneficial techniques and coping strategies to deal with overwhelming distressing situations. The way it has been written, it's not very complex but the sole intention is to help readers with straight to the point and direct approaches. 

The authors kept all chapters to the point and not at once they tried to preach any additional details unnecessarily. Techniques like R.E.S.T., Radical Acceptance, Wise Man Meditation, and Cope on Spot were highly effective for me with every insight and the authors’ way of minimalistic descriptions. With every chapter, this book guides its readers to learn different methods of mindfulness and myriad conscious meditation techniques. 

I am HIGHLY RECOMMENDING this book and must read it even if you might be in a good phase of your life. Life is uncertain and the least that we can do is to prepare ourselves for those blows that uncertainty brings. This book will help you maintain a healthy emotional balance to stand in the most unfortunate situations you may encounter.

Excellent little book! I know a lot about self-help and even I learned a few new things which was very surprising to me. Loved the laid back style of the book and how quick it was to read and grasp the concepts. Will definitely be recommending this to friends and family! 

Thank you to New Harbinger Publications, Inc.,Matthew McKay, Jeffery C, Wood, Jeffrey Brantley, and #NetGallery for an ARC of #PocketTherapyforEmotionalBalance in return for an honest review. Review will be posted on NetGallery, Goodreads (goodreads.com/radicalrachelreads) and Facebook.

Lately I’ve been trying to get more into self-help books to see where I stand. Some people believe it’s a load of cr*p, some take great pleasure in reading them and it helps them quite a bit. I think I’m somewhere in the middle. 

Pocket Therapy for Emotional Balance was the second of the Pocket Therapy books I ever read and, although not my favourite, I still really enjoyed it! 

I established a goal of reading at least 2 chapters a day and always try to keep the ideas and exercises in mind throughout the month. That was definitely a plus of this book: not only do we get tips on recognising and pin-pointing our emotions in order to better manage them, but we also get practical mind and body exercises that help us achieve our goals and bring a better balance to our lives. 

Some of the exercises I was already familiar with, and some were new and interesting and I’ve been trying to implement them to my daily routine. They’re a great way to keep in touch with your feelings and just take a breath when you need it most. 

Another great addition is the mention of other resources outside the book that the reader can take a look at for a deeper understanding of what’s being said / for more information on specific matters that affect them the most. 

Other than that I would just like to mention that it is just the right page count, not being overwhelming but still giving the reader a lot to think about. My favourite chapters were Take a Rest and Try Radical Acceptance.

We are living in unprecedented times and we can all use a little help in maintaining our balance. This book offers a variety of tricks and techniques for walking with security in a time of uncertainty.

An excellent resource for daily use! This booklet is easy to navigate and is filled with helpful guidance and resources to provide guidance in everyday life. Highly recommend.

This book talked and brought up mindfulness, which people should be aware of as a tool in their mental health journey. It is beneficial in the development of behaviors and emotional support plans. This will be added to by Mental Health library of go-to books for sure.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Just like "Pocket Therapy for Anxiety", this book is so interesting and complete! I'm very glad that I choose it - everything about it is so on point. It is extremely helpful to people like me who want to find ways to manage intense emotions. It teaches all sorts of things, even things you wouldn't think about that influence your emotions. It is the best books about this matter. Rating: 4/5 stars.