The Body Image Workbook: An Eight-Step Program for Learning to Like Your Looks

by Thomas Cash PhD

Overview

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to accept and enjoy the way you look instead of constantly worrying about and criticizing your appearance? What if instead of focusing on your flaws, you felt confident with the body you have right now?

If you don't like what you see when you look in the mirror, you may not realize that these feelings are entirely within your grasp. You don't need extensive cosmetic surgery, pricey beauty treatments, or weight loss programs, but you may need to do something even more drastic-change your perspective and the way you view yourself. The Body Image Workbook offers a comprehensive program to help you stop focusing on your perceived imperfections and start feeling more confident about the way you look.

As you complete the helpsheets in this book, you'll learn to celebrate your body instead of feeling ashamed of it. This new edition includes discussions of our obsession with physical appearance and with body-fixing options. It helps you discover your personal body image strengths and vulnerabilities and then guides you in creating new, life-changing experiences of mindfulness and body acceptance. After completing this eight-step program, you'll look at yourself in a whole new light-seeing the beauty of the real you.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781572245464
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	07/02/2008
Series:	A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook Series
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	7.80(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Thomas F. Cash, PhD, is a true pioneer in the psychology of physical appearance. He is professor emeritus of psychology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. He is the founding editor-in-chief of Body Image: An International Journal of Research and has published six books and more than 200 scholarly articles on topics related to body image and human appearance, including What Do you See When You Look in the Mirror? and The Body Image Handbook.

Dr. Cash's professional website is located at www.body-images.com. He currently resides in Naples, FL.

Table of Contents

Preface     vii
Introduction: Taking Steps to a Better Body Image     1
Discovering Your Personal Body Image     11
Understanding the Origins of Your Body Image Story     37
Mindfully Accepting Your Body Image Experiences     59
Seeing Beneath the Surface of Your Private Body Talk     79
Mindfully Modifying Your Mental Mistakes     105
Facing Your Body Image Avoidance     137
Erasing Your Body Image Rituals     155
Treating Your Body Well     169
Afterword: From This Day Forward: Preserving Your Positive Body Image for Life     187
Recommended Resources for Readers, Researchers, and Therapists     197
Thoughts for Therapists     203
Bibliography     205

Editorial Reviews

"The problem of body image dissatisfaction is sadly epidemic in today's world. To dislike your own body is to dislike yourself. A negative body image needlessly diminishes the quality of your life. The arrival of The Body Image Workbook brings hoped-for relief. Dr. Cash is an acclaimed professional whose eight-step program is sensitive and solution-giving."
—Dr. Joyce Brothers

"Dr. Cash is one of the most sensitive and sympathetic voices on the subject of body image. He brings knowledge and care, intelligence and kindness to a complicated, loaded issue. The Body Image Workbook offers a clear road map to understanding body image problems and relieving them."
—Linda Wells, editor-in-chief, Allure magazine, former beauty editor, New York Times

"Dr. Cash has a knack for translating the best of what science offers into something friendly, supportive, and helpful."
—Kelly D. Brownell, Ph.D., director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University

"This workbook admirably fulfills the author's objective and promise. It is useful, empathetic, thorough, and common-sensed. My feedback for the author? Nothing, except congratulations!"
—Robert M. Goldwyn, MD, clinical professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, Division of Plastic Surgery, former chief of plastic surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

"The suffering associated with body image distress can dramatically undermine one's quality of life. Incisively extracting the most helpful findings from thirty years of scientific research and clinical experience, Cash has very effectively created a beautifully organized body image workbook that will help many people. His program offers both hope for relief from body image suffering and practical strategies that can make that hope a reality."
—Thomas Pruzinsky, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT

"Cash has produced an excellent revision of The Body Image Workbook. The content is clear, appropriate, and based firmly on published research evidence. Therapeutic techniques that we know are helpful are presented in an accessible and supportive style, with clear guidance and useful help sheets to enable readers to develop new skills and to monitor change. This is essential reading for anyone with body image concerns. It is also a useful resource for professional therapists who wish to help clients who are experiencing distressing body-related thoughts and feelings."
—Dr Sarah Grogan, professor of health psychology at Staffordshire University, Staffordshire, UK, and author of Body Image: Understanding Body Dissatisfaction in Men, Women, and Children

From the Publisher