Emotional Resilience: Simple Truths for Dealing with the Unfinished Business of Your Past

Bestselling self-help author Viscott maintains, somewhat idealistically, that the secret of mental health is to ""express your pain the moment it occurs."" Blocked feelings, emotional dishonesty, lies and dissimulation defeat trust and thwart the expression of love, observes this Los Angeles psychiatrist and radio show host. In a pragmatic handbook for self-healing, he outlines ""natural therapy,"" a system for being truthful about one's feelings, whether through leveling with one's partner, coming to terms with an old hurt or accepting a painful loss. ""Emotional debt,"" i.e., the withholding of feeling, generates unresolved inner conflicts, stress, anger, guilt, depression. ""Toxic nostalgia,"" the intrusion of buried feelings and attitudes into the present, can take many forms, he says, including anxiety attacks, somatic complaints, prejudices, playing the victim and self-destructiveness. Viscott also identifies three basic character types--dependent, controlling, competitive--based on a person's use of defense mechanisms such as denial, pretense and blame. Notwithstanding the jargon, the writing is clear and straightforward. Author tour. (July)