Popular Danish book now available in English

We cannot get better by ruminating and worrying. Nevertheless, these are the strategies for many who suffer from anxiety and depression. Five hours of ruminating each day for 10 years adds up to more than 18,000 hours of worrying. But a wound does not heal by continuing to scratch at it. It just becomes bigger and bigger. If we spend several hours each day wondering about our gloomy thoughts, we become even more depressed and anxious, and do not thrive well psychologically.

According to metacognitive therapy, this is not about whether we have negative or destructive thoughts. We cannot eradicate negative thoughts; we will always have them. Therefore, it is about what we do with these thoughts. By learning to deal with our thoughts, separating them from ourselves, and giving them a specific opening time, we can acquire some strategies that can help us get out of mental distress.

By using cases as examples, Metacognitive Therapy – Free Yourself from Imprisoning Thoughts shows us how metacognitive therapy can help us manage our thought processes. At the same time, this book is also a critical voice and warning about the evaluation culture we have created. A culture where more and more people are developing anxiety and depressive disorders because we are constantly under surveillance and must fit into certain schemas. We need to learn how to think for ourselves and be aware that we can regain control over our thought processes.