The Big Feelings Survival Guide

A book review of The Feelings Survival Guide: A Creative Workbook for Mental Health by Alyse Ruriani

Stars: ****

Workman Publishing (2023)
Mental Health/Art
128 pages

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affiliate links.

Summary: Find peace and stability with this friendly, full-color, illustrated workbook guide filled with practical and creative exercises designed to improve your mental health and encourage healthy coping mechanisms.

Dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, is a revolutionary treatment that helps people identify, cope with, and move through emotions. Art therapy uses creativity and techniques like drawing to help a person further explore their feelings and express them. What happens when you link them together? You get The Big Feelings Survival Guide, a unique and powerful workbook designed to yield insight and understanding.

Covering the three classic “parent emotions”—Anger, Fear, Sadness—the exercises are deceptively simple yet richly thought out, and each has a clinical underpinning. Draw a safe space for yourself. Scribble out angry impulses. Explore the mind-body connection by matching emotions with somatic sensations. Embrace confusion by working through a maze with different paths. Act out rebellious urges by painting a messy rainbow. Plus tips, games, and other practical help.

There is no wrong way to use this book. No art skills required. Just work through it with honesty and discover practical skills to help you engage in self-care, cope with life, and take care of your mental health.

The Big Feelings Survival Guide

This workbook is part DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) and part art book. You can use your creative side to work on your mental health.

The categories are WTF: What the Feeling?, Anger, Fear and Sadness. After all that are some resources and DBT skill sets. The WTF section helps you identify your emotions. Once you determine what you’re feeling, go to that section in the book to work through it.

There are some sample pages below to check out after you’re done reading. I think this is a fun and beautiful way to get in tune with your emotions. DBT is a great system for those who need it. I took DBT classes as a teen and they were helpful for my interpersonal and distress tolerance skills.

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