Keeping Your Head After Losing Your Job: How to Survive Unemployment

by Robert L. Leahy

"A practical guide to picking yourself up, restoring your health and well-being, and getting the motivation and confidence to move forward with your life.—Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, PhD, author of the best-selling Women Who Think Too Much Losing your job may be the most difficult thing you'll experience. Your mental health and physical well-being can suffer, leaving you feeling anxious, helpless, and alone. Dr. Robert L. Leahy has worked with many unemployed people over the years, and his successful techniques draw upon Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), as well as practices, such as mindfulness, to help you boost your self-esteem and confidence, decrease anxiety and feelings of helplessness, and develop resilience and strength. By keeping your head and learning how to deal with this time well, you can also learn how to live your life more effectively once you get a job. Unemployment is a time for new priorities and new meanings. This book will help you discover inner strengths and give you the skills to cope with life, whatever it may throw at you. Robert L. Leahy is the director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy. He has received the Aaron T. Beck Award for outstanding contributions in cognitive therapy, and is the author and editor of over twenty-one books, including The Worry Cure .

Genres: Self Help

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Robert L. Leahy (B.A., M.S., Ph.D., Yale University), completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Medical School under the direction of Dr. Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy. Dr. Leahy is the Past-President of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Past-President of the International Association of Cognitive Psychotherapy, Past-President of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy, Director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy (NYC), and Clinical Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at Weill-Cornell University Medical School. Dr. Leahy is the Honorary Life-time President, New York City Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Association and a Distinguished Founding Fellow, Diplomate, of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. He has received the Aaron T. Beck award for outstanding contributions in cognitive therapy.

He was Associate Editor of The Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy (serving as Editor 1998-2003). Dr. Leahy is now Associate Editor of The International Journal of Cognitive Therapy. He has served on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill. Dr. Leahy serves on a number of scientific committees for international conferences on cognitive behavioral therapy and is a frequent keynote speaker and workshop leader at conferences and universities throughout the world. For a listing of professional presentations click here.

He is author and editor of 26 books, including Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders (with Holland), Overcoming Resistance in Cognitive Therapy, Bipolar Disorder: A Cognitive Therapy Approach (with Newman, Beck, Reilly-Harrington, & Gyulai), Cognitive Therapy Techniques, Roadblocks in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Psychological Treatments of Bipolar Disorder (ed. with Johnson), Contemporary Cognitive Therapy, The Therapeutic Relationship in the Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapies (ed. with Gilbert) and The Worry Cure which received critical praise from the New York Times and has been selected by Self Magazine as one of the top eight self-help books of all time. His book The Worry Curehas been translated into nine languages and was a selection of the Book of the Month Club, Literary Guild and numerous other book clubs. Eleven of his clinical books have been book club selections. His two recent popular audience books are Anxiety-Free: Unravel Your Fears before They Unravel You, Beat the Blues Before They Beat You: How to Overcome Depression, and Keeping Your Head after Losing Your Job. His new self-help book, The Jealousy Cure: Learn to Trust, Overcome Possessiveness, and Save Your Relationship will be published in January 2018.

Dr. Leahy's recent clinical books include Emotion Regulation in Psychotherapy: A Practitioner's Guide (with Tirch and Napolitano), Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders, Second Edition (with Holland and McGinn), and Treatment Plans and Interventions for Bulimia and Binge-Eating Disorder (with Zweig), Cognitive Therapy Techniques, Second Edition, and Emotional Schema Therapy. He is completing an edited book--Science and Practice in Cognitive Therapy- in honor of Aaron T. Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy, to be published by Guilford in January 2018. Dr. Leahy is currently working on a book to be published by Routledge, Emotional Schema Therapy: Distinctive Features.

He is the general editor of a series of books published by Guilford Press--Treatment Plans and Interventions for Evidence-Based Psychotherapy, which include books on depression, anxiety, OCD, insomnia, couples therapy, and child and adolescent therapy. His books have been translated into 21 languages and are used throughout the world in training cognitive behavioral therapists.

He has been featured in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Forbes, Fortune, Newsweek, Psychology Today, Washington Post, WSJ, Redbook, Shape, Women's He

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most self help books this is easier to read than actually put into practice. It does contain some good advice. My one caveat, the writer does suggest that: "If religion and prayer are meaningful to you, then you might join the millions of others who observe and practise their faith every day." (p145) For many Australians like myself brought up in a secular country this advice may seem odd and out of place in an otherwise generally well written book.

[Dan Stern · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main premise is that you don't have to feel like life has stopped just because you are unemployed. This was a big one for me. I pretty much felt like the only thing that mattered was finding another job as quickly as possible to prove to everyone that I wasn't a failure anymore. The book takes a different perspective. It says that you have two main responsibilities while you are unemployed: look for a job AND take care of yourself. The author even suggests looking at unemployment as a "sabbatical," a time to focus on self-improvement and to be the best "you" you can be while you are looking for a job. You don't have to be miserable the entire time. You can take the positive coping skills you gain during this time with you to the next job.

That helped re-frame things for me. I've been sleeping better at night and have found new ways to deal with worry and rumination. The author covers a lot in this book. It's really thorough and thoughtful. He helps you think through whether or not getting laid off was your fault and the difference between self-correction and self-criticism. Very insightful!

The one thing I wish the book covered more was dealing with continued rejection during the job search and interview process. One of the hard things about being laid off is facing ongoing rejection when your confidence is already low. The author seemed more focused on helping unemployed people who were basically doing nothing at all but sitting around the house worrying. It would have been nice if he acknowledged some of the specific challenges associated with job searching (like interviewing and dealing with lots of rejection). But that's a minor thing, because the book covers a lot and is really in-depth on the most important issues that come up immediately after getting laid off.

I highly recommend this book to anyone dealing with a job loss. One of my favorite quotes from the book was, "Overcoming obstacles means you eventually leave them behind." Here's to tha

[Rashid Obura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took too long to get to reading this book. Like many before me, I acquired a copy about a few weeks after losing my job. However, the ebook version I downloaded remained gathering dust in my phone's storage file as I explored other genres of reading material. The title of this book did not appeal to me but the lack of creativity in naming it should have been at the least of my concerns.
Eventually, I dipped a toe into its pages and since then I have not looked back. As it has been often stated by the author, this book was not written to guide you to your next job with exaggerated simplicity but it is meant as a guide for someone who doesn't know how to keep living after the employer's axe falls. He smartly conveys his point of one having two jobs instead of one after being laid off or fired. The two jobs are; finding a new job and taking care of yourself. Robert challenges our minds through basic processes that have often been overlooked such as practicing mindfulness, reaching out to loved ones and refraining from living in the past. One of the most profound messages hidden within its pages is the fact that life doesn't have to stop during our time between jobs. I heartily recommend it to anyone who has suffered from job loss.