This book owes a lot to many people, none of whom should be held responsible for any shortcomings on my part. I want to first thank my editor, Ryan Buresh from New Harbinger Publications, who has been a strong advocate and an excellent source of feedback for structuring the book to make it more readable and helpful. Matthew McKay of New Harbinger has graciously welcomed me into their fold and I am grateful for his support—and for his sense of humor. In addition, my other editors at New Harbinger, Clancy Drake, Caleb Beckwith, and Vicraj Gill, gave a great deal of attention to the details and final product, and I thank them for their careful work. My research assistant, Sindhu Shivaji, worked long hours helping with research and editing, and I thank her and wish her well as she moves on in her career in psychology. Bob Diforio, my “bulldog” agent, has always been a great source of support and a wonderful advocate, and I am deeply indebted to him.
There are numerous people whose work I value and learned from. I wish to acknowledge the following scholars whose work has been of value to me: David Buss, David A. Clark, David M. Clark, Paul Gilbert, Steve Hayes, Stefan Hofmann, Marsha M. Linehan, Zindel V. Segal, Dennis Tirch, Adrian Wells, and Mark Williams. My colleagues at The American Institute for Cognitive Therapy (http://www.cognitivetherapynyc.com) have been a wonderful source of support and ideas and have listened to various parts of this book in different degrees of development. Thank you for your patience.
And, as always, I am forever blessed to have Helen as my loving wife. I am continually fascinated by her ability to accept what is less than perfect in me. It is to her and her open heart that this book is dedicated.