Fatal Pauses: Getting Unstuck Through the Power of No and the Power of Go

Fatal Pauses: Getting Unstuck Through the Power of No and the Power of Go by Stuart C. Yudofsky. Paperback edition. ISBN: 9781585625000.

Fatal Pauses is a fresh and fascinating take on what it means to be "stuck," which is defined as "not stopping something that is bad for us" and "not starting and staying with something that is good for us," and how to get "unstuck." The book is part textbook for mental health professionals and part self-help manual for people who find themselves feeling trapped in dysfunctional or unsatisfying relationships, jobs, behavioral patterns, and ineffective treatments. Fatal Pauses presents vivid case studies of people who are stuck in painful and life-disabling ways, and demonstrates how they became unstuck using the authors innovative 3-D method of treatment. The books opening chapters explain the evolutionary and neurobiological reasons people become stuck, present a questionnaire that aids in assessment, and describe the authors "3-D method" for getting "unstuck." Fatal Pauses is designed to highlight the richness and uniqueness of human experience even as it reveals the challenges, frustrations, and dysfunctional behavioral patterns that so many of us share. The author is a renowned psychiatrist responsible for several of APPs bestselling titles, and here he offers a hybrid model that combines an insight-oriented, psychodynamic approach with cognitive-behaviorally-based treatment to inform diagnosis and expedite results.