About the Book
In his 2012 book Time Cure, psychologist Philip Zimbardo introduced a groundbreaking therapeutic approach for PTSD sufferers, co-developed with Rosemary Sword. "Time Perspective Therapy" shifts mental focus from the past to the present, and from negative to positive events, helping anyone achieve a more balanced view of life. Featuring real-life stories, this book describes how TPT helps people living with depression, anxiety or stress to move beyond past negative experiences--from toxic relationships to bullying--toward a more positive future.
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1: How Your Time Perspective Affects Your Life
• The Cornerstones of Negativity
• Stress: The Mother of Our Ailments
• Anxiety: The Child of Stress
• Depression: The Stepchild of Stress
• The Genesis of Time Perspectives
• Take This Quiz
• Six Main Time Perspectives
• A Balanced Time Perspective Leads to Greater Stability
• Positive Effects
2: How Your Time Perspective Causes Toxic Relationships—and What You Can Do
• The Many Faces of Toxic Relationships
• Past Negative Time Perspective and the Toxic Relationship
• The Narcissistic Personality
• Stuffing Emotions
• Five Signs You’re in a Toxic Relationship
• What Happened to Jennifer?
• The Passive Aggressive Response
• Bully Behavior Begets Passive-Aggressive Behavior
• Preventive Measures—Healthy Ways to Respond
• Don’t Confuse Social Grace with Passive-Aggressive Behavior
• Secrets and Lies
• Lying Starts at a Young Age
• But What About Secret Agents and Those Dudes
with Secret Multiple Families?
• Five Steps to End a Toxic Relationship
• Let Go of the Negative Past and Give Love Permission
to Enter Your Life
3: Bullies and Their Victims
• What’s Up with Bullies?
• What About the Victims?
• Identifying Potential Bully Victims
• A Case History of Schoolyard Bullying
• Workplace Bullying
• Extreme Bullying
• Hate Crimes and a Hero
• The Most Powerful Tool: Education
4: Shunning—The Ultimate Rejection
• Enduring Damage
• Cooperation in Primate Societies
• Jane Goodall Weighs In
• A Giant Leap in Shunning
• A Case of Religious Shunning
• Workplace Shunning Cases
• The Feeling of “Lack”
• How to Take Control
5: Sex and Time Perspectives
• Past Negative: Sex Wasn’t a Good Experience
• Past Positive: Man! That Was Good!
• Present Hedonism: Let’s Do It—Now!
• Present Fatalism: What Will Be Will Be
• Future Sex: Fear of the Unknown
• Future Transcendental
• What’s an Ideal Sex Time Perspective?
• Men, Sex and Their Time Perspectives
• Women, Sex and Their Time Perspectives
• The Prognosis Is Very Good
6: Parenting and Time Perspectives
• Unconditional Love
• Parental Anxiety
• Modern Stressors
• Discipline
• Boundaries
• The Working Mom
• The Working Dad
• Finding Balance
• Single Parenting
• Empty Nest Syndrome
• Opportunities Abound
7: How Stress Affects Your Time Perspective— and What You Can Do
• Stress and Your Heart
• Stress and Hurry Sickness
• Seasonal Stress—Holiday Blues or Seasonal Affective
Disorder?
• Food and Stress
• The Stress of Unnatural Behavior in Modern Culture
• The Bystander Effect
• Diffusing the Stress of a Heavy Conscience
8: Happiness and Living a Meaningful Life
• The Pursuit of Happiness
• The Search for Meaning
• Happiness versus Meaning
• Are You a Plus or a Minus?
• Right Livelihood
• Living a Meaningful Life
• Kindness Is Key
• Time Perspectives and How We View the World
• Love Is Kindness and Kindness Is Power
• Your Time Has Come
Epilogue: The Future of Therapy
Glossary
Appendix: ZTPI Questionnaire
Resources
Index
About the Author :
Stanford University professor emeritus Philip G. Zimbardo is known for his landmark prison study, dramatized in the IFC film The Stanford Prison Experiment. His nonprofit Heroic Imagination Project teaches how to meet challenges with wise and effective action. He lives in San Francisco. Rosemary K.M. Sword is the author of numerous TPT-related articles, coauthor of a popular PsychologyToday.com blog, and the developer of TPT-based Aetas: Mind Balancing Apps for mobile devices. She lives in Kula, Hawaii.
Review :
“First, Zimbardo demonstrated how disappointingly simple it is to be imprisoned by situational factors. Then, he showed us that through shyness we can be our own worst jailers. Now, along with talented trusty sidekick, Rose Sword, he continues his arc towards a more Heroic Imagination by teaching us to utilize their revolutionary Time Perspective Therapy to unlock our better selves to live and love more efficaciously. Your better, brighter future starts right here on the following pages.”—Brian Metcalf, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati; “I am a retired combat veteran, and as a Research Psychologist, Neurotherapist, and Psychology professor, I have used TPT with my troops and with my students; it ‘sticks’ because it makes sense! TPT reminds you to learn from the past, enjoy the present, and plan for your future. Time is too precious for any other perspective formula. This book is a must read!”—Melba Stetz, PhD, BCN, BCB, Owner/Director, Biofeedback Therapy Hawaii Clinic; “Time Perspective Therapy reaches far beyond treating PTSD as it helps those suffering from more common, yet often debilitating ailments like depression, anxiety, and so much more. Dr. Zimbardo and Rosemary Sword have taken TPT to a new level, expanding it outward not just for the purpose of treatment, but into a lifestyle theory that is useful both inside and outside the treatment environment.”—Sheri Yasuna, PhD, Licensed Clinical Psychologist; “Zimbardo and Sword have developed a remarkable therapy originally designed for PTSD that is also effective for anxiety, depression and stress; it engages clients and provides immediate help. Time Perspective Therapy is evidence-based, cost-effective, easily administered. If there is a therapeutic approach that can stem the suicide epidemic due to combat, bullying, and other traumas, and help overcome stress, this would be my program of choice.”—Stanley Krippner, PhD, co-editor Working with Dreams and PTSD Nightmares, co-author Haunted by Combat; “When you read this book and start to make positive changes in your time perspectives, you’ll improve your romantic and professional relationships, parenting and social life. TPT is an effective and innovative way to break through barriers that have been holding you back.”—Agnieszka Wilczynska, PhD, Prof. of AFM Krakow Academy, editor of Psychology in Practice Magazine, director of Psychotherapeutic Center of Togetherness, Poland; “Zimbardo and Sword show how you can be and do what the title suggests. Many if not most of us have some trying attachments—intimacy problems, self-destructive stress, dysfunctional parenting, as examples—and it is great to know that the negative feelings, thoughts and behaviors which bind us to these toxic relationships can be broken. The key to happiness and a meaningful life which the book elucidates involves examining and modifying our perspective of the past, present and future through the empirically-supported Time Perspective Therapy. Highly recommended!”— Harold Hall, PhD, Director, Pacific Institute for the Study of Conflict and Aggression, editor, Terrorism: Strategies for Intervention; “Whether you’re looking for help making great changes in your life, survive a hard time, or just drop a few bad habits, this book delivers. Backed by sound science, Zimbardo and Sword’s work is an amazing gift to any of us who have wanted to live a more fulfilling, meaningful, and joyful life, and are ready to take the first step.”—Kenneth S. Pope, PhD, ABPP, author, Five Steps to Strengthen Ethics in Organizations and Individuals; “How we think about and use our time is no less than how we live our lives. In this groundbreaking book Zimbardo, who practically invented the study of time perspective, and Sword, a prominent clinician, offer a powerful, easily accessible new theory of time perspective that will make you not only a happier person but a better one. At last, a self-help book that seamlessly combines cutting edge science with insightful common sense to truly make a difference.”—Robert Levine, professor emeritus of psychology, Stanford University, author of A Geography of Time.
