“TRANSFORMATIVE”        

- RICK HANSON, PHD, NYT bestselling author, Buddha’s BraIn

“ENHANCE YOUR LIFE”.      

TODD KASHDAN, PHD, bestselling author, The Art of Insubordination

“COMPELLING & POTENT.”

- JANE MCGONIGAL, PHD, NYT bestselling author, Imaginable

“A BOOK THAT WILL CHANGE LIVES.”

- MATTHEW McKAY, PHD, bestselling author, Emotion Efficacy Therapy

FREE YOUR CHOICES AND YOUR LIFE

FROM THE EMOTIONAL DEFAULT WORLD

Differentiate emotional signals from noise.

Emotions are always giving us data based on what your emotional network perceives, but unfortunately it’s not always helpful or accurate in context. Learning to decode emotion triggers as they happen is the first step to unplugging from the emotional matrix.

Rewire unhelpful behavior patterns.

Gaining insight and awareness is a move in the right direction, but without the ability to respond powerfully in a moment of choice, you’re likely to default to what’s easy or familiar. By practicing skills in an activated state, you’ll leverage the power of experiential learning to unlock your full potential.

Design actions aligned with what matters most.

When you get emotionally triggered, you’re vulnerable to acting in ways that don’t line up with what matters most. By clarifying your values and learning to designing your actions in real time you’ll natural become more emotionally intelligent, resilient and psychologically flexible.

Imagine and unlock your full potential.

You can choose how you want to show up in any moment of choice, not just when you’re triggered. Developing the skills to choose more intentionally, flexibly and creatively will allow you to play bigger and better games wit your life. You can play your way to being the best version of yourself.

“When what you feel is all there is,there is no authentic choosing. you can’t see what else is possible.”

— DR. APRILIA WEST, What You Feel Is Not All There Is

REVIEWS FOR WHAT YOU FEEL IS NOT ALL THERE IS

  • A must read.

    “Dr. West offers a brief, structured, highly practical emotion efficacy skills training, integrating the latest evidence-based practices of mindfulness, acceptance, and emotion processing strategies in a masterful way. The examples, reflections, and client dialogues really make the concepts come alive. And the experiential practice will help people learn and retain these important skills for wellbeing and performance. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants a more powerful relationship with their emotions.”

    —KIRK STROSHAL, PhD, cofounder of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and coauthor, Brief Interventions for Radical Change

  • Enhance your life.

    “Regardless of whether you are well-versed in writings on emotional intelligence and agility, mindfulness, and coping with stress and adversity, you must understand how enjoyable and useful this book is. Aprilia isn't like other folks. She has a gift for illuminating complex evidence-based ideas through memorable examples and stories. She offers powerful questions and experiential exercises that will enhance your life. If everyone wrote with this level of clarity and poignancy the world would be a healthier place.”

    —TODD B. KASHDAN, PhD, professor of psychology, director of the Wellbeing Lab at George Mason University, and author of The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively

  • Indispensable.

    “In this indispensable and penultimate guide on authentically choosing your emotional adventures, Dr. West distills decades of clinical experience into a compendium filled with wisdom. Using step-by-step experiential practices, you can move toward your innermost interests, desires and yearnings in order to step fully into your power, freedom, hope and selfhood. This book will be a treasured volume in my personal and professional library.”

    -MAVIS TSAI, PhD, co-founder of Functional Analytic Psychotherapy, Research Scientist and Clinical Faculty, University of Washington

  • Practical, powerful & transformative.

    “Grounded in scientific research, Dr. Aprilia West delivers an engaging, practical and powerful skills training based on a transformative idea: when people break the trance of emotional reactivity they become more resilient, psychologically flexible and emotionally intelligent. She offers a structured program rich with useful tools, powerful questions, client examples, and guidance. This is an extremely well-considered, conceptualized, and accessible book. Highly recommended.”

    —RICK HANSON, PhD, NYT bestselling author of Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness and Buddha’s Brain

  • Compelling & potent.

    “This compelling and potent book not only illuminates exactly how emotions shape your choices for better and for worse, it also helps you tap the power of infinite games to play your way to being the best version of yourself in any moment. Dr. West takes the reader through a state of the art evidence-based skills training. By increasing your emotional efficacy you’ll learn to become the hero of your own story, transforming what’s possible for you and the future you’re living into.”

    —JANE McGONIGAL, PhD, #1NYT bestselling author of SuperBetter, Reality Is Broken and Imaginable, and Director of Games Research & Development at the Institute for the Future

  • For even the most psychologically savvy.

    “In What You Feel Is Not All There Is, Dr. Aprilia West offers a stimulating guide for how readers can achieve meaningful engagement in every aspect of our lives, simply by mastering our relationship with our emotions.…even the most psychologically savvy reader will find themselves returning to the text to cultivate improved emotional efficacy. By the end of the book, what becomes possible is approaching life as a series of new and potentially, valued choices, by playing ‘infinite games’ in any moment.”

    —EMILY K. SANDOZ, PhD, Endowed Professor of Social Sciences, and director of the Louisiana Contextual Science Research Group at University of Louisiana at Lafayette

  • A book that will change lives.

    “Maladaptive default patterns are at the root of unnecessary emotional suffering. The powerful, research-based program in What You Feel Is Not All There Is offers psychoeducation and experiential training to help people learn to override unhelpful defaults using powerful skills, including: emotion acceptance, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and values-based choices. Dr. West’s book will help readers optimize their moments of choice to embrace what really matters. This is a book that will change lives.”

    —MATTHEW McKAY, PhD, bestselling author of The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook

  • Everything you need to know about emotions.

    “Everything you ever wanted and needed to know about emotions and how to handle them like a boss is in this book. Rich metaphors, personal examples, and case studies bring the material to life in a compelling and easy-to-digest format. A great resource for anyone who wants to powerfully navigate their emotional life.”

    —JILL STODDARD, PhD, author of Be Mighty and The Big Book of ACT Metaphors; co-host of the Psychologists Off The Clock podcast

  • Essential reading.

    “In What You Feel Is Not All There Is, Psychologist and Executive Coach, Dr. Aprilia West delivers a pragmatic and powerful guide to helping people demystify emotional life and disrupt unhelpful behavior patterns to increase meaning, wellbeing and performance. This book is not only essential reading for the general public, but also for behavior analysts, therapists and health professionals who want to use evidence-based skills to optimize the choices they make, moment to moment.”

    —LUISA CANON PsyD, BCBA-D, adjunct professor, University of Reno, Nevada

  • Powerful skills.

    “This is the book for anyone who wants to better understand the relationship between their emotions, peak performance and wellbeing. The unfamiliar relationship with our emotional experience creates errors in the decision-making code and can lock people into rigid patterns of behaviour which can destroy meaning and joy. In What You Feel Is Not All There Is, Aprilia West weaves together cutting-edge research with vivid examples and storytelling to help readers learn powerful skills to override unhelpful default patterns and to stretch for what’s possible, even in the face of stress and distress.”

    —ROB ARCHER, PhD, Director, Cognacity and founder, The Career Psychologist

  • Relevant, smart & fun.

    “This is the book that all of us-- especially leaders--need to navigate the current and uncertain environment we all live in. Emotional Efficacy Training is a genuinely useful approach for developing a wise relationship with emotions and designing a more rich and meaningful life. Dr Aprilia West has made the training accessible for everyone by combining empirical research with compelling real-life examples and experiential practice, all delivered with her trademark warmth, humour and honesty. Relevant, smart and fun. Highly recommended.”

    —RACHEL COLLIS, Executive Coach and author of Applying ACT to Workplace Coaching, Sessional Academic, Graduate School of Business, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

  • Wholly recommended.

    “Dr. West begins her book with truly essential words: Your Life as Moments of Choice. The reader is invited to take a journey of purpose, guided by fundamental elements for living well. The skills include tuning into the moment, cultivating curiosity, leaning into discomfort, and connecting to values-- creating vitality. This is a must-read book for those wishing to find every moment a moment of choice linked to meaning. What You Feel is Not All There Is will be a permanent fixture in my office and a wholly recommended book for clients and friends. “

    —ROBYN D. WALSER, PhD, Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Author of The Heart of ACT, and ACT for Moral Injury

  • A trove of practical tips.

    “Dr. Aprilia West writes in a way that seamlessly blends pop culture and evidence-based practice. Dr. West guides readers on a journey that helps nurture flexible relationships with their emotions, empowering them to act upon what matters most. She provides entertaining and informative case examples, applied exercises, and experiential scripts. This book provides a trove of practical tips for regulation and resilience building; I highly recommend it.”

    —AMY R. MURRELL, Ph.D, Affiliate Faculty, University of Memphis and author of the Becca Epps Series on Bending Your Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors

  • Rethink what you know about emotions...

    “This delightful and brilliant book is guaranteed to make you RETHINK what you know about emotions, your choices and what’s possible for your life. With her signature playfulness and eloquence, Dr. West artfully weaves together storytelling, examples and evidence-based skills into a highly accessible format to help us unplug from unhelpful default reactions and bravely stretch for the best possible version of ourselves.”

    —VICTORIA LEMLE BECKNER, PhD, Associate Clinical Professor, University of California at San Francisco, and coauthor of Conquering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

NAVIGATE LIFE’S UPS AND DOWNS WITH FLEXIBILITY & RESILIENCE

Based on psychological flexibility processes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), the ACT For Your Best Life card deck offers 54 powerful prompts and practices to help you navigate life’s ups and downs with flexibility and resilience. With this deck you can learn to:

  • Anchor yourself in the power of the present moment

  • Sit with uncomfortable or unwanted emotions

  • Unhook from unhelpful thoughts and limiting stories

  • Step back as an observer and find perspective

  • Clarify what matters most in pivotal moments

  • Show up as your best self in any situation

The ACT For Your Best Life card deck is a fabulous way to regularly practice living well and living with meaning. With annotations and exercises, each card supplies the opportunity to tune into life and values, bringing awareness to experience and presence to what it means to be alive…and connected. I look forward to offering this deck to clients, friends, and family. I hope everyone finds the same benefit in these practical and easy-to-implement suggestions that I do.

Thanks, Dr. West, for creating these beautiful and life-promoting cards. What a gift!

— ROBYN D. WALSER, PhD, Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Author of the Heart of ACT, Co-Author of the Mindful Couple:How Acceptance and Mindfulness Can Lead You to the Love You Want, Learning ACT II, The ACT Workbook for Anger, and ACT for Moral Injury

Multiple studies suggest Emotion Efficacy Therapy (EET) is effective for significantly increasing emotion regulation, distress tolerance, as well as reducing relapse rates among people struggling with chemical dependency.

Emotion Efficacy Therapy is a brief, process-based protocol blending Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and exposure therapy. In just 8 sessions EET can be administered in individual and group formats in
clinical or organizational settings.

EET is highly experiential and helps clients not only learn what they can do differently, but how.

This professional guide includes a toolbox for evidence-based psychoeducation,
handouts and worksheets, clinician scripts and client examples.

More information on Emotion Efficacy Therapy (EET).

The way we work in this post-pandemic technologically accelerated world has increased the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) of marketplace and the workplace.

This text is a compendium of coaching approaches grounded in positive psychology for the workplace. In Acceptance and Commitment Coaching (ACC) in the Workplace, Dr. West and her coauthors explain how professionals can use psychological flexibility processes to improve wellbeing and performance in the workplace.