Book of the Month October 2019 - Help! My Feelings Are Too Big!: Making Sense of Yourself and the World After a Difficult Start in Life

Help! My feelings Are Too Big!
​Making Sense of Yourself and the World After a Difficult Start in Life by K.L.Aspden
 
Help! My feelings Are Too Big! Making Sense of Yourself and the World After a Difficult Start in Life is an easily accessible book which talks directly to young people and not about them. 

Written from their perspective, it navigates around the topics of attachment in a sensitive manner, being careful not to allocate blame or fault. 

It feels as though the reader is taken by the hand and walked through the book providing clear and simple explanations as to why they may struggle with regulating their emotions and behaviour because of their early experiences.  The basics of attachment theory develops through two fictional case studies.  The comparative stories of a child who develops a secure attachment and a child who develops an insecure attachment and how this plots your emotional trajectory is a useful way to illustrate how young people develop their ability to regulate their emotions and behaviours.  This book provides an explanation as to why young people might feel the way they do, providing a potential ‘light bulb’ moment as they recognise and understand their own emotional development.

Starting with early experiences and moving onto school experiences, the author describes what lies behind behaviour and uses appropriate examples and effective illustrations to do this. The book contains a handy section about the brain with reference to specific parts and their functions, which complements the explanation of behaviour.  It talks about feelings and normalises big emotions. It goes on to helpfully suggests realistic and achievable steps to make relational links with adults who can help and tasks to help alter how you feel about yourself. 

This colourful and attractive book covers a lot but does not use scary language or labels; instead it provides explanations in a calm, non threatening, well paced, sensitive manner.  It presents the information in large text interjected with text boxes, bullet points and illustrations allowing the reader to work through the book easily or dip in and out.

This book offers a simplified, accessible explanation of how our early experiences and interactions with our caregivers influence and shape our emotional development, our self perception and ability to navigate and interact with the world around us appropriately, positively and successfully.
The message is comfortably and cleverly repetitive and does not offer a quick fix but instead the hopeful reality of life after a difficult start.

Katriona Hirst
Trainee Educational Psychologist
Clackmannanshire Educational Psychology Service

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