The only effective way to face down your weight, says internationally-renowned psychotherapist Dr. Roger Gould, is to get to the root of feelings of powerlessness that make you eat for reasons that have nothing to do with physical hunger.

“The issue of powerlessness is the key to controlling your weight,” says Dr. Gould, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and founder of MasteringFood.com. “It’s the missing link. It’s the reason your attempts to lose weight have failed or why your successes have only been temporary.” Dr. Gould draws on 25 years of his own clinical work with thousands of patients to offer a practical, systematic program for stowing the psychological baggage that causes emotional eating. “Taking your power back, one choice at a time, is in fact the only way to take control of your weight forever.”

Why is emotional eating so hard to stop? For emotional eaters, food is an “over-the-counter tranquilizer,” a psychological tool for avoiding feelings that are too intense or anxiety-provoking. Using food to deal with feelings, however, creates a vicious cycle—it may temporarily assuage the problem, but left unattended, the problem will only intensify over time, calling for more emotional eating.

Destructive patterns of behavior need to be relearned, and in the second part of Shrink Yourself, Dr. Gould helps initiate change by a slow and steady integration of new learning based on new experiences. In eight “sessions,” modeled on actual private therapy sessions, he leads readers through the process of peeling away the layers of defenses that have been controlling their unhealthy relationship with food. After successfully following Dr. Gould’s program, you’ll learn to compare your inner reality (self-doubts, fears, past experiences) to what is actually happening now, and you’ll respond more appropriately to what is happening and find you no longer have the uncontrollable urge to eat.

Dr. Gould also supplies a myriad of real stories drawn from his clinical practice and from MasteringFood.com.