ple; they will help. I believe this, but I’m not the one who matters. You
must judge for yourself before you can use these approaches with a good
heart.
Case Studies
More than a treatise on the nature of emotional explosions, this book
is intended as a practical guide. Let’s see what happens when we apply
a few theoretical constructs to the examples from the first part of this
chapter.
Before we go further, I’d like to point out that the examples in this
book are of real people who have given me permission to write about
them. The stories are presented a little piece at a time rather than as case
studies, with a fictitious name, age, occupation, diagnosis, marital status,
and number of siblings. I think that this is a more realistic and compelling
approach, and a good deal more interesting to read. My aim in present-
ing them is to demonstrate the huge importance of tiny moment-to-
moment details.
What people said to these explosive people made a difference. I
chose them for that reason. In case you’re wondering, most of them get
better in the end, but it wasn’t because they had a brilliant therapist. It was
the changing reactions of the people around them—family, friends,
coworkers, and sometimes even enemies—that made the difference in
these explosive people’s lives.
I encourage you to put yourself into the picture as you read these
case studies. Think about what you would say, do, and feel if you had to
deal with people like these, or if you were like one of them yourself.
An Explosion into Fear
Remember the friend whom we left at the mall, gasping and trembling at
the beginning of a panic attack? Let’s call her Jane, and take a closer look
at what’s going on in her mind and body as she explodes into fear.
The Blast Zone ❧ 9