Calm, Cool and Collected A Manual of Stress Management Based on Principle Therapy by John F. Hunchak, M.D.

Calm, Cool and Collected is about learning to cope with stress. Of course, relaxation and various other therapies have already been designed to help people learn to cope with stress. Unfortunately, relaxation tapes, bio-feedback, yoga, and meditation tend to produce tense people who know how to do a relaxation exercise, but these therapies fall short of helping people to become relaxed personalities. This book is written from the standpoint of principle therapy. A principle is a generality of wisdom or knowledge. This form of therapy is designed to provide you with practical strategies and wisdom to help you deal with life and reduce stress. One good principle is worth a thousand good facts. The principles in this therapy will be useful to solve or resolve the problems you now have. • What cannot be cured can be endured Having learned these principles, you will find them portable, and you will be better equipped to deal with other problems in your life as they arise. The cardinal principle in this book concerns balance. • Hunchak’s Principle: The point of maximum stability and function is the point of maximum balance This principle suggests the main goal of therapy in this book: to establish balance. Establishing balance requires a very significant effort and commitment on your part. Change towards balance is difficult, but it can certainly be achieved, and is worth it in the end. You have only one life to live, and you will get more out of yours if you are balanced. You can think of stress as the sum of all your stresses . Your stresses from your personality, work, marriage, children, relationships, finances, and so on all add up to your grand total of stress. You will never be able to relieve all stress, nor would you want to, because a certain amount is useful. What you want is to reduce your total stress to a comfortable level by reducing each source of stress as much as possible. Relaxation is your key to the potentially good parts of your personality: good feelings, constructive thinking, and useful behaviour. This book is about relaxation in that broad sense.