Welcome to my website
Would you like to transform your life using the Growth Mindset?
What do you hope to accomplish? Secure a job that you’re passionate about? Find your soul mate, make new friends, or improve your relationships? Become a healthier person? Get more enjoyment from your day-to-day?
Change is not easy! I cannot wave the magic Growth Mindset wand and “presto” all that you care about materializes.
The reality: Fixed Mindset – a self-limiting view of yourself blocks you from growing in ways that are important to you. It is insidious and hard to detect.
When you hit the expected obstacles on your road to change you may fall prey to it. Fixed Mindset shouts “I’m not talented” after you’re rejected for the exciting job you really wanted or “I’m unloveable” after a promising relationship ends.
Join me on the quest to maintain the Growth Mindset and make changes that are meaningful to you. Expect that you’ll get tangled up, sometimes unaware, in a Fixed Mindset. You’ll learn some special CBT techniques to recognize when it is holding you back, to break free from it and to move toward a life you value.
Elaine Elliott-Moskwa, PhD
Synopsis
“Based on the core principles outlined in the bestseller, Mindset by Carol Dweck, The Growth Mindset Workbook offers readers essential skills grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to overcome self-limiting attitudes and beliefs, and cultivate a growth mindset that can increase resiliency, boost self-confidence, and form the foundation of a meaningful, values-based life”–..
Foreword
Elaine Elliott-Moskwa was one of my first PhD students ever, and was among the finest ever. She did amazing research on how people’s goals could foster persistence and resilience—or the opposite. She found, for example, that people who focused on the goal of learning something new and challenging tended to be more resilient in the face of failure. But those who, instead, worried about measuring and validating their ability were more vulnerable to distress and “helplessness” when they encountered setbacks.
Her groundbreaking doctoral research set the stage for the discovery of people’s self-theories or “mindsets”—that is, a fixed mindset in which people believe their personal qualities, such as their intelligence, are just fixed and cannot be developed, versus a growth mindset in which people believe that through hard work, good strategies, and help from others, they can grow their abilities.
Dr. Elliott-Moskwa then trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Cognitive Therapy with Aaron T. Beck, the founder of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). And she was hooked! From there, she went on to have an illustrious career, practicing CBT for over thirty years. She established a cognitive therapy fellowship program at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital and is president of the Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies.
Meanwhile, decades of research documented the ways in which a growth mindset could help people thrive in terms of both their achievement and well-being. And all along the way, Dr. Elliott- Moskwa has been the bridge between this research on mindsets and the practice of CBT.
Now she has written this trailblazing book—the best I’ve seen—on how people can bring the two together in their own lives. That is, how people can bring an understanding of mindsets into their lives to help create the change they are seeking and reach the short- and long-term goals they are trying to achieve. Frankly, I was riveted by her fascinating case studies of people operating in the different mindsets, and inspired by the way she led the reader to see the mindsets in themselves. Finally, she provides a step-by-step program for viewing life through a new lens—that of a growth mindset—and shows how this not only can empower people to take on challenges but can guide them to act in more constructive and effective ways.
I highly recommend this book to you. It could change your life.
—Carol S. Dweck, PhD Author of Mindset
Reviews
What some leading CBT psychologists are saying about the Growth Mindset Workbook:
“Growth sounds so enticing until you get stalled by attitudes and behaviors that sabotage your progress. The Growth Mindset Workbook teaches you to observe your personal pitfalls and respond to them with strategies that can sustain your progress. If you are serious about improving your work or personal life, this engaging book shows you how to bring a growth mindset into your daily life with practical and life-changing effects.”
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Christine A. Padesky, PhD, coauthor of Mind Over Mood and The Clinician’s Guide to CBT Using Mind Over Mood
“Parallel lines of rigorous psychological research—cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindset research—have documented how we can improve our well-being, life satisfaction, and happiness. In The Growth Mindset Workbook, Elaine Elliott-Moskwa brilliantly describes how to effectively use the proven strategies of CBT to establish a growth mindset. By following Elliott-Moskwa’s step-by-step program, the reader will learn to identify and overcome barriers to a growth mindset, and master proven CBT strategies to lead a more meaningful and fulfilled life.”
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Dennis Greenberger, PhD, coauthor of Mind Over Mood, and director of the Anxiety and Depression Center in Newport Beach, CA
“The Growth Mindset Workbook is a book that can change your life. How often have you thought, ‘I can’t do that’? Elaine Elliott-Moskwa provides us with powerful, practical tools to identify your biases about change, and tools that help you overcome obstacles. Highly readable, informative, and immediately useful, you will find that these ideas and techniques can help you in almost any area of your life. This is a detailed plan for ‘Yes, I can’ thinking.”
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Robert L. Leahy, PhD, director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy, and author of If Only…: Finding Freedom from Regret
“Elaine Elliott-Moskwa has written a superb workbook that can transform your mind and change your life. Her approach is based on a simple and powerful idea: your mindset has an enormous influence on your mental health. As an expert clinician and one of the foremost scholars in this field, Elliott-Moskwa created a masterful workbook. I highly recommend it.” —
Stefan G. Hofmann, PhD, Alexander von Humboldt Professor at Philipps-University of Marburg in Germany, and coauthor of Learning Process-Based TherapyY
“What is a self-help book about if it’s not about growth, and growth begins—according to Elaine Elliott-Moskwa—with a growth mindset. In The Growth Mindset Workbook, Elliott-Moskwa, an authority on the topic, presents a host of CBT skills to cultivate and nurture a new growth-oriented mindset. If you’re stuck, stagnant, or paralyzed; if you’re anxious, sad, or suffering; pick up this book, learn these skills, and grow.”
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Michael A. Tompkins, PhD, ABPP, codirector of the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy, and author of The Anxiety and Depression Workbook and Anxiety and Avoidance
“Elaine Elliott-Moskwa has delivered an interesting and exceptional workbook to help the reader move from a fixed to a growth mindset, a go-to tool for everyone. Weaving her personal story along with relatable, professional, and everyday life examples of others, the reader is systematically helped to shift their mindset, remove the barriers to goal achievement, and build resilience and success.”
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Leslie Sokol, PhD, president elect of the International Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (IACBT); fellow of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT); distinguished founding fellow of the Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies (A-CBT); and coauthor of The Comprehensive Clinician’s Guide to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
“Elaine Elliott-Moskwa takes her work on resilience to write a compelling, must-read book on how to transform a fixed mindset into a growth mindset. By showing us that a fixed mindset is a habit, she helps us learn that we can develop a growth mindset. Replete with examples, The Growth Mindset Workbook is an excellent resource for us to learn how to welcome challenges and convert them into successes.”
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Lata K. McGinn, PhD, professor of psychology at Yeshiva University, cofounder of Cognitive and Behavioral Consultants, and coauthor of Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders and Treatment of OCD
“Elaine Elliott-Moskwa has done a masterful job of practically presenting a growth mindset. Readers are led through exercises to get themselves unstuck from seeing challenges as fixed and insurmountable. The growth mindset has been embraced by schools and corporations. She applies this perspective in a personal and specific way. By basing her working in CBT, Elliot-Moskwa harnesses the power of science to help the reader enhance their potential.”
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Lynn McFarr, PhD, professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); president of the IACBT; and founder of CBT California