Available now on Amazon
Reclaiming Authorship Over the Mind
A practical and personal guide to understanding how thoughts and emotions shape behaviour, and how greater awareness can create space for a more intentional response.
A 60-second introduction
Discover the central idea behind The Cognitive Gorilla: learning to recognise the thoughts and emotions shaping a moment before they determine what happens next.
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Why I wrote this book
At seventeen, I experienced an event that changed the direction of my life. For years afterwards, I lived with panic attacks without fully understanding what was happening inside me. The Cognitive Gorilla grew from the long journey that followed, through rugby, military service, education, research and recovery.
This is not a promise of complete control over the mind or the elimination of difficult emotions. It is an invitation to understand the processes shaping us, create psychological space and become more deliberate about what happens next.
The two-movement mental model
Drawing together personal experience and psychological insight, the model develops two connected capacities through metacognition and emotional literacy.
Movement one
Recognise thoughts as mental events rather than unquestioned truths. Pause, examine the meanings attached to them and consider whether an interpretation is accurate, useful or inherited.
From automatic thought to intentional thinkingMovement two
Notice and name what you are feeling, understand the signals beneath the emotion and create enough space to choose a response aligned with your values and goals.
From emotional reactivity to intentional responseThought Appraisal Emotional Regulation Greater Psychological Authorship
Who the book is for
Whether you are navigating personal challenges, supporting others or simply want to understand yourself better, The Cognitive Gorilla offers practical tools to help you think more clearly, feel more balanced and choose what happens next.
Inside the book
Explore how thoughts, emotions, history, identity and environment enter the moment before a response.
Notice automatic patterns, unhelpful interpretations and emotional signals with greater clarity.
Develop the capacity to pause between thought and action, emotion and behaviour.
Move towards decisions and responses that better reflect the person you want to be.
Read The Cognitive Gorilla
Available from Amazon in Kindle, paperback and hardcover editions.
The Cognitive Gorilla is an educational book and does not provide psychological diagnosis, therapy, medical advice or emergency clinical care.