Dr. Joseph Luciani is a clinical psychologist and self-proclaimed former whiner. In fact, he credits his years of whining and complaining with helping him to realize the limitations of traditional psychotherapy and discover a new approach that encourages people to “let go” of their troubles.

“I would go into therapy, week after week, with a litany of complaints. One day my therapist must’ve gotten fed up with me. He turned to me and said: ‘Yes, dear.’

I felt so humiliated and degraded,” Luciani recalls. “Then it dawned on me that I was acting like a child, whining and complaining. And, that’s where I had my conversion. Traditional analysis tends to be such a dissecting, a reiteration of the past that goes on and on. You don’t solve problems. You just learn how to become a better neurotic.”

Luciani took this experience during his training and analysis in the mid-1970s and began a quest for a philosophy and message that challenged the traditional model of healing. He eventually developed a cognitive behavior approach to help his own patients and many others. Known as “Self-Coaching,” his approach is based on the belief that unhappiness, depression and anxiety are bad habits that can be broken. It all comes down to accepting responsibility for your own happiness.

“Self-coaching doesn’t give a hoot about whether your potty training was too strict or lenient. We are the end result of habits from our past; we don’t have to look at why. People waste so much time looking back over their shoulders, not addressing the problem now,” Luciani asserts. “All life requires responsibility. It doesn’t matter if you go to a yogi, guru, shaman or shrink, all healing comes from you. The sooner you realize that and accept responsibility, the sooner you can really tackle the problems in your life.”

One important step in Luciani’s approach is to separate fact from fiction, and deal only with the facts. Don’t get caught up in the “what ifs,” he says, such as “What if I don’t pass this course?” Instead, focus on the facts. “You’ve done poorly on a midterm and need to do a bit more studying. Instead of getting anxious, you start to deal more pragmatically with facts rather than letting fiction overwhelm you,” he says.

Next, he encourages people to “stop listening to the noise”— the noise of reflexive thinking. Don’t listen to insecure thoughts that sometimes nag at you, such as “I can’t do this” or “this is too hard.” Everyone has tendencies that work against them, he says. The trick is to ignore them. “Don’t let insecurity drag you around like a dog on a leash.”

After you’ve separated fact from fiction and stopped listening to the noise, the next step is to “let it go.” Luciani compares this to ignoring the symptoms of a head cold, which always seem to feel worse when you pay too much attention to them. “You may be feeling anxious, depressed or overwhelmed. If you focus on those feelings and identify yourself with your anxiety or depression, you become it. By letting go, you turn away from it. You aren’t feeding those problems anymore.”

Letting it go is like changing the channel on your radio, Luciani says. You can say “no” to a negative line of thinking, just as you can say “no” to a bowl of potato chips when you’re on a diet. “My grandmother used to say, ‘You can’t stop a bird from flying into your hair, but you don’t have to help it build a nest.’ That’s the essence of letting go,” he explains. “You can’t stop an idea from percolating in your mind, but you don’t have to add to it. You can say no to thoughts that produce anxiety or depression. It’s as easy as changing the channel.”

Luciani has authored two books on his self-coaching philosophy, titled Self-Coaching: How to Heal Anxiety and Depression and The Power of Self-Coaching: The Five Essential Steps to Creating the Life You Want. He also has been spreading his message to audiences across the country, through seminars as well as appearances on TV and radio. He has been a frequent guest on CNBC, talking about the ways people cope with chaos in the world, such as the recent tsunami, the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax scare. Luciani says he hopes to bring his message to college audiences, to help students as they deal with the stress caused by social and academic pressures combined with anxiety of being away from home for the first time.

“I don’t subscribe to panic, anxiety and depression as mental illness, but as habits. People can deal with a habit. Habits are learned, and habits can be broken. That’s the simple truth,” he says. “The self-coaching approach comes in when you need to fire someone up about their life. Get them over the hump, convince them that the hump is doable. Allow them to see that they have choices. They have a choice not to be victimized by their insecurities.”

Through his web site [www.selfcoaching.net], Luciani has offered help to those in need around the world, often in places where people are oppressed and have nowhere else to turn. “I hear from women who are not allowed to seek help, people with such confusion and desperation, from homosexuality to depression and anxiety,” he explains. “Private practice is a tunnel vision way to work. To feel that I’ve helped people thousands of miles away with this technique has been very fulfilling.”

Joseph Luciani lives in Cresskill, N.J., with his wife Karen, who is a kindergarten teacher. Their daughter, Lauren, is a freshman elementary education major at the University of Delaware.