The Worry Trick: How Your Brain Tricks You Into Expecting the Worst and What You Can Do about It

Are you truly in danger or has your brain simply "tricked" you into thinking you are? In The Worry Trick, psychologist and anxiety expert David Carbonell shows how anxiety hijacks the brain and offers effective techniques to help you break the cycle of worry, once and for all.

Anxiety is a powerful force. It makes us question ourselves and our decisions, causes us to worry about the future, and fills our days with dread and emotional turbulence. Based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), this book is designed to help you break the cycle of worry.

Worry convinces us there's danger, and then tricks us into getting into fight, flight, or freeze mode--even when there is no danger. The techniques in this book, rather than encouraging you to avoid or try to resist anxiety, shows you how to see the trick that underlies your anxious thoughts, and how avoidance can backfire and make anxiety worse.

If you're ready to start observing your anxious feelings with distance and clarity--rather than getting tricked once again--this book will show you how.

ISBN-13: 9781626253186

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: New Harbinger Publications

Publication Date: 02-02-2016

Pages: 232

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

David A. Carbonell, PhD, is a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating anxiety in all its forms. He is author of Panic Attacks Workbook, The Worry Trick, and Fear of Flying Workbook. He is “coach” of the popular self-help site www.anxietycoach.com, and has taught workshops on the treatment of anxiety disorders to more than 9,000 professional psychotherapists in the U.S. and abroad. He is a long-standing member of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and a frequent presenter at their annual conferences. He received his doctorate in clinical psychology from DePaul University in 1985, and has maintained a practice devoted to the treatment of anxiety disorders since 1990. He lives in Chicago, IL, with his wife and a pair of rescue dogs. In his spare time, he is founding member of The Therapy Players, an improvisational comedy troupe of professional psychotherapists which performs at clubs, theaters, and mental health conferences throughout the Chicago area. Sally M. Winston, PsyD, is founder and executive director of the Anxiety and Stress Disorders Institute in Baltimore, MD. She is a founding clinical fellow of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), winner of the inaugural ADAA Jerilyn Ross Award, and was previously awarded the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) book award. She has over forty years of clinical practice and training specializing in anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). She is coauthor, with Martin Seif, of What Every Therapist Needs to Know About Anxiety Disorders, Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts, and Needing to Know for Sure.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Introduction 1

1 The Worry Trick 7

2 It's All In My Head-and I Wish It Would Leave! 23

3 Your Dual Relationship with Worry 43

4 Feeling Afraid in the Absence of Danger: How Odd Is That? 63

5 Putting Out Fires with Gasoline, and the Rule of Opposites 79

6 The Mad Libs of Anxiety: Catch the Worries Before They Catch You 95

7 Thinking About Thoughts 109

8 Uncle Argument and Your Relationship with Worry 125

9 AHA! Three Steps for Handling Chronic Worry 141

10 Your Daily Worry Workout 157

11 The Worry Parasite 179

12 Breaking the Secrecy Trap 191

13 Specialized Worries: Sleep and Illness 205

14 Closing Thoughts: There's Something Funny About Worry… 225

Notes 231