Learn how to control your health anxiety Health anxiety affects many people across the world - a preoccupation with physical illness that is equally bad for your mental health. This self-help guide explains how it develops and what keeps it going. This updated edition gives you clinically proven cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques to help you challenge the way you think and behave: · How to spot and challenge thoughts that make you anxious · Reducing your focus on your body and on illness
Fully updated edition of the bestselling self-help book, now recommended on the national Books on Prescription scheme. This ever-popular guide offers a self-help programme, written by one of the UK's leading authorities on anxiety and based on CBT, for those suffering from anxiety problems. A whole range of anxieties and fears are explained, from panic attacks and phobias to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and generalised anxiety. It includes an introduction to the nature of anxiety and stress and a complete self-help programme with monitoring sheets based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. The following websites may offer useful further information on anxiety disorders: www.social-anxiety.org.uk www.stress.org.uk www.triumphoverphobia.com
Grounded in current theory and treatment research, this highly practical book presents a comprehensive framework for assessing and treating health anxiety, including full-blown and milder (subclinical) forms of hypochondriasis. The current state of knowledge about these prevalent and costly problems is reviewed, and assessment methods and empirically supported treatments described. Clear, step-by-step recommendations are provided for engaging patients or clients, implementing carefully planned cognitive and behavioral interventions, and troubleshooting potential pitfalls. Important advances in pharmacotherapy for persons with health anxiety disorders are also discussed. Enhancing the utility of this clinician- and student-friendly resource are numerous case examples and sample dialogues, quick-reference tables and boxed material, and over 20 reproducible handouts and assessment forms.
There are many forms of anxiety disorder, including General Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Attacks, Phobias (including social anxiety), Obsessive Compulsive Disorders, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Acute Stress Disorder. Even in their most mild forms, these disorders can be troubling and exhausting – at worst they can severely disable a person’s ability to function in day-to-day life. Severe anxiety and phobic disorders affect 18% of the UK population. (nopanic.org.uk) Symptoms of anxiety range from the mental and emotional – depression, having difficulty concentrating, losing patience easily – to the physical – excessive thirst, headaches, pins and needles, and more (www.bbc.co.uk) Often the problem is self-feeding – people try to keep things under control whilst simultaneously worrying about being anxious all the time, and the cycle goes on. Psychotherapy, medication and self help are the key treatments for anxiety – however, as many people either don’t have access to, or choose not to take, professional treatment, self help is the key for a majority of sufferers. A Dummies book on the subject will present the facts without the jargon, and help people find the trustworthy guidance they need.
Learn how to control your health anxiety Health anxiety affects many people across the world - a preoccupation with physical illness that is equally bad for your mental health. This self-help guide explains how it develops and what keeps it going. This updated edition gives you clinically proven cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques to help you challenge the way you think and behave: · How to spot and challenge thoughts that make you anxious · Reducing your focus on your body and on illness
How you can stop worrying about your health and enjoy life 'This book not only helps sufferers to better understand the nature of the problem, but also provides them with the skills necessary to overcome it and to regain quality of life' Professor Paul Salkovskis, Professor of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford Many of us have a tendency to worry unnecessarily about our health. For some the anxiety becomes severe and persistent. This can involve spending many hours checking for symptoms, seeking reassurance from others, surfing the internet for information about different diseases, or repeatedly visiting the doctor. It is distressing for them and for everyone around them. In fact, health anxiety can be very successfully treated with cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) - the approach taken in this self-help guide. Using a structured, step-by-step approach the authors explain how the problem develops, how to recognise what feeds it and how to develop effective methods of dealing with it. This book includes: - Questionnaires, case studies and exercises - Chapters on fear of death and on medication Overcoming self-help guides use clinically proven techniques to treat long-standing and disabling conditions, boith psychological and physical. READING WELL This book is recommended by the national Reading Well scheme for England and Wales delivered by The Reading Agency and the Society of Chief Librarians with funding from Arts Council England and Wellcome. www.reading-well.org.uk Series Editor: Emeritus Professor Peter Cooper
"This book was written for everyone who has experienced severe anxiety and would like to become free from abnormal fear. The intended audience also includes psychotherapists who are called on to treat patients suffering with anxiety disorders. Family and friends of anxiety sufferers who want to understand and help may also be interested ... " -- p. [xi]
These immediate, user-friendly, and effective strategies are designed to help you overcome anxiety. They include step-by-step exercises that you can do in the moment without having to understand the subtleties of the most often used therapies for treating anxiety.
Everyone feels foolish, embarrassed, judged or criticised at times, but this becomes a problem when it undermines your confidence and prevents you from doing what you want to do. Extreme social anxiety and shyness can be crippling but they are readily treated using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). In this fully revised and updated edition, Dr Gillian Butler provides a practical, easy-to-use self-help course which will be invaluable for those suffering from all degrees of social anxiety. Overcoming self-help guides use effective therapeutic techniques to treat long-standing and disabling conditions, both psychological and physical. Many guides in the Overcoming series are recommended under the Reading Well Books on Prescription scheme.
Overcoming app now available via iTunes and the Google Play Store. Anxiety affects thousands of people in the UK and it can be effectively treated with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. This introductory booklet is aimed at those for whom anxiety has become a problem. Written by experienced practitioners, it explains what anxiety is and how it makes you feel when it becomes unmanageable or lasts for long periods of time. It will help the reader to understand their symptoms and is ideal as an immediate coping strategy and as a preliminary to fuller therapy. What anxiety is and how it develops. Physical symptoms. How to spot and challenge thoughts that make you anxious. Thinking in a more balanced way. Changing how you behave in order to reduce your feelings of anxiety. 'This booklet will prove an invaluable first step to overcoming anxiety.' Professor Peter Cooper, Professor of Psychology, University of Reading
