Do you often suspect the worst of others? Mild to moderate paranoia, or mistrust of other people, is on the increase, and although it may feel justifiable at the time, unfounded suspicions of this kind can make life a misery. Research says between 20 and 30 per cent of people in the UK frequently have suspicious or paranoid thoughts. This is the first self-help guide to coping with what can be a debilitating condition.
'This is the definitive practical guide from the leaders in the field on a hugely important topic. Written in an engaging, easy-to-understand style, the book tells how new research on paranoia is revealing how best to overcome it. The first edition helped many thousands of sufferers and the second edition promises even more.' Mark Williams, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Oxford, co-author of Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World 'The authors of this excellent and timely book have played a major role in developing our understanding of how suspicious thoughts arise and, crucially, how we can learn to cope with them.' Nicholas Tarier, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Manchester University Learn how to overcome your feelings of paranoia Do you feel as if others are out to get you? Research shows that 20-30 percent of people in the UK frequently have paranoid or suspicious thoughts about other people. These feelings can make life a misery. In this fully revised and expanded new edition, the authors explain how cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques can be used to treat this disorder by changing unhelpful patterns of behaviour and thought. Overcoming self-help guides use clinically proven CBT 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.
The only guide currently available on paranoia, this work offers a method for understanding, coping with, and treating this widespread and neglected condition, which can result in serious social consequences from isolation to violence in schools and the workplace.
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
This book offers a new approach to understanding and treating psychotic symptoms using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). CBT for Psychosis shows how this approach clears the way for a shift away from a biological understanding and towards a psychological understanding of psychosis. Stressing the important connection between mental illness and mental health, further topics of discussion include: the assessment and formulation of psychotic symptoms how to treat psychotic symptoms using CBT CBT for specific and co-morbid conditions CBT of bipolar disorders. This book brings together international experts from different aspects of this fast developing field and will be of great interest to all mental health professionals working with people suffering from psychotic symptoms.
Are you troubled by hearing voices or seeing visions that others do not? Do you believe that other people are trying to harm you or control you? Do you feel that something odd is going on that you can’t explain or that things are happening around you with a special meaning? Do you worry that other people can read your mind or that thoughts are being put in your head? Think You’re Crazy? Think Again provides an effective step-by-step aid to understanding your problems, making positive changes and promoting recovery. Written by experts in the field, this book will help you to: understand how your problems developed and what keeps them going use questionnaires and monitoring sheets to identify and track changes in the links between your experiences, how you make sense of these and how you feel and behave learn how to change thoughts, feelings and behaviour for the better practice skills between sessions using worksheets Based on clinically proven techniques and filled with examples of how cognitive therapy can help people with distressing psychotic experiences, Think You’re Crazy? Think Again will be a valuable resource for people with psychosis.
Practical help for managing distressing voice hearing experiences Have you ever heard someone talking to you, but when you turned around no one was there? Voice hearing is more common than might be expected. Many of those who experience this phenomenon won't find it distressing, while some may find it extremely upsetting and even debilitating. Although the causes of voice hearing are many and varied, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has been found to be a highly effective treatment for distressing voices. CBT can provide a powerful and positive way of coping with distressing voices, helping people to live well, even though the voice hearing may continue. Written by experts, this accessible self-help manual takes those affected by distressing voices on a journey of recovery and healing, based on the latest psychological research. Includes: · Clear explanations of what distressing voices are and what causes them · Techniques to explore and re-evaluate the links between self-esteem, beliefs about voices and feelings · Practical steps to reduce the distress that hearing voices causes · Consideration of the impact on friends and family, and advice for how they can help Overcoming self-help guides use clinically-proven 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. Series Editor: Professor Peter Cooper
From the pathological killer who gunned down the innocents at Virginia Tech to the average citizen who suspects the government is monitoring phone calls, the signs of suspiciousness and paranoia are all around us. In this comprehensive overview of an increasingly serious problem, an experienced psychologist and researcher describes what paranoia is, how and why it manifests itself, and the many forms it takes, including stalking, pathological jealousy, as a reaction to post-traumatic stress disorder, and perhaps even militia movements. Using striking vignettes from the present and the past, each chapter illustrates specific manifestations of paranoia while also describing in layperson's terms the clinical analysis of the condition. Among the topics are delusional paranoia, paranoid symptoms in the elderly, the evolutionary origins of our suspiciousness system and factors that can trigger it today, the connection between illicit drug usage and paranoid behavior, jealousy, PTSD, violent reactions to paranoia, and the treatments available. The author emphasizes that life in contemporary America is a fertile environment for paranoia; in an era of computer hackers, omnipresent security cameras, NSA surveillance, and terrorism, normal people have good reasons to be suspicious as their sense of security and privacy is undermined. But in such an insecure atmosphere, everyday suspicion can easily be ratcheted up, resulting in paranoia and occasionally violent outbursts. He warns of a possible epidemic of paranoia and suggests public health measures that could be used to counteract this potentially dangerous trend. Whether you consider yourself susceptible to paranoia or know others who might be, this enlightening book will help you understand the many factors that can distort your mental outlook.
Psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists and nurses are increasingly involved in treatments which include psychological therapy, and particularly cognitive therapy, for serious mental disorders. The aim of this book is to guide such professionals towards better practice by treating the individual symptoms of delusions, voices and paranoia, rather than by the categorisation of schizophrenia. The authors provide an introduction to their cognitive model and show how therapy depends crucially on the collaborative relationship with the client. While earlier approaches to these distressing symptoms depended on an overall model of schizophrenia which emphasised fundamental discontinuities with normal thought and psychological processes, the authors? approach is supported by substantial research that indicates that delusions, voices and paranoia lie on a continuum of differences in thought and behaviour, and do not arise from fundamentally different psychological processes. This book offers a practical, research-based and essentially hopeful approach to the assessment and treatment of psychotic disorders and also an argument for the development of a person model for treatment, which is based on the person?s enduring psychological vulnerabilities. This book appears in The Wiley Series in Clinical Psychology Series Editor: J. Mark G. Williams University of Wales, Bangor, UK
