This Is What Anxiety Looks Like
Relatable Stories, Targeted Solutions, and CBT Skills for Lasting Relief
Psychologist and anxiety treatment expert David A. Clark’s book This Is What Anxiety Looks Like demonstrates how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, an action-based talk therapy, can be used to combat distressing anxiety symptoms.
Differentiating Cognitive Behavioral Therapy from positive thinking, the book makes it clear that everyone experiences anxiety. However, it notes, most people have no idea what drives it. Exploring why anxiety is so hard to control, the book names relief methods beyond drugs or alcohol, avoidance of anxiety-triggering situations, seeking continual reassurance, or engaging in futile rumination. Such techniques may be common, it notes, but they only worsen and prolong anxiety’s effects. In contrast, it depicts twelve different types of anxiety alongside the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy interventions used to provide relief for them. Charts and graphs, downloadable worksheets, and suggestions for further research contribute to making it an invaluable guide to developing an effective personal anxiety relief program.
Grounded in decades of research and clinical experience, the book makes use of relatable stories based on composite clinical case studies to engage the emotions. It illustrates how anxiety, which is hardwired into each human being and designed to be protective, can become debilitating. In one story, a shy, awkward introvert working in isolation as a gamer and game designer finds his discomfort in social situations growing more intense until even interacting with family is difficult. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy works in such situations, the book says, because it trains the mind to recognize that thoughts are not facts, catastrophic thoughts are not predictions, and experiencing physical symptoms is not as important as how they are interpreted. Indeed, the same fairground ride that exhilarates one person may terrify another.
The self-help resource This Is What Anxiety Looks Like is about easing the symptoms of anxiety to reclaim one’s life.
Reviewed by
Kristine Morris
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
