Robert L. Leahy - The Worry Cure: Seven Steps to Stop Worry from Stopping You

I heartily recommend this book to everybody who is worried and that includes practically all of us. Eminent psychologist Dr. Robert L. Leahy has designed an easy-to-follow program pinpointing unproductive worries across the broad spectrum of relationships, work, health, and finances. In elegant style, he shows how to neutralize and even eliminate them.

Aaron T. Beck, M.D., president of the Beck Institute
for Cognitive Therapy and Research and university
professor emeritus of psychiatry at
the University of Pennsylvania

Highly instructive and accessible Worriers will find relief here.

Janis Abrahms Spring, Ph.D., author of
After the Affair and
How Can I Forgive You?

An excellent book. The self-assessment questionnaires narrow down each readers personal domains of worry, giving them a leg up on making life-altering changes, and the easy-to-understand step-by-step procedures for overcoming worry provide useful tools that are research-based.

Monica Ramirez Basco, Ph.D., author of Never
Good Enough and coauthor of Getting Your Life Back

Clear and easy to follow like having Dr. Leahy, one of the foremost psychologists in the world, as your personal therapist. His superb insights and understanding of worry allow him to reasonably and logically address this often unreasonable and illogical problem.

Arthur Freeman, Ed.D., A.B.P.P., coauthor of
Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda and The 10 Dumbest Mistakes
Smart People Make and How to Avoid Them

Compelling, informative, and highly accessible. This book is certain to become the standard in assisting those who worry achieve fuller, healthier lives.

Douglas Mennin, Ph.D., director of the Yale
Anxiety and Mood Services

A must-read During a time when society is under more stress than ever comes this comprehensive book written by one of the worlds most noted authorities. Packed with clinical advice in a practical style, it addresses everyone from the occasional worrywart to some of the most severe types of ruminators.

Frank M. Dattilio, Ph.D., A.B.P.P., department of
psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

ALSO BY ROBERT L. LEAHY, PH.D.

Bipolar Disorder: A Cognitive Therapy Approach
(with Cory Frank Newman, Aaron T. Beck, Noreen Reilly Harrington,
and Laszlo Gyulai)

The Childs Construction of Social Inequality

Clinical Advances in Cognitive Psychotherapy: Theory and Application
(with E.T. Dowd)

Cognitive Therapy: Basic Principles and Applications

Cognitive Therapy Techniques: A Practitioners Guide

Contemporary Cognitive Therapy: Theory, Research, and Practice

The Development of the Self

Overcoming Resistance in Cognitive Therapy

Practicing Cognitive Therapy: A Guide to Interventions

Psychological Treatment of Bipolar Disorder
(with Sheri L. Johnson)

Psychology and the Economic Mind

Roadblocks in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders
(with Stephen J. Holland)

Copyright 2005 by Robert L. Leahy

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

THREE RIVERS PRESS and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2005.

Permissions on are an extension of the copyright page.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leahy, Robert L.
The worry cure : seven steps to stop worry from stopping you / Robert L. Leahy.1st ed.
1. Worry. I. Title.
BF575.W8L67 2005
152.46dc22
2005002668

eISBN: 978-0-307-33815-0

v3.1_r1

To Helen

This book owes a great deal to many people.

I would like to thank my agent, Bob Diforio, who has been wonderfully supportive and effective throughout the entire project. I look forward to our working together on other projects in the future. I want to thank my editor, Julia Pastore, of Harmony Books, who has been everything that you would want in an editor. Julia helped me sharpen the message, clarify my thinking, and understand better what this is all about.

None of this would have been possible without the work of so many dedicated researchers in psychology scattered throughout the world. I wish to thank the following people whose work I have found most helpful: David Barlow, Thomas Borkovec, David A. Clark, David M. Clark, Michel Dugas, Paul Gilbert, Leslie Greenberg, Steven Hayes, Richard Heimberg, John Kabat-Zinn, Robert Ladouceur, Marsha Linehan, Douglas Mennin, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Costas Papageorgiou, Christine Purdon, Jack Rachman, Steven Reiss, John Riskind, Paul Salkovskis, Steven Taylor, and Adrian Wells. Special thanks goes to Aaron T. Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy, who has been mentor, colleague, and friend for the past twenty-two years.

I also wish to thank my colleagues at the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy who allowed me to test out these ideas for the past several years. Thanks to Danielle Kaplan, Elisa Lefkowitz, Lisa Napolitano, Laura Oliff, and Dennis Tirch. My editorial and research assistant, David Fazzari, from Columbia University, has been a constant source of support throughout this project.

I also want to thank my friends Frank Datillio, Steve Holland, Bill Talmadge, Philip Tata, and David Wolf, and my brother, Jim Leahy, for their support and insight.

And, most of all, I want to thank my wife, Helen, whose understanding ear and whose companionship on weekly hikes along the Appalachian Trail has put everything in perspective.

W ORRYING IS SECOND NATURE to you, but imagine that someone who has been raised in the jungle and knows nothing about conventional modern life approached you and asked, How do I go about learning how to worry? Of course, youve been worrying spontaneously for years, but how would you teach someone to worry? How would you come up with a rule book for worry?

First, youd have to come up with some good reasons why you need to worry. What could they be? How about Worry motivates me or Worry helps me solve my problems or Worry keeps me from being surprised? Those sound like excellent reasons to worry.

Then you can come up with some ideas about when to start worrying. What is going to trigger this experience for you? You might say, When something bad happens, but thats not really the case, because you worry about bad things that havent happened