Joel Minden - Show Your Anxiety Whos Boss: A Three-Step CBT Program to Help You Reduce Anxious Thoughts and Worry

In Show Your Anxiety Whos Boss , author Joel Minden has created a wonderful resource for anyone struggling with anxiety. In this very accessible book, Minden walks the reader through scientifically grounded principles of anxiety management, including learning to think more rationally, accepting uncertainty, and facing fears. If you suffer from anxiety that is getting in the way of your life, this book can be the light at the end of the tunnel.

David F. Tolin, PhD, ABPP , director of the Anxiety Disorders Center at the Institute of Living/Hartford Hospital, and author of Face Your Fears

Show Your Anxiety Whos Boss is the practical guide for managing worry that so many texts aspire to be, yet rarely are. This program may change your life.

Alexander J. Williams, PhD , program director of psychology, director of psychological clinic, and assistant teaching professor at the University of Kansas (Edwards Campus)

Using his clinical expertise, Joel Minden has taken wisdom from decades of anxiety treatment research and distilled it into an accessible, compelling book. Show Your Anxiety Whos Boss guides readers through practical steps for accepting and coping with emotions, so that they can pursue meaningful lives that are unhindered by anxiety. Through relatable examples and engaging explanations, Minden has provided an outstanding resource for people seeking effective strategies for managing their mental health. As a therapist, I cant wait to share these tools with my clients so they can take charge of their anxiety and experience greater joy!

Kathryn H. Gordon, PhD , licensed psychologist and adjunct research scientist

In Show Your Anxiety Whos Boss , Joel Minden presents a cogent yet practical account of how to manage anxiety and its various manifestations. Minden does a phenomenal job extrapolating the science and practice of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and presents these concepts in terms that are easy to understand for any consumer. Many books of this nature fail to provide terms that are appealing to the reader, in addition to providing step-by-step instructions for managing anxiety. Minden accomplishes this task by calling out anxiety and its various forms while providing practical strategies for managing anxiety. A must-read!

Kevin Chapman, PhD , licensed psychologist, and founder and director of the Kentucky Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (KY-CARDS)

Show Your Anxiety Whos Boss is essential reading for anyone looking to stand up to anxiety and take back control. What makes this book a game changer is its emphasis on responding flexibly to anxiety with multiple evidence-based strategies. Throughout the book, Joel Minden offers helpful examples and exercises to guide the reader through his three-step approach with relatable humor and warmth. Whether you struggle with worry, uncertainty, panic, or avoidance, this book will help you create a personalized plan for changing your relationship to anxiety, so you can get back to prioritizing what you value most.

Ashli J. Sheidow, PhD , senior research scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC)

Show Your Anxiety Whos Boss is an excellent resource for anyone struggling with procrastination, avoidance, or other unhelpful coping strategies related to anxiety. Drawing on his extensive clinical training and experience, Joel Minden translates principles and strategies from CBT and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) into clear, easy-to-follow language that speaks directly to the reader. Helpful worksheets, exercises, and examples throughout give the reader the tools and encouragement they need to challenge their own anxious fictions, reduce procrastination and avoidance, and make decisions that are guided by values rather than fears.

Lauren S. Hallion, PhD , assistant professor in the department of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh

Show Your Anxiety Whos Boss empowers those who are challenged by unrealistic worries that get in the way of living a full life. The three-pronged CBT approach relying on cognitive, behavioral, and acceptance strategies is grounded in a strong evidence base. This is an engaging and user-friendly guide.

Mary K. Alvord, PhD , psychologist, and coauthor of Conquer Negative Thinking for Teens and Resilience Builder Program for Children and Adolescents

While many books provide tools for managing anxiety, Show Your Anxiety Whos Boss teaches readers how to uproot two of anxietys most powerful lifelines: inflexibility and avoidance. Using warmth and humor, Joel Minden invites us to examine the rigid thought patterns that keep us stuck; to use values rather than emotions to guide our actions; and to drop the rope in the relentless tug-of-war that anxiety plays with our minds, bodies, and spirits. This book offers so much more than a comprehensive program for the successful management of anxiety. It delivers a call to courage and bestows an opportunity to build a road map to a braver, fuller, more meaningful life.

Kristin Bianchi, PhD, licensed psychologist at the Center for Anxiety and Behavioral Change

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2020 by Joel Minden

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

Cover design by Amy Daniel

Acquired by Ryan Buresh

Edited by Cindy Nixon

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

Contents

Foreword

Im so glad youre reading this book. I know how debilitating anxiety can be from my work as a clinical psychologist. Anxiety is a demanding presence, and it will try to get you to shape your life around it. But the more we change our lives to appease it, the more it wants. Before we realize it, our worlds can become quite small.

Thankfully, nothing can hold you back when youre committed to facing your anxiety. Joel Minden will lead you in doing exactly that in this book. Joel and I met through Twitter, of all places. I was struck by the insights he was sharing with his followers and by the similarities between his approach to treating anxiety and my own. Soon I invited him to be on my Think Act Be podcast. Our discussion quickly became my most popular episode, because Joel offers valuable tools for working through the anxiety with which so many of us struggle.

In the pages ahead, your skilled guide will show you a path to freedom from anxiety. Youll learn what anxiety is at its core and why it can cause us such grief if we design our lives around it. Youll discover three powerful ways to break the grip of anxiety. First, Joel distills the essence of problematic thoughts and how to train your mind to serve you better. Through these cognitive practices, youll learn how to change the unhelpful thoughts that drive anxiety. Youll also find strategies for doing whats most important to you, even when youre feeling anxious. These behavioral strategies are a powerfully effective way to faceand diminishyour fears. Finally, youll learn acceptance- based practices to help you tolerate the uncertainty at the heart of anxiety. Joel integrates these principles into a coherent practice that will arm you with three ways to deal with anxiety in its many forms. In the process, youll realize that anxiety is nothing to fear.