Tamar Chansky is a clinical psychologist and one of the nation's leading experts on anxiety disorders. She is the founder and director of the Children's and Adult Center for OCD and Anxiety. According to Chansky there are 17 million people suffering from depression and many other men and women exhibit various other anxiety disorders. These serious mental health concerns cost $46 billion a year in treatment and lost time at work.
Freeing Yourself from Anxiety has been designed for those who are stressed out, disappointed, exhausted, or fed up. The main thrust is to put your mind "under new management." What is involved with this inner work? Number one is getting better at taking risks and living with uncertainty. We create havoc in our lives by clinging to the fantasy of safety and trying to control what happens to and around us. The second is to replace negative thinking by accentuating the positive.
Four steps for overcoming anxiety are outlined and explored by Chansky. For example, one involves not believing everything you think. She also looks at additional tools for freeing yourself from worry, discussing ways to deal with heated-up feelings, disappointment, and expectations. Chansky affirms the healing powers of empathy, compassion, gratitude, and savoring the goodness of the moment.
The last section of the book contains a treasure-trove of material on coping with anger, jealousy, loss, shame, procrastination, perfectionism, failure, and criticism. Chansky proves her skills as a clinical psychologist with case histories of people dealing with various anxiety disorders. She really impresses when she offers wise counsel on handling these heavy hitters that are obstacles to the life we want.
