When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life

by David D. Burns

Book Overview

The truth is that you can defeat your fears. The author of the four-million-copy bestselling Feeling Good offers 40+ simple, effective CBT-based techniques to overcome every conceivable kind of anxiety--without medication.

"Few truly great books on psychotherapy have been published, and this is one of them."--Albert Ellis, Ph.D., founder of the Albert Ellis Institute and bestselling author of A Guide to Rational...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 076792083X
• ISBN13: 9780767920834
• Release Date: June 2007
• Publisher: Harmony
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

The most influential and life changing collection of text I have ever read.

The information and techniques presented in this book changed my life in a profound way. Not only have I become a FAR less anxious individual in general, but I have the tools to combat every type of mood swing imaginable. My self esteem is at heights I could have never imagined. Whether you panic left and right, have mild anxiety, or are simply a human being, I GUARANTEE this book is worth your time. This is the real stuff: researched based and tested over and over again. Also, while I agree that a lot of this information is the same that has appeared in Burns' older classics "Feeling Good" and the "Feeling Good Handbook" I do find that it is presented in a more organized, easy to digest format that is focused on anxiety instead of depression. Despite containing the same underlying theories, it has expansions, re-organizations, and specifics that I feel easily make it a worthwhile addition to the Burns catalog. I, obviously, wholeheartedly and passionately recommend this book for ANYONE.

Get instant idea and some picture what CBT is even when driving.

Not always we have the time to sit down and start working on a new project. Not always we can concentrate good enough to have food for thought right out of the box. This CD of the well known Dr. David Burns does a good job to introduce to some ideas how to deal with cognitive therapy and to the point, to help you get the way of thinking in many situations where our mind thinks wrong and have missleading atitudes. Well read, good enough examples/stories of how CBT and way of thinking, and some rules of this kind of (well thought out) therapy works. I dont think that from this CD package (of 3) you can know every situation how to deal with, but enough good to get you gasoline until getting to the gas station. By listening to it a few times in my driving time I picked up alot of clues.. and from there I picked up a book on CBT ..only after I listened to the CDs of this package I was able to read the book more fluently knowing many of the concepts. This CD tells you interesting enough situatons in the form of (real?) stories to get your attention into the learning curve easily.

An Outstanding book not just for FEELING BETTER, but GETTING BETTER!

Dr. Burns incorporates the last 25 years of research and clinical developments since writing the best-seller FEELING GOOD (strongly recommended as well.) He has written a book which markedly refines and elaborates on FEELING GOOD, rendering the Cognitive Therapy approach found in FEELING GOOD even more effective for quick and long-term relief from distressing emotional conditions, including depression, anxiety, anger, and low-self esteem. In case you don't know, the book FEELING GOOD has been clinically proven to relieve major depression JUST FROM READING IT and following its instructions. I am confident that a clinical trial on WHEN PANIC ATTACKS would yield similar results for individuals suffering from anxiety disorders. The new book is very readable and far more versatile, and addresses some of the implicit gaps left from the former book. WHEN PANIC ATTACKS easily stands on its own, and doesn't just address panic attacks, but rather every conceivable type of anxiety, including chronic worrying, phobias, agoraphobia, shyness, public speaking anxiety, writer's block, procrastination, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Body Dysmorphic Disorder. As far as I am concerned, Dr. Burns should win a Nobel Prize for what he has accomplished here. Beginning with the "Daily Mood Log" --a sophisticated yet elegantly simple worksheet for documenting and combating one's emotional pain-- he has developed a veritable "technology" for overcoming even the most disabling of human emotions. Why do we suffer? We suffer because we hold onto some core self-defeating beliefs (SDB's) that leave us rather vulnerable to painful mood swings. Accordingly, he identifies 23 common SDB's. Many of these SDB's (such as Achievement Addiction, Approval Addiction, Fear of Rejection, Conflict Phobia, and Emotophobia) are far more widespread than even the common cold! All of our emotional suffering can be traced back to the SDB's that are always there, lurking somewhat hidden beneath our suffering, until we take the courageous and pro-active step to identify and revise them. He then provides 40 ways to "untwist" your thinking, divided into 15 types of methods. These types of techniques include Uncovering Techniques, Compassion-Based Techniques, Truth-Based Techniques, Semantic Techniques, Logic-Based, Quantitative Techniques, Humor-Based Techniques, Role-Playing Techniques, Spiritual Techniques, Motivational Techniques, Anti-Procrastination Techniques, Classical, Cognitive, and Interpersonal Exposure Techniques, and last but not least, the Hidden Emotion Model. He additionally shows you how to select the techniques that will work best for YOU, and the whole trial-and-error process is easily recorded onto another handy-dandy worksheet! By encouraging you to "fail as fast as you can" (a brilliant concept in its own right!), he clearly demonstrates how anyone who is serious about their mental health and overall well-being can overcome even de

20 years later-no new cognitive distortions have been found

It probably sounds somewhat dramatic, but I can only recall two self-help books that had a drastic effect on my life-by giving me a reasonable relief from anxiety and depression. The first one, Mind over Mood, by Greenberger and the second one, Feeling Good Workbook by Dr. Burns. Both of these books are based on solid research, reason and practicality. Almost 20 years since his workbook, Dr. Burns has finally written another book. To my disappointment and relief, it looks like he has nothing major to report. The good news is that after all these years of cognitive therapy evolution, there are still only 10 types of cognitive distortions. The bad news is that it takes only 10 to manage a perfect job to make you miserable. Cognitive therapy is based on the premise that our own automatic and often unnoticed thoughts WITHIN us, not the events that happen TO US, scare us to death and create a warped reality and provide fertile conditions for depression, anxiety, self-doubt, loneliness and procrastination. Virtually everyone who is depressed or anxious has these distorted thoughts. To get a relief, each distorted thought must be dealt with. As you can't relieve your hunger by just reading a cookbook, you must apply it to your own situation for at least 15 minutes a day 5 days a week. Once learned and practiced, the technique will offer you resilience to life's day-to-day challenges, unlike the antidepressants where the relief exists only while you take them. Burns lists various applications to become aware, challenge and rewire your thought pattern and beliefs about yourself and the world. There is no magic, no parent-blaming, just common sense stuff dealing with the here-and-now. What is so valuable here is his clear writing, convincing arguments, along with the examples of application that anyone can find an immediate use. What sets this book apart from other self-help books is that it's packaged into a system one can use in a consistent way. Moreover, the improvements one feels can actually be measured with various tests that Burns provides. Once I saw it worked after years of doom and suffering, I dared to feel hopeful. This added to my feeling good. If I were to find faults with this book,I'd say this: in all honesty, there really was no need for this book at all. True, in this book he struggles to find some new ways to tackle problems to justify the new edition, and true, there is some fine-tuning of the previous methods, however, non-essential ones. Feeling Good Workbook is so effective, in my opinion, it has all you'll ever need, which is enough to make a substantial change. In the end, each Burn's book can stand on its own, and will do a perfect job to diminish panic, depression and anxiety (all have distorted thinking as their basic element). Even though the system sounds simple, its power lies in consistency of application-easier said than done for the depressed and unmotivated-but it does become easier if you find it within yourse

20 years later-no new cognitive distortions have been found

It probably sounds somewhat dramatic, but I can only recall two self-help books that had a drastic effect on my life-by giving me a reasonable relief from anxiety and depression. The first one, Mind over Mood, by Greenberger and the second one, Feeling Good Workbook by Dr. Burns. Both of these books are based on solid research, reason and practicality. Almost 20 years since his workbook was written, Dr. Burns has finally written another book. To my disappointment and relief, it looks like he has nothing major to report. The good news is that after all these years of cognitive therapy evolution, there are still only 10 types of cognitive distortions. The bad news is that it takes only 10 to manage a perfect job to make you miserable. Cognitive therapy is based on the premise that our own automatic unnoticed thoughts WITHIN us, not the events that happen TO US, scare us to death and create a warped reality and provide fertile conditions for depression, anxiety, self-doubt, loneliness and procrastination. Virtually everyone who is depressed or anxious has these distorted thoughts. To get a relief, each distorted thought must be dealt with. As you can't relieve your hunger by just reading a cookbook, you must apply it to your own situation for at least 15 minutes a day 5 days a week. Once learned and practiced, the technique will offer you resilience to life's day-to-day challenges, unlike the antidepressants where the relief exists only while you take them. Burns lists various applications to become aware, challenge and rewire your thought pattern and beliefs about yourself and the world. There is no magic, no parent-blaming, just common sense stuff dealing with the here-and-now. What is so valuable here is Dr. Burn's clear and well-organized writing, his convincing arguments, along with the examples of application that anyone can find an immediate use. What sets this book apart from other self-help books is that it's packaged into a system one can use in a consistent way. Moreover, the improvements one feels can actually be measured with various tests that Burns provides. Once I saw it worked after years of doom and suffering, I dared to feel hopeful. This added to my feeling good. If I were to find faults with this book,I'd say this: in all honesty, there really was no need for this book at all. True, in this book he struggles to find some new ways to tackle problems to justify the new edition, and true, there is some fine-tuning of the previous methods, however, non-essential ones. Feeling Good Workbook is so effective, in my opinion, it has all you'll ever need, which is enough to make a substantial change. In the end, each Burn's book can stand on its own, and will do a perfect job to diminish panic, depression and anxiety (all have distorted thinking as their basic element). Even though the system might sound a bit simplistic, its power lies in consistency of application-easier said than done for someone who is depressed and unmotiva