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Show Your Anxiety Who's Boss

An Anxiety Self-Help Book Based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy 

Anxiety Self-Help Book: Show Your Anxiety Who's Boss - Joel Minden, PhD

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ABOUT

Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss is your guide to responding to anxiety’s distressing sensations, thoughts, urges and feelings with more useful plans and predictions, greater acceptance and self-compassion, and a commitment to value-driven action. 

If you struggle with excessive worry, panic, phobias, or intrusive thoughts, you’ve probably noticed that your efforts to reduce or control anxiety with positive thinking, breathing exercises, distraction, medication, avoidance, or other safety behaviors don’t always pay off. And when they do, the effect tends to be weak and short-lived. Not only that, devoting so much energy and attention to reducing distress can cause you to spend more time on anxiety management than you do on more meaningful activities that bring pleasure, personal control, and a sense of accomplishment.  

Grounded in the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss is an anxiety self-help book that will help you change your relationship to anxiety. Instead of understanding anxiety as an intolerable emotion that must be defeated, you’ll employ three foundational strategies to stand up to anxiety, take back control, and live on your own terms:

  • Useful Predictions, Not Anxious Fictions: When you get stuck on worries that overestimate the likelihood or impact of an upcoming challenge, or you underestimate your ability to cope, you’ll learn how to respond with more realistic and useful beliefs that set you up for better emotional and behavioral outcomes.
  • Take Action, Demand Satisfaction: When the urge to avoid discomfort or anxiety provoking situations seems overpowering, you’ll learn how to respond with a renewed commitment to taking on meaningful challenges that promote life satisfaction–even if anxiety happens to come along for the ride.
  • Accept and Redirect: When you find yourself getting too invested in difficult thoughts and feelings that push back harder when you try to control them, you’ll learn to respond with greater objectivity, tolerance, humor, and self-compassion, so you can redirect your attention to what’s truly important in the moment. 

About the author: Dr. Joel Minden is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety and related concerns. He is the director of Chico Center for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, diplomate of the Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies, and lecturer at California State University, Chico. He is the author of the anxiety self-help book, Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss, and CBT and Me, at Psychology Today. 

 

reviews

“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 Who’s 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 can’t wait to share these tools with my clients so they can take charge of their anxiety and experience greater joy!”
Kathryn Gordon, PhD
Clinical Psychologist and Author of The Suicidal Thoughts Workbook
“Show Your Anxiety Who’s 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)
“In Show Your Anxiety Who’s 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 Doing CBT and Face Your Fears
"This book is about finding a way to focus on the things you hold most dear, like meaningful work and your closest relationships. Fundamentally, it’s about living your life. As you follow Joel’s lead, you’ll know that you’re the one, rather than your anxiety, who’s calling the shots. Through this work, I suspect you’ll join the countless individuals with anxiety who have reclaimed their lives—mind, body, and spirit."
Seth J. Gillihan, PhD
Clinical Psychologist and Author of The CBT Deck and A Mindful Year
“While many books provide tools for managing anxiety, Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss teaches readers how to uproot two of anxiety’s 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
“Show Your Anxiety Who’s 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)
“In Show Your Anxiety Who’s 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 Director of the Kentucky Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (KY-CARDS)
“Show Your Anxiety Who’s 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 Who’s 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

Show Your Anxiety Who's Boss

An Anxiety Self-Help Book Based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Anxiety Self-Help Book: Show Your Anxiety Who's Boss - Joel Minden, PhD

AVAILABLE AT

Buy at Amazon
Buy at Barnes and Noble
Buy at Indiebound
Buy at New Harbinger