At the forefront of the cognitive revolution, renowned psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck turned to information processing in order to understand the sources, consequences, and cures of anxiety disorders and phobias. In the first half of this classic text, Beck elaborates on the clinical picture of anxiety disorders and phobias and presents an explanatory model to account for the rich complexity of these phenomena. Cognitive psychologist Gary Emery then details the therapeutic principles, strategies, and tactics developed on the basis of the cognitive model of anxiety disorders and phobias.This fifteenth anniversary edition of the foundational work on cognitive therapy features a new introduction by Beck, in which he offers an up-to-date appraisal of the current state of cognitive therapy and its application to the treatment of phobias and anxiety.
Great Overview of the Cognitive Perspective, but has some flaws... This book offers a great overview of the subject, anxiety disorders and phobias, from a cognitive perspective. The book is divided into two parts, a clinical/theoretical analysis and a practical outline of the application of the theory in therapy, authored by Beck and Emery, respectively.
The book accomplishes its aim of laying down the fundamentals from a cognitive perspective, but does have some flaws. First, much of the anecdotal evidence is just that--anecdotal. Specific studies aren't often mentioned, especially in the second part of the book. Additionally, the book does not address the importance of approaching psycholigical topics from multiple perspectives. That is, the book does not inform the reader of the other perspectives. So, if you take a more biologically-oriented perspective towards behavior and psychopathology, it is difficult to not take much of the book with a grain of salt. All in all, however, it is a good overview of the cognitive perspective on the issue.
Very insightful - for patients as well as therapists I picked up this book years ago (before getting therapy for my own anxiety disorder) and quickly gained much insight into the many variants of phobia and anxiety disorders. The explanations are clear, allowing laypersons as well as experts a good level of understanding.
While the book is definitely geared toward therapists interested in learning Beck's cognitive therapy approach, it is certainly useful to any patient or relative who is confronted with such problems -- above all the first half of the book! I really appreciated not being talked down to as in so many patient-oriented books.
Beck opens with an overview of everyday experience of fear and anxiety. Next, he describes the adaptive purpose of anxiety responses ("fight or flight") putting anxiety disorders on a dimension with normal behavior. He continues on to discuss the difference between "normal" and "pathological" forms of anxiety, addressing the major symptoms and thought patterns associated with clinical forms. He then gives an overview of clinical anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, atypical anxiety disorder, phobic disorders (of which there are many kinds), agoraphobia, social phobia and simple phobias.
He then presents his cognitive model of threat reactions and in-depth chapters focussing on anxiety disorder clusters ("Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder", "Simple Phobias", "The Agoraphobic Syndrome", and "The Evaluation Anxieties" social phobia and social anxiety). The second part of the book is devoted to his principles and strategies/techniques of cognitive-behavioral therapy.
The fact that new editions of this book have been published every few years over the past 2 decades is a tribute to its usefulness.
More for a Doctor than a Patient If you want to know more about anxiety dissorders from a doctor's point of view this book is good, but as a patient it wasn't very helpful. It was more geared towards telling a doctor how to treat the patients, but to be honest I didn't finish it, it wasn't for me or what I was looking for.
Beck's Anxiety Disorders and Phobias - Cognitive Perspective Every day, veterans of the Vietnam War commit suicide in deep depression. With the United States almost continually cutting its Veterans Administration budget, you would think that the V.A. would give up, but books like those of Beck help it treat and cure depression and anxiety. The Cognitive Therapy uses Socratic questioning, training people to ask why they feel sad or anxious, what their answers mean, to substitute more effective coping thoughts for ineffective thoughts and wrong ideas (illogical ideas, like "everybody is against me," "I'm born to fail," etc.). Patients record in diaries or logs what events trigger these wrong thoughts and learn to instantly respond with other thoughts and actions. This is one of the greatest books in psychology and psychiatry, and should be read by the young people of all ages (many of whom are depressed) as well as the older ones.
Interesting but intense This book was an interesting book and, undoubtedly, an important book from the professional stand-point. However, from the layman's stand-point, I thought it was a little too intense. There were sections that I had to go back and reread several times in order to understand what the authors were trying to say. I think this was because I am a layman with only General Psych 101 as a background. I can not, however, speak as to its rating for a professional.
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