Best Books For Anxiety

Anxiety is such a common problem that it seems like there are thousands of resources out there claiming they can help you conquer it. We have weeded through a lot of the popular books for anxiety and are recommending the ones we, as therapists, find the most useful. Below are our top 5 favorite books for helping your anxiety.

Things Might Go Terrible, Horribly Wrong by Kelly G. Wilson & Troy Dufrene

You don't need a book to tell you this much: Sometimes things fall apart, crack open, and miss the mark. You can plan and strategize and keep your eye on the horizon, watching for trouble. And nothing you can do will protect you from the fact that things might, when you least expect it, go terribly, horribly wrong. If you're anxious about this, it's not like you don't have a reason. If you're very anxious about this, you're certainly not alone. In fact, even if your whole life feels like it's about anxiety, your story is a lot more common that you might imagine.

This book approaches the problem of anxiety a little differently than most. Instead of trying to help you overcome or reduce feelings of anxiety, Things Might Go Terribly, Horribly Wrong will help you climb inside these feelings, sit in that place, and see what it would be like to have anxiety and still make room in your life to breathe and rest and live — really and truly live — in a way that matters to you.

Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts by Sally M. Winston, PsyD & Martin N. Seif, PhD

You are not your thoughts! In this powerful book, two anxiety experts offer proven-effective cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) skills to help you get unstuck from disturbing thoughts, overcome the shame these thoughts can bring, and reduce your anxiety.

If you suffer from unwanted, intrusive, frightening, or even disturbing thoughts, you might worry about what these thoughts mean about you. Thoughts can seem like messages—are they trying to tell you something? But the truth is that they are just thoughts, and don’t necessarily mean anything. Sane and good people have them. If you are someone who is plagued by thoughts you don’t want—thoughts that scare you, or thoughts you can’t tell anyone about—this book may change your life.

Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life by Steven C. Hayes, PhD

Get ready to take a different perspective on your problems and your lifeand the way you live it. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a new, scientifically based psychotherapy that takes a fresh look at why we suffer and even what it means to be mentally healthy. What if pain were a normal, unavoidable part of the human condition, but avoiding or trying to control painful experience were the cause of suffering and long-term problems that can devastate your quality of life? The ACT process hinges on this distinction between pain and suffering. As you work through this book, youll learn to let go of your struggle against pain, assess your values, and then commit to acting in ways that further those values.

ACT offers you a path out of suffering by helping you choose to live your life based on what matters to you most. If you’re struggling with anxiety, depression, or problem anger, this book can help. This is more than a self-help book for a specific complaint, it is a revolutionary approach to living a richer and more rewarding life.

The Anxious Thoughts Workbook by David A. Clark, PhD.

Do you have unwanted, disturbing, upsetting, or weird thoughts that you just can’t seem to shake? Violent or sexual thoughts that cause you to feel ashamed, anxious, or depressed? Maybe you think they mean something about you—and that thought scares you even more. While you may not be able to shut your thoughts off permanently, you can gain distance from them and improve your life. This step-by-step guide will show you how.

In The Anxious Thoughts Workbook, renowned psychologist David A. Clark presents a targeted, transdiagnostic approach to help you move past unwanted mental intrusions. You’ll learn how to change the destructive patterns responsible for the persistence of anxious and depressive thinking, and strip these upsetting thoughts of their meaning—a process Clark refers to as “detoxing.” Finally, you’ll learn to manage the feelings of shame that can accompany these thoughts.

(The above recommendations use affiliate links, but you’re encouraged to purchase these books from your favorite bookstore or online retailer!).

Thinking about starting therapy? Contact us here for a free consultation, or read more about our approach to therapy for anxiety.