CBT Anxiety Workbook Counseling

“Anxiety, panic, and worries can have crippling and debilitating effects on a person’s life.
Fortunately, there are effective ways to deal with them. In this beautifully written workbook,
McKay, Skeen, and Fanning offer concrete and effective instructions to overcome these prob-
lems. I highly recommend this book.”
—Stefan G. Hofmann, PhD, professor of psychology at Boston University
“Combining the best approaches from all three generations of cognitive behavioral therapy
(CBT) research and practice, this book is a reliable, evidence-based guide to expand your life
when it is restricted by fear. Systematic, clear, and step-by-step, think of it as a roadmap for
human liberation—your own, or one you love. Highly recommended.”
—Steven C. Hayes, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Nevada,
Reno,and author of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life
“This workbook beautifully integrates strategies from acceptance and commitment therapy
(ACT), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) into
practical solutions for a broad spectrum of anxiety problems. McKay, Skeen, and Fanning take
readers through a step-by-step process explaining mechanisms underlying anxiety, helping
individuals assess problematic coping patterns, and introducing values work to motivate them
for the challenge of tackling anxiety in a meaningful and lasting way. Numerous real-life
examples validate personal experiences and illustrate how to implement interventions to
reduce suffering, which will resonate with clients and clinicians alike.”
—Rochelle I. Frank, PhD, assistant clinical professor of psychology at the University
of California, Berkeley, and coauthor of The Transdiagnostic Road Map to Case
Formulation and Treatment Planning
“This workbook demystifies anxiety and teaches the nuts and bolts about using strategies from the
most up-to-date anxiety protocols and treatments to face your specific fears and cope with fearful
thoughts. It’s informative, thorough, and easy to follow, with numerous examples to use as guide-
lines. Whether you suffer from anxiety or you help those who do, this resource offers the practical
guidance you need.”
—Joan Davidson, PhD, codirector and founding partner of the San Francisco Bay Area
Center for Cognitive Therapy, and assistant professor in the clinical sciences program
at the University of California, Berkeley
“This book is based on a number of proven approaches for treating and managing anxiety, includ-
ing exposure to feared stimuli, mindfulness and acceptance, and cognitive reappraisal. Filled with
helpful worksheets and illustrations, the book’s clear, practical, and accessible format is an excel-
lent option for anyone struggling with anxiety.”
—Martin M. Antony, PhD, professor of psychology at Ryerson University, and coauthor
of The Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook and The Anti-Anxiety Workbook
The
CBT
Anxiety Solution
WORKBOOK
A BREAKTHROUGH TREATMENT for

OVERCOMING FEAR, WORRY & PANIC
MATTHEW MCKAY, P h D
MICHELLE SKEEN, P sy D
PATRICK FANNING
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter
covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, finan-
cial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a compe-
tent professional should be sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2017 by Matthew McKay, Michelle Skeen, and Patrick Fanning

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
Cover design by Amy Shoup
Acquired by Catharine Meyers
Edited by Susan LaCroix
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

Contents
1 The Anxiety Problem 1
2 The Alarm Response 5
3 Assessment 21
4 Motivation 31
5 Preparation 39
6 The Anxiety Solution 79
7 You Can Face Fear 101
8 Reducing Worry with Defusion 115
9 Correcting Your Anxiety Lens 127
10 Distress Tolerance Skills 145
11 Relapse Prevention 167
Appendix I: Comprehensive Coping Inventory (CCI) 181
Appendix II: Worksheets 185
Appendix III: Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) 207
Appendix IV: Interoceptive Exposure 211
Appendix V: Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-II) 219
References 221
CHAPTER 1
The Anxiety Problem
Fear is a natural and valuable emotion. It has great survival value for human beings, preparing
us to fight for survival or run away quickly from a threat. But too much fear in the form of
chronic anxiety is incredibly painful and debilitating.
Anxiety is prolonged fear that persists in the absence of a real threat: after a threat is over,
during situations that aren’t actually very dangerous, or before a potential threat in the future.
When anxiety becomes chronic and dominates your life, it morphs into an anxiety disorder.
Research consistently shows that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most effective
anxiety treatment. It works better than drugs, psychoanalysis, hypnosis, and all the other ways
we have tried to treat anxiety over the years.
Broadly speaking, two CBT approaches for treating anxiety have emerged: coping and
exposure. Coping is changing how you think, evaluating threats more accurately, and building
confidence in your ability to handle a threat so that you are gradually less afraid. Exposure is
purposefully experiencing what you are afraid of, disproving your dire predictions of disaster,
until your fear naturally subsides. The most recent data show that both approaches help, but
exposure can work faster and results in larger, longer-lasting reductions in anxiety.
The first two-thirds of this book teach you everything you need to know to apply the latest
and most effective protocol for exposure, called inhibitory learning. It was developed by a team
of therapists and researchers (Craske, Treanor, Conway, Zbozinek, and Vervliet) who pub-
lished their results in 2014. This special exposure process will help you overcome anxiety as
rapidly and completely as possible.
This book also covers the most effective coping strategies used in CBT and related thera-
pies: coping planning, defusion, cognitive flexibility, and distress tolerance. They are research-
tested, highly effective techniques that will augment and strengthen your anxiety recovery
program.
THE CBT ANXIETY SOLUTION WORKBOOK
How to Use This Book

Using this book is simple: continue reading, working through the first six chapters in order.
Do the exercises as you come to them, thoroughly and diligently, before going on to the next
section or skipping ahead. Along the way, you may be advised to also work in chapters 7–10.
Finally, read the final chapter on relapse prevention.
You are about to start a challenging but very rewarding journey. Here is a preview of the
main attractions:
Chapter 2 goes into the details of the alarm response, how we perceive and appraise
threats, the fight/flight reaction, and typical behavioral responses. It allows you to compare
your symptoms to the six most commonly diagnosed anxiety disorders:
1. Generalized anxiety disorder
2. Social anxiety disorder
3. Obsessive-compulsive disorder
4. Panic disorder
5. Specific phobia
6. Post-traumatic stress disorder
You will begin making a list of feared situations that you will carry forward into future
chapters. At the end of the chapter is an exercise to help you identify your particular fear
response and begin to shape your treatment plan.
Chapter 3 is all about assessment. You will begin an inventory of your feared situations,
your level of distress for each, and which of several safety behaviors you tend to use:
• Avoiding what’s making you anxious
• Seeking reassurance from others
• Distraction
• Procrastination
• Checking and double-checking
• Overpreparing for stressful encounters
• Perfectionism
2
The Anxiety Problem
• Ritual thoughts or actions
• List making to avoid forgetting and uncertainty
• Using drugs or alcohol to take the edge off
By far the most common safety behavior is avoidance. The chapter concludes with a check-
list to find out which types of avoidance you favor: avoiding certain situations, avoiding certain
thoughts, or avoiding certain physical sensations.
Chapter 4 is where you will work to build motivation for facing your feared situations.
You’ll assess the costs of your avoidance and other safety behaviors in nine domains:
1. Friendships
2. Family
3. Parenting
4. Work/education
5. Self-care/health
6. Pleasure/recreation
7. Life goals
8. Service to others
9. Romantic relationships
You will also identify and rate your positive values in these domains and list the activities
and accomplishments you have been missing because of chronic anxiety. Finally, you will
consider the importance of willingness when facing situations you have been avoiding.
Chapter 5 is the planning chapter in which you will list various ways you plan to stop your
safety behaviors and expose yourself to the situations, feelings, and thoughts you have been
avoiding. For each of your planned exposures you will predict the worst possible outcome and
set a percentage probability for the outcome happening as predicted. After consulting many
detailed examples of inventories composed by people suffering from all the different anxiety
disorders, you will arrive at the end of the chapter with your own detailed exposure
inventory.
Chapter 6 guides you through the actual exposure process: when to do it, what to experi-
ence first, how to prepare for exposures, evaluating your results, how often to do exposures,
and so on.
3
Chapter 7 is the first of the supplemental coping chapters. It explains how to increase your
sense of efficacy by developing a coping plan for your worst-case scenario.
Chapter 8 teaches the cognitive skill of defusion, a technique for coping with fearful
thoughts, adapted from acceptance and commitment therapy.
Chapter 9 corrects your anxiety lens by teaching you how to appraise threats more
accurately.
Chapter 10 works on increasing your distress tolerance, using techniques from dialectical
behavior therapy, such as mindfulness, self-soothing, and relaxation.
Chapter 11 guides you in crafting a plan for relapse prevention, so that you can deal with
any anxiety that crops up in the future.
Appendices contain all the worksheets in one place for ease of photocopying, extra
instructions for panic disorder, and some useful standard measures for mental health profes-
sionals to use.
4
CHAPTER 2
The Alarm Response
In this chapter you will learn about the alarm response to threats, identify your type of anxiety,
and begin to plan your treatment.
Chronic anxiety is like having an alarm sound in your mind and body that won’t turn off.
It just keeps ringing and warning you of danger. Everyone has a hardwired alarm system
designed for survival. It helps you survive by mobilizing you to deal with threats. To under-
stand how this valuable alarm response gets stuck in the “On” position, we first have to see
how the mechanism works. There are four steps in the alarm response:
1. Perception of threat—the alarm sounds.
2. Appraisal of threat—you assess how serious the danger is and whether you have the
resources to cope.
3. Physiological and emotional responses—you experience a cascade of physical sensations

preparing you to deal with danger, and the emotion of fear.
4. Behavioral response—you do something to feel safer, such as avoiding the threat, post-
poning the threat until later, distracting yourself from the threat, and so on.
Perception of Threat
There are three kinds of threats we are always alert for. The first is external. You’re out in the
woods and notice a bear lumbering in your direction. Or your boss frowns and says she’s con-
cerned about your performance. Or your partner seems withdrawn and disconnected. Whether
the threat is physical injury, loss of your job and livelihood, or a possible rejection, the danger
is that something bad will happen to you via outside forces.
Internal threats originate with sensations in your own body. Any kind of physical pain is
an example of an internal threat. A surprising, unfamiliar sensation can be threatening, as are
sensations associated with danger, such as rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, or light-
headedness.
The third type of threat is a conditioned threat, or phobia. This is an object, a situation, or
even an internal experience that’s not very dangerous itself, but has become associated with
the expectation of harm. This process, based on classical conditioning, is how phobias are
formed. Most of us experience very little sense of danger getting in a car. But if your car gets
linked in your mind to a terrible accident you witnessed, or a scary near-collision you experi-
enced, something may change. Your car changes from a neutral, non-frightening stimulus into
a conditioned, threatening stimulus. You now have the same fearful response to driving your
car as you had to the accident or scary near-collision.
When these learned linkages occur, almost anything can become a conditioned stimulus/
threat. You’re probably aware of some of these phobias—heights, tight spaces, freeways, hypo-
dermics, elevators, airplanes, public places, dizzy feelings, bees, feeling hot, darkness, thunder,
rodents, dogs, spiders, and so on.
Appraisal of Threat
Once the alarm has gone off, your mind kicks in, trying to determine how much danger you
face. First, there is an assessment of the level of threat. How big is the bear? Is it moving toward
you? Does it look aggressive? In the case of conditioned threats (phobias) the evaluation of
danger may be near instantaneous, and largely depends on how close you are to the feared
object or situation.
Appraisal of the level of threat can run the gamut from accurate to utterly wrong. Your
evaluations of conditioned threats, because they’re driven by a learned relationship between a
neutral stimulus and grave danger, will usually be distorted. Inaccurate or distorted assess-
ments of danger are called misappraisals, and two components of the treatment program in this
book will help you overcome them.
In addition to appraising the immediate threat, your mind will also try to predict out-
comes. What bad things might happen in five minutes, tomorrow, in a month? This fortune-
telling response to threat is natural. Assessing possible catastrophic outcomes has helped us
survive as a species. But when your mind locks onto threats and won’t let go, when you can’t
stop preparing for all the harmful things that could happen, a normal mental process has gone
awry. Instead of protecting you, this worry/rumination response can drive anxiety to over-
whelming levels. This treatment program includes a component called defusion that will help
you deal with ruminative thoughts.
6
The Alarm Response
The third appraisal in response to threat is an assessment of your ability to cope. Do you
feel strong enough to face it? Do you have the resources to withstand the pain or stress this
threat might bring? The appraisal of your ability to cope, if it is high, leads to self-efficacy—
confidence that you can deal with difficult things. If it is low, you may experience distress
intolerance—a sense that you can be quickly overwhelmed by painful events. Distress intoler-
ance is a major contributor to chronic anxiety, and there are two components of this treat-
ment program that target it.
Here is an outline of the typical threat appraisal process, teased apart and slowed down so
that you can clearly see the three types of appraisals that determine whether your response
will be a decline in anxiety or escalating anxiety and avoidance:
Perception of Threat: The alarm sounds: Danger!
Appraisals:
1. Big Danger?
No—Alarm stops, anxiety/arousal declines.
Yes—Alarm continues: Danger!
2. Catastrophic possibilities?
3. More than I can cope with?

Notice that the alarm bell shuts off if your appraisal of the threat or future danger is low.
Likewise, the alarm diminishes or stops if you determine that you have the coping resources
to face the threat. Only if the current or future danger seems high and you lack the ability to
cope does the alarm continue, triggering both anxiety/fear and physiological arousal.
Avoidance behaviors typically occur only after anxiety/fear and arousal have been trig-
gered. The decision to avoid is often automatic and unconscious, unless you have a strong
reason to face the threat (for example, avoidance would trigger dire negative consequences, or
there is something you value about facing this particular fear). You will learn, in this treatment
program, how to consciously and deliberately make the decision to face threats and the anxiety
they trigger.
7
Physiological and Emotional Responses

The physiological response to threat has been labeled the fight-or-f light reaction (Cannon,
1915), and more recently the fight, flight, freeze reaction (Clark, 2011). As soon as you decide
there is a significant threat, your body reacts with a rapid sequence of protective responses.
Your sympathetic nervous system triggers the pituitary gland to produce the stress hormone
ACTH, and your adrenal gland to release the neurotransmitter epinephrine. Ultimately this
results in:
• a boost in blood pressure
• accelerated heart rate
• more rapid breathing
• slowing or stopping of digestion
• constriction of blood vessels in your skin (to minimize bleeding)
• dilation of blood vessels in your big muscles (to help you run or fight)
• dilation of pupils (to see better)
• tunnel vision
• shaking
All of these autonomic reactions prepare you to survive a threat in the best possible way
by (1) running away, (2) fighting and defending yourself, or (3) freezing and playing dead. Your
brain decides which of these to do in just a few seconds.
Meanwhile, as your body reacts, the hypothalamus and the limbic areas of your brain are
beginning an emotional response—fear (a threat is right in front of you) or anxiety (a threat
may occur sometime in the future). The emotion of fear/anxiety creates a painful level of
arousal that makes you want to do something to stop it. While fear is adaptive, motivating you
to avoid danger, false alarms trigger fear-driven avoidance that makes you run from what isn’t
dangerous.
Behavioral Responses
All emotions share a single function—to organize and motivate behavior that helps you
survive. Anger, for example, drives aggressive behavior to protect you from attacks. Sadness
8
The Alarm Response
pushes you to withdraw so you can reevaluate following a loss or failure. And fear urges you to
resist or avoid whatever scares you. So embedded in every emotion is an innate, hardwired
urge to take action that helps to keep us alive.
The urge triggered by fear or anxiety is to seek safety. The most common safety behavior
is avoidance—the flight part of the fight-or-f light reaction. Avoidance can take three forms:
avoiding certain situations, avoiding certain thoughts, or avoiding certain sensations. Or
instead of immediate avoidance, you might try to determine whether you are safe by checking
for danger or seeking reassurance to ascertain whether the threat is as dangerous as you feared.
If a threat is unavoidable, you might perform certain mental or physical rituals like invoking
divine help or hand washing to feel safer. Safety behaviors can take many forms.
• Example: Sheila’s Alarm Response

Several hours after getting home from a baseball game where Sheila ate two ballpark
franks, she started to have sharp stomach pain. The threat led to an immediate
appraisal of the level of danger.
Sheila’s mother had died of cancer several years before, and had endured a great
deal of pain. As a result, Sheila had begun to recognize physical pain as something
dangerous, something alarming. What would turn out to be a bad hot dog was
misappraised as highly dangerous and perhaps life threatening.
Sheila began trying to predict the future. Perhaps this was cancer, and she’d need
surgery and chemotherapy. Like her mother, she might not survive. How would she
provide for her two teenage boys, given that her ex-husband was a lunatic and would
damage her sons if he got his hands on them? How would she keep a roof over her
head if she couldn’t work anymore? Sheila worried, or ruminated, about cancer until
she threw up. Because she’d had a number of stomach upsets lately, she started
thinking that maybe she also had irritable bowel disease.
As she struggled with the weight of catastrophic possibilities, Sheila wondered how
she would cope. Her mother had “given up” at the end, and maybe she would, too.
Sheila suspected that the stress would be overwhelming and that she couldn’t cope.
The misappraisal, worry/rumination, and distress intolerance were taking a toll.
Sheila could feel her heart beginning to race. Her face and chest felt hot. She was
light-headed. When she stood up, her legs felt shaky and weak. Now the alarm
response began merging with growing anxiety. Both her body and her emotions were
screaming “Danger!” Sheila noticed all this and thought, I’m in real trouble.
Half an hour later Sheila indulged in a common safety behavior—seeking
reassurance. She went online to read about stomach and colon cancer as well as
9
irritable bowel syndrome. Weeks later when a friend invited her to another ball game,
Sheila turned her down, using the most common safety behavior—avoidance.
False Alarms
When you react with fear and safety behaviors like avoidance to low-danger objects or
situations, that’s a false alarm. The more false alarms you experience, the more you suffer
unnecessary anxiety and arousal. Frequent false alarms result in avoiding things you don’t
need to avoid, constricting and diminishing your life.
False alarms have four causes:
• Habitual avoidance—responses to conditioned or other low-danger threats.

Avoidance keeps you from learning that your conditioned threats aren’t dan-
gerous, that you can tolerate and cope with them, and that you don’t have to
run from them.
• Ruminating about future catastrophes—trying to predict and plan for every

possible danger in order to avoid it.
• Misappraising the level of threat—deciding the danger is worse than it is.
• Distress intolerance—the belief that you can’t stand or cope with threats or
the anxiety they trigger.
These four factors not only create false alarms, but they also usually combine to maintain
your anxiety disorder. They are literally driving and deepening your fear and your pain. Each
of the treatment steps that follow in this book targets one or more of these factors. As you free
yourself of their influence, your anxiety and fear, your arousal, and all the constrictions that
avoidance has placed around your life will greatly diminish.
The Anxiety Disorders

In the DSM-5, the diagnostic manual followed by most therapists and used by health insurance
companies to approve payment, there are six types of anxiety disorders: generalized anxiety
disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, specific phobia,
and post-traumatic stress disorder. They are significantly different from each other, and yet
there are key factors common to all. Some people’s anxiety fits neatly into one diagnosis and
some people’s anxiety spans two or three categories.
10
The Alarm Response
Let’s look at the criteria for each and which symptoms sound familiar to you. Put a check
by each disorder that might apply to you, and list the situations that you fear.
 Generalized Anxiety Disorder

If you have generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), you worry about multiple things. You
focus on all the bad things that might happen. Everyone worries at times about money, work,
or relationships, but you worry too much and for too long. The excessive worrying prevents
you from enjoying a full life. The core experience is an uncontrollable feeling of uncertainty
and a fear of catastrophic outcomes. While worry is an attempt to overcome uncertainty by
predicting and trying to prevent bad things that could happen, it has the effect of making you
more anxious and uncertain, not less. As your anxiety rises, you then use safety behaviors to
cope—things like checking, reassurance seeking, procrastinating, avoiding, overpreparing,
using drugs and alcohol, distracting yourself, and other behaviors.
Generalized anxiety disorder symptoms include:
• restlessness
• fatigue
• difficulty concentrating
• irritability
• muscle tension
• sleep problems
• difficulty controlling worry
Situations I worry about:
11
 Social Anxiety Disorder

As someone who struggles with social anxiety, you fear rejection and social shame. You
worry excessively about what others may think of you. You might avoid jobs or social situations
that would put you in the position of being judged by others and potentially criticized or
rejected. To regulate these feelings of anxiety you may tend to isolate, leaving you feeling
lonely and limiting your life and relationships.
Social anxiety disorder symptoms can include:
• feeling highly anxious around people and experiencing difficulty talking to

them
• self-consciousness in front of people and fear of being rejected, humiliated, or

embarrassed
• fear of being judged
• worrying for days or weeks before a social event
• avoiding places where there are people
• difficulty making friends and keeping friends
• blushing, sweating, or trembling around other people
• fear of talking to strangers
Situations I fear:
12
The Alarm Response
 Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
The core experience of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is fear plus compulsive
coping behaviors. OCD is a common, chronic anxiety disorder in which a person obsessively
thinks about and tries to avoid a specific fear, such as:
• disorganization/forgetting
• germs or contamination
• doing harm (hitting a pedestrian, hurting someone with a knife)
• forbidden or taboo thoughts involving sex, religion, or harm
• aggressive thoughts toward self or others
When a person encounters a situation that triggers the OCD fear (such as driving near a
schoolyard, cutting vegetables next to a loved one, touching the latch on a toilet stall, being
near someone who might have a disease, making a mistake, and so on), the person will attempt
to control the fear with a safety behavior or compulsive ritual. These compulsive behaviors
can include:
• excessive cleaning or hand washing
• ordering and arranging things in a particular way
• repeatedly checking on things, such as checking to see if the door is locked or

the oven is off, or driving back over the same road to check and see if you hit
someone
• compulsive counting
• making ritual gestures (saying or thinking ritual phrases, prayers, or

apologies)
• list making to counteract the fear of forgetting
Situations I fear:
13
 Panic Disorder
People with panic disorder have recurrent, unexpected panic attacks, which are sudden
periods of intense fear that may include palpitations, pounding heart, accelerated heart rate,
sweating, trembling or shaking, sensations of shortness of breath, the sense of being smothered
or choking, or the feeling of impending doom. The core fear is of sensations in your body that
are harbingers of panic, and the panic itself.
Panic disorder symptoms include:
• sudden and repeated attacks of intense fear
• feelings of being out of control during a panic attack
• intense worries about when the next attack will happen
• fear or avoidance of places where panic attacks have occurred in the past
Situations I fear:
 Specific Phobia
As the name suggests, a person with specific phobia experiences intense fear in response
to a particular object or situation. Fear of blood or needles, fear of enclosed places, and fear of
flying are examples of specific phobia. Fear of spiders, fear of snakes, and fear of heights are
some more common ones. While many people experience fear of certain situations or things,
the key issue with phobia is that the individual feels (1) compelled to avoid it, and (2) the
avoidance affects that person’s life in a negative way. For example, for a person who lives in
New York City, a fear of snakes may not be very concerning. On the other hand, a backpack-
ing guide with a phobia of snakes would need either treatment or a new job.
Situations I fear:
14
The Alarm Response
 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can occur after you have been through a traumatic
event. A traumatic event is something terrible and scary that you either witness or personally
experience, such as:
• combat exposure
• child sexual or physical abuse
• terrorist attack
• sexual or physical assault
• serious accidents, like a car wreck
• natural disasters, like a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake
During a traumatic event, you may fear that your life or others’ lives are in danger. You
may feel that you have no control over what’s happening around you. Most people have some
stress-related reactions after a traumatic event, but not everyone experiences PTSD. If your
reactions don’t go away over time and they disrupt your life, you may have PTSD. Those with
PTSD try to avoid situations or people that trigger memories of the traumatic event. They
even avoid talking or thinking about the event. If you struggle with PTSD, the way you think
about yourself and others may change because of the trauma. You may feel surges of anger,
fear, guilt, or shame. You may also experience nightmares or unwanted flashbacks to the
event.
Situations I fear:
The preceding lists of feared situations will be expanded in the next chapter. But first, the
following exercise will help you plan your treatment and how you will use this book. (A down-
loadable version of this worksheet is available at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
15
Comprehensive Coping Inventory

The items in this inventory are different ways of dealing with problems. As you complete this
inventory, think about difficult or stressful events in your life. Do your best to rate each item
in terms of how frequently you use it. There are no right or wrong answers, so choose the most
accurate answer for you, not what you think is most acceptable, or what most people would say
or do.
Rate each item on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means you don’t use that strategy at all, and 5
means you use it a great deal.
1.1 I try to stay away from things that make me anxious or uncomfortable rather
than face them.
1.2 I worry about all the bad things that could happen in the future.
1.3 When I get upset by a situation, my negative thoughts often don’t turn out to
be completely true.
1.4 I don’t believe I can cope with situations in which I feel anxious or fearful.
2.1 I tend to avoid situations, people, places, or things that make me feel anxious
or upset.
2.2 I tend to focus on all the negative outcomes that might result from a
decision.
2.3 I tend to assume things will be worse—more painful and scary—than they
turn out to be.
2.4 I doubt my ability to face situations that trigger anxiety.
3.1 If I feel anxious and uncomfortable I avoid situations altogether—even
though I wish I didn’t have to.
3.2 Whenever there’s a problem, I tend to dwell on the worst things that could
happen.
3.3 When the situations are especially upsetting to me, I tend to have a string of
thoughts about myself or others that feel true at the time, but often aren’t.
3.4 I don’t know how to cope with anxious feelings or situations in which I am
fearful.
16
The Alarm Response
4.1 There are situations or things that make me anxious, and I try to avoid
them.
4.2 I find that I tend to overthink bad scenarios that could happen.
4.3 I easily jump to conclusions when I’m upset by something—and my conclu-
sions aren’t really accurate.
4.4 I feel distressed by fear or anxiety in a way that seems too big to cope with.
5.1 I try to avoid things I feel I must do to protect myself from feeling too
anxious.
5.2 My problems trigger a lot of thinking about all the bad directions things
could take.
5.3 In difficult situations I can have one negative thought after another that
makes things seem worse than they really are.
5.4 I don’t feel strong enough to face fear-inducing situations.
You might feel overwhelmed by the number of items that were relevant for you. The good news
is that you are bringing awareness to the coping behaviors that are reinforcing your anxiety.
This is where the change starts to happen. Let’s look at what’s significant for you.
1.1, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, and 5.1 are statements that apply to avoidance of the things that make you feel
anxious. These can be people, places, situations, things, or internal sensations that you tend
to avoid.
1.2, 2.2, 3.2, 4.2, and 5.2 are statements that apply to worry/rumination, extended worrying
about future dangers or threats and making negative predictions about the future that get in
the way of creating solutions to problems.
1.3, 2.3, 3.3, 4.3, and 5.3 are statements that apply to cognitive misappraisal, evaluating a situa-
tion, object, sensation, or person as dangerous when it isn’t.
1.4, 2.4, 3.4, 4.4, and 5.4 are statements that apply to distress intolerance, the belief that you
can’t stand certain experiences and the emotions they trigger.
17
Your Treatment Program

Avoidance. If you scored 15 or higher on the inventory items concerning avoidance, you are
in good company. You are in exactly the right spot and can confidently go on reading into the
next chapter. Avoidance is the number one cause and maintainer of chronic anxiety. Most
people who take this inventory score high on avoidance, and nearly half of this book is devoted
to ways of solving the avoidance problem.
The number one solution to avoidance, proven in controlled study after controlled study,
is exposure. Put simply, exposure is solving your anxiety problem by successfully experiencing
whatever you are afraid of. The next six chapters of this book take you step by step through
the process of exposure. It is a challenging but powerful and comprehensive treatment. Even
if you scored relatively low in this section of the inventory, you should work diligently through
the next four chapters. Mastering exposure is the key to long-term anxiety treatment.
Worry/rumination. If you scored 15 or higher on the inventory items devoted to rumination,

you should supplement the next four chapters by also working through chapter 8, “Reducing
Worry with Defusion.”
Cognitive misappraisal. If you scored 15 or higher on the items concerning cognitive misap-
praisal, you can supplement the next four chapters by including the material in chapter 7, “You
Can Face Fear,” and chapter 9, “Correcting Your Anxiety Lens.”
Distress intolerance. If you scored 15 or higher on these items in the inventory, supplement
the next four chapters by working on the exercises in chapter 10, “Distress Tolerance Skills.”
Finally, don’t leave this book without consulting the final chapter 11, “Relapse Prevention,”
because in the long term you will need a strategy to quickly reapply your anxiety solution skills
when you start to feel anxious in the future.
To summarize how to use this book, make sure you do all the work in the next four chap-
ters and chapter 11. Depending on your particular scores on this inventory, you might also
benefit from chapters 7 through 10.
18
The Alarm Response
Time to Begin
Anxiety takes much of the joy out of life. Every time the alarm bell goes off, you end up feeling
endangered and beset with catastrophic possibilities. Your body reacts by preparing for battle
or for flight, and demands that you do something to get safe. You feel aroused and over-
whelmed, and all you can think about is how to escape the threat.
You must wonder: Can anything help? Could a book like this show the way to relief? The
answer is yes. Anxiety isn’t a mystery. It isn’t a black box that we can’t peer into and figure out.
Chronic anxiety is caused and maintained by the four factors listed above. The treatment
program outlined here will help you target the four factors that turn fear and anxiety from a
momentary experience into a disorder.
Help is on the way. Let’s get started.
19
CHAPTER 3
Assessment
In this chapter you will expand your list of feared situations and explore your safety behaviors,
including your unique pattern of avoidance. By the end of the chapter you will have a detailed
inventory of the people, places, things, situations, and experiences you fear and tend to avoid.
You will use this inventory in subsequent chapters, so take your time in this chapter and do
the exercises thoroughly.
Get started by transferring your feared situations from the previous chapter to the first
column of the worksheet on the following page. (A downloadable version of this worksheet is
available at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.) List all the situations you can think of,
including experiences, people, places, things, and even internal experiences such as worrisome
thoughts and panicky sensations—everything you fear.
In the second column, rate your SUDS (Subjective Units of Distress) from 0 to 100, where
0 would be no anxiety and 100 would be maximum anxiety possible.
Leave the third column blank for now.
Exposure Inventory Worksheet
Feared situation SUDS Safety behaviors

0–100
22
Assessment
Eileen loved horseback riding, but after a fall from her horse she became fearful about
riding. Here is her list of feared situations and SUDS ratings.
Eileen’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet

0–100
Cantering in small corral 60
Riding Meadow Loop Trail 75
Visiting horse in stable 30
Remembering/thinking about the fall 50
Talking about the fall 45
Galloping 85
Riding High Ridge Trail 90
Walking horse in corral 35
Eileen’s feared situations were all related to a particular trauma, the fall from her horse.
Depending on the type of anxiety you experience, your list of feared situations might be much
more varied.
23
Safety Behaviors
The next column you will complete on your inventory will be the typical safety behaviors you
use in response to your feared situations.
What are safety behaviors? We’re all hardwired to protect ourselves from dangerous situa-
tions. When we experience threat, we’ll act quickly and go to great lengths to feel safe. If you
were in an unlit parking garage and you heard footsteps behind you, it’s likely that you’d move
fast to get to the safety of your car. In addition to seeking safety in response to a physically
threatening situation, you’ll find yourself seeking safety to alleviate the anxiety you experience
when you worry about something. Safety behaviors are chosen actions that are carried out to
protect you from the emotion of fear, and the catastrophes you worry about.
Safety behaviors are compelling because they provide immediate benefits. They reduce the
feeling of danger in the short term. For example, if you have OCD, an invitation to dine out
may trigger worries about being exposed to germs from the seats and the crowd, the bacteria
in the food that’s served, and the germs in the public restrooms. If you decline the invitation,
thereby avoiding the restaurant and all of the perceived threats that come with it, you’ll feel
better immediately. If you decide to go, you might take precautions (safety behaviors)—bring
antibacterial wipes, wear gloves for the bathroom door, and eat only salad. With these safety
behaviors you’re alleviating anxiety about contamination, but creating a far greater difficulty.
Your fear of germs will continue and perhaps worsen because you haven’t done anything to
directly decrease the fear itself.
There are two types of safety behaviors: avoidant and approach. With avoidant safety
behaviors, you are avoiding, delaying, or escaping the fear. This coping behavior is very appeal-
ing because you get an immediate decrease in your level of anxiety. With approach safety
behaviors, you engage in the anxiety-provoking situation, but you use strategies that will
prevent or minimize your feared outcomes. Both types of safety behaviors make you feel better
in the short term. So what’s the problem with them?
The problem with using safety behaviors is that you never learn anything. You never learn
whether your feared situation or experience will really cause you harm. You never learn to
tolerate uncertainty. And you never learn to trust your judgment. So the next time the same
threat appears, you suffer the same anxiety, push it away with the same safety behavior, and so
on indefinitely. You live in a recursive loop where anxiety tends to become more frequent and
intense, not less. The following sequence shows how safety behaviors maintain and often
worsen anxiety:
24
Assessment
Specific threat creates uncertainty about safety


Worry (thinking about catastrophic things that could happen,
in hopes of reducing uncertainty)

Anxiety/fear increases the longer you worry

Safety behaviors help you avoid or reduce the threat

Anxiety temporarily reduces

No learning takes place—you don’t learn to tolerate uncertainty or
learn that the threat won’t hurt you

Specific threat reappears

Sequence repeats
Here are some common safety behaviors to consider as you fill in your list:
Avoidance. This is the biggie, the single most important safety behavior, the main engine that
powers anxiety. When you avoid what you fear, you reduce your anxiety by taking yourself
away from a situation that seems uncertain and threatening. You may avoid situations that
involve meeting new people. You might avoid getting your annual checkup because you don’t
know what the doctor is going to tell you. You might avoid tasks or challenges that bring up
fear of failure or danger. At the end of this chapter you will focus in more detail on your unique
patterns of avoidance.
Excessive reassurance seeking. If this is one of your safety behaviors, you seek reassurance
from others when you are making a decision. This might include making a big decision, like
the purchase of a car, or a smaller decision, like what to have for dinner. While it’s normal to
ask others for their opinions, with this safety behavior the reassurance seeking is excessive—as
in asking multiple times in order to counteract the anxiety that your worry generates.
25
Distraction. When facing a feared experience, you might behave in ways that are meant to
distract you. This could include daydreaming, compulsive TV watching or Internet use, count-
ing, tapping, planning, and so on. Another form of distraction is looking away from the object
or situation that you fear.
Procrastination. Procrastination is a safety behavior that falls under the broader category of
avoidance. With procrastination you’re putting off a feared experience as a way to delay wor-
rying about something or to minimize your sense of threat or risk.
Checking and double-checking. This safety behavior might manifest as double-checking

that you turned off the stove before you leave your home, or checking on loved ones several
times a day to make sure they are safe. This is your attempt to feel less anxious when faced
with uncertainty.
Overpreparation. The activities related to this safety behavior are designed to increase your
certainty about situations that are ambiguous or unpredictable. Maybe you’ve heard the
expression, “I’m anxious about anything I can’t Google.” You will seek out as much informa-
tion and prepare yourself as much as possible to decrease the level of uncertainty when you
face an anxiety-provoking challenge.
Perfectionism. The goal of this safety behavior is to eliminate uncertainty and mistakes by
doing everything flawlessly. This means not delegating tasks to others so you can make sure
they get done the way that you want. It can also mean overworking to avoid the possibility of
errors.
Rituals. When facing a feared situation, you may engage in rituals as a safety behavior. As
soon as you think of something bad happening to people you love, you might say a prayer to
keep them safe, or you may arrange objects in a specific way. You may carry specific objects
with you as a way to keep yourself safe (such as a lucky charm, a keepsake, or a photo).
List making. Creating lists to avoid forgetting and uncertainty is a common safety behavior.
Drugs/alcohol/anxiety medications. Using drugs or alcohol to try to mute anxiety is a safety

behavior, as is carrying anxiety medication (just in case).
Take your time filling in column 2. Identify the safety behaviors you use when encounter-
ing each of your feared situations and experiences. What exactly do you do to cope with the
anxiety these experiences trigger? How do you get away from or diminish your fear?
26
Assessment
Here is Eileen’s inventory with her safety behaviors added:

0–100
Cantering in small corral 60 Holding saddle horn the whole time
Riding Meadow Loop Trail 75 Procrastinating/avoiding riding, or

riding with instructor
Visiting horse in stable 30 Procrastinating, or constantly saying

“Good boy!”
Remembering/thinking about the fall 50 Distracting myself with my iPhone
Talking about the fall 45 Distracting by changing subject
Galloping 85 Avoiding, thinking I can ride later

with instructor
Riding High Ridge Trail 90 Avoiding, thinking I can ride later

with instructor
Walking horse in corral 35 Constant reassurance seeking with

riding instructor
27
Focusing on Avoidance
There are three kinds of avoidant safety behaviors that people use in an attempt to control
anxiety: situational, cognitive, and sensation or interoceptive avoidance. As you read the
descriptions below, put a check mark next to the type(s) of avoidance you’ve used. It’s not
unusual for people to use all three, so don’t be discouraged if that’s the case. This program will
help you no matter what forms of avoidance you use.
Situational avoidance. This is the most common type of avoidance. You stay
away from activities, places, people, and things that tend to trigger your anxiety.
For example, when Scott was a child, a dog bit his hand when he tried to pet
it. Scott remained fearful of dogs. As an adult, he would not attend any func-
tions at the homes of friends who owned a dog, and he avoided parks and other
outdoor venues that allowed dogs. In the short term, Scott was able to avoid
the feelings that got triggered when he was near a dog, but in the long term he
missed out on experiences with friends and loved ones.
Cognitive avoidance. This type of avoidance is specific to what takes place in

your mind. You expend great effort to get rid of distressing thoughts or disturb-
ing memories by making conscious attempts to suppress them. This might
involve replacing them with more pleasant or distracting content such as fan-
tasies, daydreams, mantras, prayers, or other thought rituals. Or you might try
suppressing distressing thoughts with drugs, alcohol, high-risk behaviors, binge
eating, self-harm, and so on. For example, Ellen struggled to push away memo-
ries of molestation by a neighbor when she was nine. When the memories
came up, she drank, picked fights with her boyfriend, binged on reality TV and
ice cream, and made covert plans to move out of state. She also avoided sexual
experiences that reminded her of the molestation. Despite her efforts at sup-
pression, memories of the trauma still came up, alongside feelings of being
somehow bad and wrong. Not only did Ellen’s cognitive avoidance not work to
avoid anxiety, but it also resulted in a drinking problem, loss of her relation-
ship, social withdrawal, and depression—a feeling that she was failing at life.
Sensation/interoceptive avoidance. With sensation or interoceptive avoid-

ance, your efforts are focused on avoiding internal sensations such as feeling
hot, feeling tired, labored breathing, or rapid heartbeat. You may even avoid
pleasant sensations, such as sexual excitement or excitement about an event,
because they feel similar to anxiety sensations. For example, Juan had a panic
attack on a gridlocked freeway where there had been a major accident. During
28
Assessment
the panic he felt dizzy, hot, and shaky, had palpitations, and felt “totally out of
it.” Since that time, he fears and vigilantly watches for any of these sensations.
He tries desperately to stop or block them, avoiding places where they might
occur. As a consequence, Juan is now avoiding all exercise so he won’t get
heart palpitations or overheated or too excited. He doesn’t watch sports, go to
concerts, hike, or go on outings with friends. What’s worse, if Juan even antici-
pates the possibility of panic, he begins to feel dizzy and “out of it”—which
often triggers a full-blown attack.
After focusing on the types of avoidance, you might find that you can break some items
on your inventory down into more components. For example, a fear of crowded places might
include the following items:
• crowded restaurants
• movie theaters
• concerts/nightclubs
• shopping malls
• supermarket checkout lines
Or a fear of germs might include:
• bathroom doorknobs
• public doorknobs
• touching toilet flush lever
• touching money
• going to doctors’ offices
• touching stair railings
Go back to your inventory and expand any of the feared situations or safety behaviors that
could use more detail.
When Eileen considered the three types of avoidance, she realized that she used cognitive
avoidance any time she even thought about riding on the higher trails. And she drilled down
into her real fears to realize that what caused her the most distress was the possibility of expe-
riencing again the physical sensations of panic that she felt when her horse threw her on a
steep trail. So she added items 9 and 10 to her inventory:
29
Eileen’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet

0–100
Cantering in small corral 60 Holding saddle horn the whole time
Riding Meadow Loop Trail 75 Procrastinating/avoiding riding, or

riding with instructor
Visiting horse in stable 30 Procrastinating, or constantly saying

“Good boy!”
Remembering/thinking about the fall 50 Distracting myself with my iPhone
Talking about the fall 45 Distracting by changing subject
Galloping 85 Avoiding, thinking I can ride later

with instructor
Riding High Ridge Trail 90 Avoiding, thinking I can ride later

with instructor
Walking horse in corral 35 Constant reassurance seeking with

riding instructor
Thinking about riding difficult trails 45 Distracting with iPhone
Panicky physical sensation of not being 100 Avoiding, thinking I can ride later with
in control when horse thrusts up on instructor
steep trails
In the next chapter you will work on motivation, exploring why it is worth it to you to use
exposure and the other techniques in this book to solve your anxiety problems.
30
CHAPTER 4
Motivation
It is not easy to stop your safety behaviors and expose yourself to experiences you would rather
avoid. You’re going to need the motivation that this chapter will provide. First you will examine
the negative consequences of avoidance and other safety behaviors. Then you will review your
life values, especially the activities and relationships you’ve been missing out on because of
your anxiety. Finally, you will assess your willingness to go forward with your treatment plan.
Costs of Avoidance
As you become more familiar with your avoidance and other safety behaviors, you may also be
thinking about the ways in which you are missing out on important aspects of your life. The
more you avoid, the more your life is limited. Avoidance affects you emotionally, creating
depression when you stop doing things you enjoy or find nurturing. When you continually
disappoint or upset your family and friends, your relationships suffer and you feel shame and
guilt. Safety behaviors are likely creating consequences at work or school as well, blocking you
from reaching some of your life goals or preventing you from getting in touch with your life
purpose. And, by continuing to engage in safety behaviors, you never learn that there is less to
fear than you believe.
The following worksheet will help you identify the costs of avoidance. (This worksheet is
available for download at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.) In each of the following
domains, list your avoidance or other safety behaviors and their negative impact on your life.
Rate the impact on your life from 1 (very little negative impact) to 5 (large negative impact).
Cost of Avoidance Worksheet
Domain Avoidance or other Negative impact Rating

safety behaviors on my life 1–5
Friendships
Family
Parenting
Work/education
Self-care/health
Pleasure,
recreation,
social activities
Life goals
Service to
others
Romantic
relationships
32
Motivation
Laura used the Cost of Avoidance Worksheet to examine how her fear of being socially
judged or rejected was affecting her life. In particular, Laura feared talking to strangers, believ-
ing that they might discover something flawed or unacceptable about her. She even worried
about friends secretly disliking her. Social situations frequently triggered thoughts like I’m
stupid, I’m boring, or I’m unattractive.
Laura’s Cost of Avoidance Worksheet

Friendships Won’t go to parties or social Loneliness, don’t meet anyone, 4

events with friends. friends upset at me.
Keep checking to see if things Friends annoyed, seem to 3
are okay between us. withdraw.
Avoid calling and initiating Friends withdraw, rarely see 5
contact. them.
Family
Parenting
Work/education Avoid talking to coworkers. Feel isolated at work, no real 4

work friends.
Try to do everything perfectly. Huge stress, constantly afraid 4
of mistakes and disapproval.
Self-care/health
Pleasure, Drink at all social events to Feel out of it and stupid. Can’t 3
recreation, stop feeling like a failure. have a sensible conversation.
social activities Go online to distract myself at Feel isolated and alone at 3
social events. social events.
Avoid team sports. Couldn’t play softball. 3
Avoid fun group activities. Loneliness 4
33

Life goals Ritual thoughts like I’m doing Ignore sadness and do nothing 5
my best when I feel sad about about how alone I am.
no relationship and being
alone.
Service to Procrastinated joining Feel like I’m failing to try to 5

others sustainability advocacy group. make the world better.
Romantic Procrastinated setting up Not meeting anyone, alone. 5

relationships online dating profile.
Procrastinated joining singles Not enjoying nature, 5
hiking group. loneliness.
As a result of this exercise, Laura noticed that her safety behaviors were directly linked to
her loneliness, isolation at work, and feelings of disconnection from friends. Even worse, the
sense of hopelessness about ever having a romantic relationship seemed to be a direct outcome
of her safety behaviors.
Values
Now instead of focusing on the negative aspects of your anxiety, think about the positive
things you would like to do if anxiety weren’t paralyzing you. What activities and abilities have
you lost? What plans can you no longer make? What goals have you given up? What sources
of joy or fulfillment seem closed to you now? In short, what do you care about? What are your
life values?
The following worksheet will help clarify some of the valued activities your anxiety has
curtailed. (A downloadable version of this worksheet is available at http://www.newharbinger.
com/34749.) In the left-hand column, list your specific fears. In the middle column, identify
each valued activity the fear blocks. Note that each fear could prevent multiple activities in
multiple settings (work, recreation, family activities, social activities, health maintenance,
parenting, and so on). In the right-hand column, rate how important each activity is from
1 (slightly valued) to 5 (extremely valued).
34
Motivation
Values Worksheet
Fear Blocked valued activities Values

(Things I avoid) rating
1–5
35
Naomi, who had a fear of contamination, listed multiple situations she avoided on her
Values Worksheet. She was surprised to see how each of these feared situations blocked activi-
ties that she valued.
Naomi’s Values Worksheet

1–5
Public restrooms Can’t go shopping with friends 3

Can’t go hiking 2
Can’t go to gym 2
Can’t travel 5
Can’t see Mom in NY 5
Can’t go to concerts 5
Can’t work in an office 5
Can’t go on dates 5
Sick people Can’t use public transportation 1
Can’t go to theaters 2
Can’t go to hospital for my knee operation 5
Can’t see doctor 4
Dirt Can’t do pottery or grow orchids 4
Can’t visit my brother in his filthy apartment 4
Can’t get on the floor 1
Herbicides/pesticides Can’t get on grass 3
Can’t go into people’s gardens 2
Can’t go to the park 2
36
Motivation
As Naomi examined her worksheet, it became clear that her fear of public toilets was pre-
venting many highly valued activities. Her fear of sick people was also blocking a needed knee
surgery, and preventing her from taking adequate care of her health. Her fear of dirt was
getting in the way of two valued hobbies—pottery and orchid raising—as well as seeing her
brother. Fear was costing her a great deal in areas that deeply mattered to her. As a result of
this process, she was beginning to recognize the situations where she was most willing to face
challenging exposures.
Notice that values help guide your life toward things that matter to you. Because anxiety
often makes it difficult to act on key values, anxiety can rob your life of meaning. You may end
up avoiding many of the activities and experiences you care most about. This is how anxiety
can co-occur with depression: anxiety gets in the way of meaningful activities, and the result-
ing loss of vitality and engagement causes you to spiral down into depression.
The Importance of Willingness

Unwillingness lies at the root of avoidance. Very understandably, you’ve been unwilling to feel
the anxiety and distress associated with situations that scare you. You’ve wanted to keep your
distance from the feeling of danger, from that sensation in your stomach that says harm is
imminent.
The process of recovering from anxiety asks you to become willing, to allow yourself to feel
the emotions and physical sensations connected to the things you fear. We are encouraging
you to say “yes” to the hot flush, the electric sensation in your spine, the sudden weakness in
your legs, the light-headed feeling, the knot in your stomach. We are asking you to say “yes” to
feeling vulnerable, to feeling unsafe, to adrenaline and fear.
Willingness to feel everything associated with a feared situation, no matter how long or how
strong, is the road to recovery and freedom. Willingness to accept the butterflies, willingness
to accept the thought that you won’t survive, willingness to accept a sense of doom—all of this
is the path to liberation from anxiety.
As you prepare for your exposures in the next two chapters, whatever the specific situa-
tions, whatever length of time you’ll spend facing your fear, the question is always willingness.
Will you be willing to feel everything there is to feel in this situation, for this length of time?
Willingness is the commitment to feel 100 percent of the experience, to stay for the allotted
period of exposure, and to allow yourself to face whatever there is.
You will need willingness in the work ahead. You will need to say yes to fear—in your body
and your mind. And in saying yes you’ll be finally set free from the long night of anxiety that
has ruled your life.
37
CHAPTER 5
Preparation
In this chapter you will complete your Exposure Inventory Worksheet: a detailed plan for how
to stop safety behaviors and systematically expose yourself to what you’ve been avoiding. Your
inventory builds on all the work you have done to this point: listing your feared situations and
experiences, examining your safety behaviors in detail, and putting numerical values on the
negative distress you feel and the positive values by which you want to live your life.
Planning
To further refine your inventory you will add a plan to stop safety behaviors, as well as “pre-
dicted outcomes,” and “percent probability” to each of your feared situations. On the following
worksheet, write down one of your feared situations, your associated safety behaviors, the
subjective units of distress (SUDS), and the relative value ratings you made in the previous
chapters. (This worksheet is available to download at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
Feared Safety Plan to stop SUDS Value Predicted worst- Percent

situation behaviors safety behavior 1–100 1–5 case outcome probability
and to expose
40
Preparation
In the third column, make a plan for stopping your safety behaviors and exposing yourself
to what you have been avoiding. There are two ways to do this: the cold turkey plan and the
gradual plan.
Cold Turkey Plan

In this plan, you immediately stop the distraction, reassurance seeking, procrastination,
and so on—all the things you have been doing to soften or postpone facing your anxiety. And
you immediately do the things you have been avoiding doing. You dive right into the cold
water of the feared situation.
Remember Eileen, the equestrian who became anxious about riding her horse? She made
a cold turkey plan to handle many of her feared situations:
41
Eileen’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet, Cold Turkey Plan

and to expose
Cantering Holding saddle Hold reins, don’t 60 3

horn touch saddle horn
Visiting horse Procrastinate, Visit twice a week, 30 3

say “Good boy!” no “Good boy”
constantly
Remembering Distraction Plan on four 20- 50 4
42
the fall minute sessions
recalling accident
and hospital stay
Talking about Avoiding any Get Mom to listen 45 4

the fall mention of it to the whole story—
30 minutes
Walking horse Seeking Send instructor out 35 3

in corral reassurance of earshot
from instructor
Thinking about Distracting Think about them 45 5

difficult trails with iPhone for 15 minutes
without distraction
Preparation
Gradual Plan
The second way to discontinue safety behaviors is to reduce them more gradually. You can
create a hierarchy that goes from full use of the safety behavior, to partial use, and incremen-
tally to no use. The trick is to devise two to five steps that can cushion the shock of a cold-
turkey plunge into zero safety behaviors. Plan a gradual lessening of safety behaviors if you
sense that your anxiety will be too overwhelming with a cold turkey approach. Of course,
there is a downside to gradual plans: they take a lot longer.
Here’s how Eileen made gradual plans for riding the Meadow Loop Trail and overcoming
panic sensations on steep trails:
43
Eileen’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet, Gradual Plan

and to expose
Riding Meadow Procrastinating, Ride with instructor 75 4

Loop Trail avoiding, or leading the way
riding only with
Ride with instructor
instructor
behind me
Ride alone with
instructor on
speed dial
44
Ride alone
Panicky feeling Avoiding, Stand at foot of 100 5

when horse postponing, grade and watch
thrusts up on saying maybe instructor ride it
steep trails I’ll ride with
Ride the grade with
instructor
instructor watching
Ride the grade
with instructor on
speed dial
Ride alone
Preparation
Here are some other ways to gradually eliminate other typical safety behaviors:
• For overpreparation, cutting preparation time in increments until it reaches an

appropriate level
• Waiting longer and longer periods to seek reassurance
• Cutting time spent in distraction, or changing the types of distraction
• Limiting procrastination time by setting a deadline or completing the exposure

in increments
• For avoidance, doing part but not all of an exposure, then working up to the
full exposure
• Checking less and less frequently
• For perfectionism, making deliberate mistakes—first one, then two, then three
• Reducing time spent doing a ritual until it reaches nothing; cutting the number
of words in a ritual prayer or coping thought; using the ritual half the time,
then a quarter of the time, and so on
• For list making, creating shorter lists and setting a limit for how much time you
will spend on lists.
• Reducing the quantity, frequency, and/or potency of drug and alcohol

consumption.
Predicting Worst-Case Outcomes

The false alarms that have plagued you and driven your struggle with anxiety can’t be over-
come with reasoning. You can’t argue away your fears. You’ve no doubt tried—or others
have—and the alarm reactions just keep happening. When it comes to anxiety, and the belief
that certain things or situations are dangerous, you can’t think your way out of it. Only real,
disconfirming experiences can change deeply held beliefs. This is true for all of us—we liter-
ally have to be shown that our beliefs about danger aren’t true before they can change. We
have to experience the thing we’ve feared and have something other than what we expected
happen.
45
The mismatch between the harmful thing you expect and actual outcomes is critical to
new learning. And the more your expectation is contradicted by direct experience, the more
powerfully your old beliefs about danger will be disconfirmed. Overcoming false alarms, and
all the avoidance they generate, involves predicting that a particular aversive outcome will
occur (from an exposure) and then carefully comparing actual outcomes to the prediction.
In the sixth column of your Exposure Inventory Worksheet, for each of your plans, you
need to make a prediction: what are you most afraid will happen if you follow your plan and
stop your safety behavior? This prediction should be expressed as observable behavior—yours
or others’—as opposed to your feelings and internal experiences. For example, individuals who
fear elevators might predict that the doors will close and they will be stuck between floors. Or
that the cable will break and the elevator will start to drop. Or that they will have a heart
attack while riding the elevator. Notice that the prediction doesn’t include how the individual
will feel, but rather focuses on a worst-case scenario of what is expected to happen.
While there is no point predicting that you’ll feel anxiety—because you will—you can
predict your own behavioral responses. Returning to the elevator example, a behavioral pre-
diction might look like this: “I’ll be so overwhelmed, I’ll push the button for the next floor, get
off, take the stairs down, and go home.” You can also predict other people’s behavior in
response to your tests. For example, a socially anxious woman, who is afraid of asking ques-
tions, predicted the following: “When I ask department store clerks about the quality and
durability of a particular item, they’ll get a contemptuous look, say (in so many words) my
question is ridiculous, and walk away from me.” Notice the prediction doesn’t center on how
the clerk feels or what the clerk thinks. There’s no way to observe and know that. The predic-
tion is based entirely on outcomes you can see—they either happen or they don’t.
Go back and write in your worst fears and exactly what will happen if they come true.
Percent Probability
The next step in the prediction process is to assess how likely it is that the feared outcome
will take place. For example, you might assess that there is “an 80 percent chance that stand-
ing next to a dog will result in getting bit.” Or that there is “a 70 percent chance I’ll cut myself
or someone else if I use a chopping knife.” Or that there is “a 90 percent chance I’ll be so
scared I’ll have to get off the subway before reaching my stop.” For each of your worst-case
outcomes, note the percent probability in the last column.
Notice that the percent probability isn’t based on actual odds, but on what your fear tells
you. For example, you may know rationally that millions of people use knives every day without
mishap. But your assessment of the probability of injury should be based on your feeling of
danger and your subjective belief about likely outcomes if you use a knife.
46
Preparation
Completing Your List of Feared Situations

Continue listing all your feared situations on your inventory, with safety behaviors, plans, and
so on, until all columns are filled in. Take your time and do a thorough job. Remember, the
basic solution to anxiety is simple: avoid what you usually do, and do what you usually avoid.
But the implementation can be complex, layered, subtle, and time-consuming.
Examples
To help you figure out how to make better exposure plans and outcome predictions, the rest
of this chapter consists of detailed examples of other people’s inventories. There is at least one
example for each of the six anxiety disorders. Some disorders have more than one example, to
show the widest possible range of options in filling out an exposure inventory.
Look through all of the examples, even if you don’t suffer from the particular type of
anxiety exemplified. You will learn different ways to structure your inventory to create a list of
doable exposure experiences. Notice how others:
• combine two mildly feared situations to make one more scary situation
• break a very scary situation down into several less scary situations
• make a plan gradual by altering the distance in time or space to a feared object
• include visualizations of past experiences or imagined scenes, which tends to

increase expectations that the predicted worst-case outcomes will happen
• keep predicted outcomes behavioral and observable, not feeling-based
• set higher percent probabilities based on subjective fear, not actuarial data
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)—

Stephan’s Rumination
Stephan struggled with a harsh “worry voice” that plagued him with frequent rumination
about his health, his job, money, and crime. Notice that his feared situations all have the
excessive worry component so typical of generalized anxiety disorder. Note that Stephan
highly valued learning to face medical fears and getting free of constant worry about his
symptoms.
47
Stephan’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet

and to expose
Thinking doctor Lots of online Just stop cold turkey 85 5 Undetected 65%
is wrong and medical research stomach cancer
stomach pain is will make me
not just gas keep getting
sicker.
Worrying I’ll lose Constantly check Check twice today, 75 4 Market will 50%
48
everything when Dow and S&P, once tomorrow, skip tank soon and
stock market call broker for a day, once more, I’ll be wiped
goes down reassurance then stop cold. out, homeless.
Call broker only
once a quarter.
Assuming if I buy Rechecking Drive each of five 60 2 I’ll pay high end 70%
a new Buick it Consumer Reports, models once, then for a car and just
will be a lemon procrastinating, decide keep pouring
frequent test money down a
drives, reassurance bottomless pit.
seeking with
friends
and to expose
Thinking about Seeking No more reassurance 65 3 Concert will be 60%

recent mass reassurance from conversations, stay targeted by a
shooting as I’m friends, checking off news sites deranged shooter
going to a concert— news stories about and I’ll get shot, or
I’ll be killed terrorist activities at least trampled
in the stampede.
Afraid of getting Ask colleagues Stop talking to 90 4 I’ll lose my job, 90%
fired when boss for reassurance colleagues about then my house,
asks for a meeting boss and then my wife
performance reviews and kids.
49
Preparation
Fearing heart Constantly taking Stop cold turkey 70 5 I’ll collapse on 70%
attack when pulse, online the treadmill with
heart rate goes medical research a heart attack.
up at gym at home
Social Anxiety—Antonio’s Fear of Socializing

Antonio is lonely. His last girlfriend was six years ago in college, someone who asked him
out. His fear of being judged or rejected has kept him from:
• talking to female coworkers
• talking to fellow commuters
• going to parties or work gatherings
• going to Meetup groups
• putting up a profile for online dating
• asking someone on a date
• going to political meetings or events (Antonio is interested in conservation,

ecology, and the Green Movement)
Antonio’s exposure inventory for social anxiety is typical in that it involves two types of
exposure:
1. Situations that will induce him to speak with others, particularly people to whom he’s
attracted.
2. Visualizations of worst-case scenarios in which his attempts at conversation are met

with scorn and rejection.
Notice that Antonio highly values any exposures involving contact with Irene, someone
he likes at work.
50
Antonio’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet
and to expose
Talking to others Avoid it, keep quiet, Say “hello” to Irene 50 5 She’ll shrug, avoid 60
don’t go to parties at her desk eye contact, and
and other events look away
Put up online dating 60 3 Too scary, won’t 80
profile finish it and hit
“submit”
Go to “Save the 65 4 No one will talk to 70
51
Earth” Meetup group me
Preparation
Start a conversation 70 5 She’ll look away 70

with Irene about her and ignore me
vacation
Go to singles bar—30 70 2 No one will talk to 85
min. me
Go to after-hours 75 2 I won’t talk to 80

office party—30 min. anyone, they won’t
talk to me
Respond via e-mail to 75 3 No one will 90
5 interesting profiles respond to me
and to expose
Talking to others Avoid it, keep quiet, Go to party at my 80 2 I won’t say a word 75
don’t go to parties sister’s house to anyone, no one
and other events will talk to me
Make a small 80 2 They’ll look 80

(hopefully funny) disgusted, refuse
remark to someone to speak to me
on train
Go on Sierra Club 90 3 They’ll look 95

Singles hike and offended, move
talk to 2 people away from me
52
Being rejected Avoid Visualize talking to 55 1 Have to stop, 60
woman on train too painful
who looks disgusted
and moves away
Combos Avoid Visualize being 70 1 She’ll say she’s 95

scorned + busy and look

conversation away
with Irene
Visualize being 95 3 People will avoid 100

scorned + go to me, they’ll move
singles bar—no away when I
alcohol speak to them
Preparation
By now you should have a pretty long Exposure Inventory Worksheet, probably rewritten
a few times as you revise your plans for stopping safety behaviors and exposing yourself to your
feared situations. In the next chapter you will finally get a chance to put your inventory to use,
and start solving your anxiety problems with positive actions.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)—

Mary’s Fear of Doing Harm
Mary feared harming her two-year-old daughter or her husband with a sharp implement
such as a knife, serving fork, scissors, or needle. She reached the point where she was afraid to
cook or sew, particularly if her daughter or husband were anywhere near. Her exposure inven-
tory included holding and then using sharp implements, as well as visualizing accidentally
cutting her daughter with a knife. Notice that items involving shared activities with her
daughter are highly valued.
53
Mary’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet
Feared Safety Plan to stop safety SUDS Value Predicted worst- Percent
situation behaviors behavior and to 1–100 1–5 case outcome probability
expose
Picking up paring Avoid it, wait Holding carving knife— 60 2 Drop knife or 70
knife or carving until they’re gone 1 min. cut myself
knife, especially
near husband or Holding carving knife— 70 2 Drop knife or 80
daughter 3 min. cut myself
Holding paring knife— 70 2 Cut husband 60

1 min., husband across
kitchen
54
Holding paring knife— 80 2 Cut daughter 75
3 min., daughter across
kitchen
Holding carving knife 80 2 Cut or stab 75

and fork, daughter across daughter
kitchen
Holding carving knife 90 2 Cut or stab 85

and fork, daughter near daughter
cutting board
Chopping Avoid it, buy Chopping 5 carrots, 85 3 Cut daughter 80

precut veggies salad, daughter across
kitchen
expose
Chopping Avoid it, buy Chopping 10 apples for 95 4 Cut daughter 95

precut veggies pie, daughter near
cutting board
Sewing with Only do it alone Cutting cloth, living 70 4 Cut daughter 70
needles, cutting or not at all room, daughter across
cloth with scissors room
Cutting cloth, living 85 5 Cut daughter 90
room, daughter near me
Hand sewing her 65 4 Poke daughter 70
55
costume, daughter with needle
across room
Preparation
Hand sewing her 75 4 Poke daughter 80

costume, daughter near with needle
me
Thinking about Distraction with Visualize daughter cut 70 1 I’ll have to stop 80
cutting daughter TV, Internet, by knife visualizing,
distract myself
Combos Avoid Visualize daughter cut 95 5 Poke daughter 90
and sewing with her near with needle
Visualize daughter cut 100 3 Cut daughter 100
and chopping with her
near
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)—

Annalea’s Fear of Contamination
Annalea had struggled with a fear of germs since her college roommate contracted mono-
nucleosis and had to drop out of school. She became increasingly vigilant in looking out for
any possibility of contamination. She avoided touching doorknobs, railings, toilets, floors,
chair seats, paper money, and other people—particularly their hands. When Annalea touched
something she believed to be contaminated, she suffered extreme anxiety until she washed or
showered. Washing rituals could last up to several hours, and on bad days Annalea spent
much of her time compulsively “de-germing” herself. She strongly valued her relationships, as
you’ll see in exposure items involving family and friends.
56
Annalea’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet

and to expose
Touching Avoiding, washing Touching inside 40 1 Sick by bedtime 60

doorknobs doorknob for 10 seconds,
washing only 3 min.
after toilet and before
meals, no other washing
Touching outside 60 3 Sick by bedtime 80

doorknob for 10 sec.,
washing only 2 min.
57
after toilet, before meals,
no other washing
Preparation
Being near sick Avoiding, washing Visualize seeing 40 4 Can’t stand it, 60
people roommate in hospital have to stop
Touching floor Avoiding, washing Both hands on living 65 2 Sick by bedtime 70

room floor for 30 sec.,
washing 2 min. only
after toilet, before meals
Touching other Avoidance Shaking hands with 80 4 Sick by bedtime 95

people friends at a political
meeting, washing 1 min.
after toilet, before meals
and to expose
Touching other Avoidance Hugging mother, 1 min., 45 5 Sick by bedtime 60

people washing as above
Taking mother’s arm to 60 5 Sick by bedtime 70

help her walk, washing
as above
Touching money Avoiding, washing Counting money in 70 3 Sick by bedtime 75

wallet, washing as above
Counting money from 80 3 Sick by bedtime 85

ATM, washing as above
58
Touching toilet Avoiding, washing Lower toilet seat with my 100 2 Sick by bedtime 100
hand, washing as above
Touching chairs Avoiding, washing Hands on armchair, 70 2 Sick by bedtime 60

and railings washing only 30 sec.
Hands on my mother’s 80 3 Sick by bedtime 65

armchair, washing
30 sec.
Hands on park bench 75 1 Sick by bedtime 80

seat, washing 30 sec.
Hands on store stair 70 2 Sick by bedtime 85

railing, washing 30 sec.
and to expose
Touching floor Avoiding, washing Both hands on 100 3 Sick by bedtime 95

bathroom floor—30
sec., washing 30 sec.
Near sick people, Avoiding, washing Visualize roommate in 90 4 Sick by bedtime 100
touching sick hospital + shaking
people hands with friends,
washing 30 sec.
Visualize roommate in 85 3 Sick by bedtime 90

hospital + counting
59
money from ATM,
washing 30 sec.
Preparation
Touching Avoiding, washing Hand on store 95 3 Sick by bedtime 95

doorknobs and doorknob + count
money money, washing 30 sec.
This example showed Annalea’s inventory for exposing herself to her contamination fears
and discontinuing her safety behavior of prolonged hand washing. While not fully shown in
her inventory, she also systematically reduced the time she spent showering. In the end, she
tapered down to showering once a day for ten minutes and washing her hands for only thirty
seconds before each meal and after using the bathroom.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

—Morgan’s Forbidden Thoughts
Morgan, the son of missionaries, lost his girlfriend in a car accident when she was only
thirty-one. At the funeral he had the sudden thought, I hate God. The thought was so disturb-
ing and unacceptable that he tried to banish it from his mind. But the more he tried to avoid
the thought, the more frequently it appeared. As a way of undoing or neutralizing the thought,
he whispered, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” each time it occurred.
Morgan’s inventory first worked on stopping his ritual “Sorry, sorry, sorry” safety behavior,
then concentrated on tolerating the I hate God phrase as a thought alone, as a thought in
certain situations, when said out loud, and when written down.
60
Morgan’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet
expose
Thinking my I Ritual: whispering Shorten to two 80 3 I won’t be able to 75

hate God thought “Sorry, sorry, sorries for a day, stop. If I do stop,
sorry.” then one sorry for God will physically
the next day, then strike me down.
Trying to avoid no sorries thereafter
the thought
Think my thought 55 1 Physically struck 60

once alone down
61
Think it 10 times 70 1 Physically struck 65
Preparation
down
Think it 50 times 85 1 Physically struck 70

down
Think it while 70 3 They’ll know, and 90

talking to clients will cancel their
contract
Think it while with 90 3 They’ll read my 60

parents mind
Think it in church 100 1 Physically struck 100

down
expose
Writing down Write it once 65 3 Physically struck 60

“Sorry, sorry.”
the thought down
Look at it and read 90 3 Physically struck 60

it for 5 minutes down
Write it 10 times 70 3 Physically struck 70

down
Write it 50 times 90 3 Physically struck 80
62
down
Write it on big 80 2 Physically struck 85

sheet of sketch down
paper
Saying the Say it once while 70 2 Physically struck 80

thought out loud alone in the car down

“Sorry, sorry.”
Tell my friend Alex 95 3 He’ll reject me 95
about my thought
Preparation
Panic Disorder—Sergio’s Fear of Travel

Sergio had his first panic attack in a hotel, following a turbulent and stressful plane flight.
The physical symptoms included feeling dizzy/light-headed and flushed, rapid heart rate, a
sense that he couldn’t get enough air, and weakness in his legs. Subsequent panic attacks were
at first rare, occurring only when he traveled far from home. As time went by, they began to
happen on public transportation, in crowded places, on long drives, and when caught in traffic,
always preceded by one or more of his physical symptoms. If you look at the values column in
Sergio’s inventory below, you’ll see that his fear of panic attacks kept him from enjoying activi-
ties he valued very highly, such as movies, eating out, and spending time with friends.
Note that Sergio’s inventory contains situational, interoceptive, and imagery-based expo-
sures. His panic disorder was typical in that what he dreaded was not so much certain situa-
tions, but rather the interoceptive physical sensations of panic that he might feel in those
situations. For exposure to work in treating panic disorder, it helps to design safe, controllable
experiences that will reproduce similar physical sensations. Sergio recreated the interoceptive
experiences as follows:
Panic symptom Interoceptive equivalent
Rapid heart rate Running in place
Flushed/hot feeling Running in place with heavy coat
Dizziness/light-headedness Very rapid breathing
Difficulty breathing Breathing through a straw
Leg weakness Holding a “half squat” until legs feel weak/

shaky
63
Sergio’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet

and to expose
Driving more Avoidance: stay Drive to San Rafael— 45 2 Panic, have to stop 60
than a few miles home, get rides 30 min.
Drive to Napa— 55 2 Panic, have to stop 70

60 min.
Drive to Clear Lake— 70 5 Panic, have to stop 75

2 hrs.
64
Thinking about Distraction, Visualize 1st panic— 45 1 Can’t stand it, have 60
my first panic drinking, Internet 2 min., then 5 min., to stop
no distraction or
numbing
Taking public Avoidance BART train to 50 1 Panic, have to get off 60

transportation Oakland
BART train to S.F. 70 3 Panic, have to get off 60
Bus to Sacramento 80 4 Panic, have to get off 75
Bus to Reno 90 5 Panic, have to get off 95

and to expose
Freeway driving Never do it Freeway— 50 2 Panic, have to stop 65

anymore, get rides 4 exits—4 p.m.
or stay home
Freeway— 70 2 Panic, have to stop 70
2 exits—5 p.m.
Combo situations All of above Visualize 1st panic 60 2 Panic, have to stop 80
+ drive
Visualize 1st panic 70 1 Panic, have to get off 80

+ BART
65
Visualize 1st panic 70 2 Panic, have to stop 80
+ freeway
Preparation
Going to the Stay home, Go to popular movie 65 4 Panic, have to leave 60

movies watch TV
Eating out Avoid Go to popular 75 5 Panic, have to leave 80

restaurant
and to expose
Interoceptive Stop whatever I’m Running in place— 75 2 Panic, have to stop 60

panic sensations: doing that seems 1 min.
to be causing it
being out of Running in place— 85 2 Panic, have to stop 65
breath, 2 min.
hot,
Running + heavy 95 2 Panic, have to stop 80
rapid heart rate, coat—2 min.
shaky muscles Running, then 90 3 Panic, have to stop 90
driving
66
Very rapid breathing 70 1 Panic, have to stop 80
—1 min.
Very rapid breathing, 85 2 Panic, have to stop 100

then driving
Breathing through 60 1 Panic, have to stop 65

straw—1 min.
Half squat—2 min. 55 2 Panic, have to stop 65
For even more details on designing interoceptive exposures, see Appendix IV at the end of this book.
Preparation
Specific Phobia—Sophia’s Fear of Bees

Specific phobias can arise in connection to virtually any object or situation. Common
phobias include insects, animals, heights, closed spaces, driving, injections and other medical
procedures, public speaking, water, and many others. Developing items for a phobia inventory
typically involves manipulating:
• distance from the feared object or situation, where the closer you get, the more
you expect catastrophe
• level of threat such as how much time is spent near the feared object or in the
feared situation. Or how dangerous the exposure feels—is it a picture of a
snake or a real snake? How big is the snake? Is it in a cage? Will you touch it?
• catastrophic images of worst-case outcomes such as reading about someone

who was bitten by a snake or imagining it.
The following inventory documents the exposure plan for Sophia, a professional gardener
who was afraid of bees. She cared deeply about her job, as you’ll see in her value ratings.
67
Sophia’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet

and to expose
Reading article Avoidance Read article about 85 2 Too scared, put 90

about bees someone attacked magazine down
by bees
Hold a picture of 40 1 Will drop it 60

a bee
Look at picture of 80 2 Too scared, put 90

someone with picture down
68
multiple bee stings
Videos of bees Avoidance Looking at a video 50 1 Will turn it off 60

of bees on computer
Listening to recording 45 1 Will turn it off 65

of many bees buzzing
Flower gardens Avoidance Stand halfway to my 65 3 Will be stung 60

with bees dahlias (lots of bees)
for 1 min.
Stand halfway to my 75 3 Multiple stings 70

dahlias for 3 min.
and to expose
Flower gardens Avoidance Stand next to dahlias 80 3 Multiple stings 80

with bees for 30 sec.
Stand next to dahlias 90 3 Multiple stings 90

for 2 min.
Stand next to dahlias 95 3 Multiple stings 95

for 5 min.
Visit flower beds in 80 5 Will be stung 75

Ms. Latham’s yard
69
Prune back a 70 5 Multiple stings 75
rosebush at Ms.
Preparation
Druery’s
Combos Avoidance Stand next to dahlias 100 3 Multiple stings 100

while reading bee
attack article
Read bee attack 90 5 Multiple stings 95

article right before
hoeing Ms. Latham’s
flower bed
Specific Phobia—Stan’s Fear of Needles

And here is another specific phobia inventory, this one by Stan, a newly diagnosed dia-
betic who was afraid of needles. As you can see from his value ratings, he had a strong value
about staying healthy, which required him to learn to administer his own insulin injections.
70
Stan’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet

and to expose
Being around Avoid, distract, Sit in doctor’s 55 2 Leave immediately 60

injection stuff— ask for reassurance waiting room
vials, syringes, etc.
Look at picture of 45 2 Stop, put it down 60

syringe
Watch a video of 50 2 Can’t stand it, 90

someone getting a turn it off
71
shot
Preparation
Watch nurse 80 4 Leave immediately 80

demonstrate
injecting an orange
Smell alcohol on 55 1 Stop immediately 60

cotton ball
and to expose
Receiving an Avoid, distract Visualize getting a 70 2 Cut off the images 65

injection with chatter, painful shot
look away
Visualize getting a 70 2 Cut off the images 70
shot, screaming
and fainting
Nurse gives me an 90 5 Scream, faint 85

insulin shot in leg,
watch it happen,
don’t look away
72
Giving myself an Avoidance Stick my finger 80 2 Can’t do it 90
insulin injection with a pin
Hold a syringe 75 3 Stop, leave 90

filled with saline
Give myself insulin 100 5 Can’t do it, faint 95

shot in leg
Preparation
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

—Laura’s Sexual Assault
Laura was the victim of a nighttime break-in during which she was slapped awake by her
assailant and sexually assaulted in her bed. Since the attack, she’s suffered flashbacks, surges
of anxiety, and sadness, and she has an overwhelming fear of being alone at night.
Recovery from PTSD symptoms involves two very different kinds of exposure:
1. Imagery exposure that involves visualizing the event in detail. This can often be
accomplished by making a recording lasting fifteen to thirty minutes describing each
minute step of the trauma, including as much as possible about what happened emo-
tionally, physically, and cognitively during the event.
2. Situational exposure to current fears that have been triggered by the trauma. For
Laura, who must either spend the night at the home of friends or persuade friends to
stay with her, the fear of being alone at night has become a serious problem. As you’ll
see, many items in her inventory are situational exposures designed to change the
belief that she’ll be attacked if she spends the night alone.
Laura has strong values about facing the pain in her life and maintaining her indepen-
dence, as you’ll see in her inventory.
73
Laura’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet

and to expose
Remembering Avoid, distract, Record the story of 85 5 Can’t stand it, 95

the attack mental rituals the attack on my will have to stop
phone—15 minutes
long
Listen to 5 minutes of 80 5 Can’t stand it, 80

the recording on my will have to stop
phone, during which
74
I describe everything
that happened during
the attack
Listen to 10 minutes 75 5 Can’t stand it, 75

of the recording will have to stop
Listen to all 15 70 5 Can’t stand it, 75

minutes of the will have to stop

recording
and to expose
Spending the Avoid, stay at Stay alone in 70 4 Will be attacked 60

night alone friends’ houses hotel—1 night
Stay the night at a 70 3 Will be attacked 80

friend’s house with
no one there
Stay alone in 75 5 Will be attacked 70

hotel—2 nights
Listen to recording 80 5 Will be attacked 75

of attack + spend
75
night in hotel
Preparation
Stay alone at home 80 4 Will be attacked 70

until 10:00 p.m.
Listen to recording 85 5 Will be attacked 80

of attack + stay
alone at home until
midnight
Stay alone at home 90 4 Will be attacked 80

until midnight, then
check into hotel
Spend night alone 100 5 Will be attacked 95

at home
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

—Aaron’s Commuter Train Derailment
Three years ago, Aaron was in the second car of a high-speed commuter train when it left
the tracks and plowed into a warehouse. Passengers flew through the air and there were four
dead in Aaron’s car. Survivors were trapped for more than an hour while rescuers and para-
medics tried to reach them. While waiting for help, Aaron was in great pain with a broken leg
and ribs.
As noted in Laura’s case, PTSD must be treated with both imagery exposure (a recorded
description of the event) and situational exposure for current, associated fears. In Aaron’s
case, he retained a morbid fear of trains, planes, and buses, and had been forced to quit his job
because it required significant travel. Note that his valued exposures all involve increasing his
ability to travel.
76
Aaron’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet
expose
Remembering Avoiding, taking Making an 18-minute 90 1 Have to quit 80

the derailment tranquilizers, recording of the
drinking too accident—what I saw,
much, distraction heard, smelled, thought,
and felt emotionally and
physically
Listen to recording once 85 1 Have to quit 80

on day 1—no drinking,
77
drugs, or distraction
Preparation
Listen to recording twice 80 1 Have to quit 80

on day 2—no d, d, or d
Listen to recording 3 times 65 1 Have to quit 70


on day 4 —no d, d, or d

Read article about the 50 1 Have to quit 65

derailment—no d, d, or d
expose
Taking public Avoiding, Trolley to zoo 45 2 Panic, get off 60

transportation distraction,
tranquilizers
Bus to Stonestown 45 2 Panic, get off 60
Bus to Berkeley art 55 3 Panic, get off 75

museum
Train to Millbrae 70 2 Panic, get off, 80

crash
78
Train to San Jose 80 3 Panic, get off, 90
crash
Plane to LA to visit 55 4 Panic, want off, 60

brother throw up, crash
Combos Avoiding, Listen to recording + 85 2 Crash 75

distraction, train to Millbrae
tranquilizers
Listen to recording + 90 3 Crash 80

train to San Jose
Read about crash + 95 4 Crash 95

train/bus to Yosemite
CHAPTER 6
The Anxiety Solution
The anxiety solution can be summarized as a deceptively simple two-step process:
1. Avoid what you usually do.
2. Do what you usually avoid.
Or in psychology jargon:
1. Stop your approach safety behavior.
2. Approach your avoidant safety behavior.
Or even more simply, in cowboy lingo:
1. Put down the bottle.
2. Get back on the horse.
If only it were that simple! Just to get ready, you’ve already had to do a lot of reading, a lot
of intense pen and paper work that is scary in itself, a lot of learning, preparing, motivating,
analyzing, ranking distress and values, and so on. And you have yet to actually put one of your
plans into action.
But now all your work is going to pay off. In this chapter you will finally face and overcome
your anxiety, turning off your old false alarms.
It’s hard to face something you believe is very likely to harm you. And that’s exactly what
this treatment program is asking you to do. It would be understandable if you were thinking
seriously about stopping right here, hoping to find some other way. But here’s the problem:
exposing yourself to what you fear is the only way to permanently surmount anxiety. And the
exposure process offered here—though challenging—is faster and more effective than earlier
therapies.
Other solutions don’t work. Anxiety drugs are rarely a good option. They help only as long
as you take them, and many cause chemical dependence. When you stop the drugs, the with-
drawal or discontinuation syndrome can leave you feeling worse than before. Waiting and
hoping sometimes seems like a solution because anxiety can spontaneously wax and wane. But
the long-term trajectory for untreated anxiety disorders is that they usually get worse.
Avoidance begets increased avoidance, and life becomes ever more restricted and closed in by
fear. Another strategy, trying to get people to help you, reassure you, or protect you, also makes
anxiety worse in the long run. Everything you do to feel safer brings momentary calm at best,
before you get caught in the next round of anxiety.
Your belief that certain things will harm you cannot change without disconfirming experi-
ences. When it comes to fear, everyone is from Missouri—we have to be shown. We have to
experience directly the feared situation and see that we are unscathed by it. That’s what will
happen in this treatment program. It’s hard, it requires courage, but it will set you free.
Fine-Tuning Your Exposure Inventory

Get out your Exposure Inventory Worksheet from the previous chapter. Before you put your
various plans into action, you’ll want to do some fine-tuning to guarantee maximum results.
Include only high percent probability items

Effective exposure depends on the maximum discrepancy between your predictions of harm
and actual outcomes. Therefore, you should make sure that all your exposure items have prob-
ability percentages of over 60 percent. That way you will have maximum learning potential
and the best opportunity to disconfirm your fears.
If an exposure item has less than a 60 percent probability of harm, extend the time spent
in the exposure, plan to move closer to the feared situation, or combine it with another feared
situation until the probability exceeds 60 percent.
Have a full range of probability percentages

Make sure that the exposure items on your inventory cover the full range of probability per-
centages, from 60 to 100 percent. Avoid large gaps of more than 10 percent—for example,
where you have items at 60 percent and the next highest item is 80 percent. If need be, fill in
these gaps with additional exposure items.
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Include high-quality items only

Make sure that the plans you make for exposure to things you avoid meet these criteria:
• They are things you want to do, experiences you truly want to have, but have
avoided due to fear.
• As many as possible should have higher-ranking numbers in the value column.

They are things you value or need to do to have a complete or fulfilling life.
Examples might include dating for someone with social anxiety, or getting on
airplanes for a plane-phobic whose job requires travel, or schlepping one’s chil-
dren to school, soccer, and so on, for someone who fears driving.
• They are things that, when avoided, have affected your life in negative ways.
For example, the fear of panic attacks may have kept you from meeting friends
in restaurants, enjoying concerts, or taking public transportation. Social fears
may have kept you from speaking up at work or participating in task groups.
The fear of germs may have kept you from otherwise positive experiences that
seemed to risk contagion.
• They are not actually, really dangerous. While frightening to you, they should
be things that many people experience without apparent harm, things that are
generally regarded as safe by most people. So no taking long walks at night in
crime-ridden neighborhoods, no taunting vicious dogs, no driving over the
speed limit in heavy traffic.
Expand types of exposure to include visualizations

Situational exposure, which involves being in or near something you expect to harm you, is
not the only form of exposure. Imagery exposure is used to visualize frightening events from
the past, to relive traumatic memories, or to “expose” yourself to situations that are not easily
reproduced in real life. For example, it is not safe or practical to plan to encounter a real traffic
accident or a poisonous spider, so you do it in your imagination.
Imagery exposures can also be attached to situational exposures in order to increase the
expectation of a feared outcome, thus strengthening the disconfirming power of the exposure.
In other words, when you deeply believe something bad will happen, and it doesn’t, you start
to disconnect the exposure experience from the idea that you’ll be harmed. For example, you
might precede a freeway driving exposure with an image of a traffic accident, thus increasing
your expectation of harm.
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Reading about scary things related to a feared situation, just before an exposure, can also
make the exposure more effective. By intensifying the expectation of harm, an outcome in
which no harm comes to you helps you learn that the exposure stimulus isn’t dangerous.
Consider adding interoceptive exposure

This is exposure to physical sensations that you identify with fear and danger, such as being
out of breath, being hot, having an elevated heart rate, having shaky muscles, and so on.
Interoceptive exposure was covered in the previous chapter, under panic disorder. There’s also
more information in appendix IV at the end of this book.
• Example: Harry’s Fine-Tuning

Harry struggled with the fear of panicking in public places. When he got to this stage
in his treatment of his panic disorder, his exposure inventory was a little skimpy. It
looked like this:
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Harry’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet #1

and to expose
Eating out Avoid Order tea in diner 50 2 Will have a panic 45

attack, have to leave, be
incapacitated for hours
Eat lunch at nice 85 4 All of the above, plus 90

restaurant with a friend will be angry
friend
Take girlfriend out 75 5 All of the above, plus 80
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to eat she will be angry for
days
Being outside, away Avoid, check Take 1-mile walk 60 4 Will panic, feel weak, 50
from home and recheck along river barely make it home

for phone
and keys, Take bus to work 80 4 Will panic, have to 80
call a friend to take
Take own car me home
Having elevated Have stopped 30 minutes in gym, 80 4 Have to leave, feel 80

heart rate, feeling hot going to gym getting hot, sweaty incapacitated all day
and out of breath
Harry looked at his probability percentages and realized that ordering tea in the diner and
taking a one-mile walk were under 60 percent. So he planned to also order a sandwich and
increased the walk to two miles, raising the probability percentages to 60 and 65 percent
respectively.
He also noticed that he didn’t have a really challenging situation in which the probability
percentage reached 100 percent, so he added a weekend trip that his girlfriend had always
wanted to take. He also added a couple of mid-range exposures to different feared situations
to flesh out his inventory. One of them, going to popular movies, was something he really used
to like to do, a high-value exposure.
Harry added a visualization of being lost in a strange city, late at night, and running out
of gas. It was a situation he greatly feared, but he couldn’t figure out how to arrange it in real
life. He also added some imagery exposure to his plan to take a two-mile walk along the river.
While walking, he would visualize the time he had his first panic attack, on a hike with a
former girlfriend.
Harry beefed up his plan to experience his panic sensations at the gym by adding a heavy
sweatshirt and a visit to the sauna to address his fear of feeling hot. He also increased the time
exercising in order to experience longer elevations of his heart and breath rate.
The final version of Harry’s inventory looked like this:
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Harry’s Exposure Inventory Worksheet #2
situation behaviors behavior and to expose 1–100 1–5 case outcome probability
Eating out in Avoid, eat at Order tea and sandwich 50 3 Will have a panic 60
a restaurant home, call in diner, stay 30 minutes attack, have to leave,
for delivery be incapacitated for
hours
Eat lunch at nice 85 4 All of the above, plus 90

restaurant with a friend friend will be angry
Take girlfriend out to eat 75 5 All of the above, 80

plus she will be
85
angry for days
Going to Just don’t do Go to crowded movie with 70 3 Will feel so 85

movies it anymore girlfriend, sit in the middle claustrophobic that
of a row I’ll have to leave early
Remembering Distraction Visualize first panic attack 60 2 Won’t last, will have 85
first panic for 1 min., then 2, then to stop visualization
attack 3 min.
situation behaviors behavior and to expose 1–100 1–5 case outcome probability
Being outdoors Avoid, check Take 2-mile walk along 65 4 Will panic, feel weak, 65
or out of town, and recheck river after imagining the barely make it home
far away from for phone, time I had a panic attack
home keys, etc. on a hike
Always drive Take bus to work 75 3 Will panic, have to 70
my own car, call a friend to take
stay close to me home
home
Walk in Muir Woods 85 5 Panic will make me 75
with girlfriend cut it short
Go on weekend trip with 95 5 I’ll freak out, have to 100
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girlfriend to Clear Lake cut trip short and have
her drive me home.
Feeling hot, Have stopped 10 min. in sauna at gym, 80 6 Will panic and have 80
panting, heart working out wearing sweatshirt, then to leave, feel
racing 20 min. on treadmill, incapacitated all day
getting hot, sweaty, out
of breath. Then increase

to 35 min.
Driving in Stay close to Visualize for 15 min. being 100 4 Won’t be able to 95
strange city, home, fill up lost in Chicago, late at finish the
getting lost tank night, bad neighborhood, visualization, will
frequently and running out of gas have to stop
Guidelines for Effective Exposures

These guidelines will help you solve your anxiety problem as quickly and thoroughly as pos
sible. When you begin to experience your exposure situations in real life, review this section
to make sure you are maximizing your chances of success.
How to Choose Your First Exposure

Start small. Make your first exposure an item that has the lowest SUDS in your inventory.
It’s best to start with something that doesn’t push your fear all the way to the top. Later you
can randomize exposures, but let this first one be relatively easy.
Choosing the Next Exposure: Random or

Gradual Sequence?
Until recently, gradual or hierarchical exposure has been the gold standard for treating
anxiety. You face your fear in small, graduated steps, a hierarchy from the least to the most
feared item. This standard was based on the concept of habituation: you experience a low-level
anxiety stimulus and stay in the situation until there is full desensitization and you feel no
more fear. For example, people afraid of freeways might stand on the side of the road and
watch an on ramp for half an hour. Then they would move up to being a passenger in the slow
lane for a quarter mile. Eventually they’d work up to driving for real on the freeway. It took a
long time and sometimes there were significant setbacks, when anxiety would suddenly flair
up and they would have to break the exposure into smaller steps.
A better way to do exposure has since been discovered (Craske et al., 2014) that takes less
time and produces more lasting results, fewer relapses, and a profoundly positive change in
your relationship to anxiety. It is called inhibitory learning. Instead of relying exclusively on
habituation, which can so easily unravel and reverse, inhibitory learning helps you learn that
the things you fear will not happen. This shift in your catastrophic beliefs—that terrible things
will occur if you get on an elevator, touch a bathroom doorknob, say hello to a stranger, go far
from home, or whatnot—is a game changer that can permanently liberate you from a life of
anxiety. Instead of believing that the worst will happen, you will have learned that there is no
relationship between the old feared stimulus and disaster.
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That’s why exposures in this program always include a worst-case prediction and your
estimate of the percent probability of the prediction coming true. After each exposure, you get
a chance to learn about the actual dangerousness of things you fear.
The inhibitory learning model breaks with exposure traditions in other ways. It replaces
the old hierarchical exposure approach with random exposures. Instead of using a hierarchy
in which you expose yourself stepwise up a ladder of increasingly fearful situations, you do
exposures in a deliberately random order, mixing situations that cause you varying levels of
distress (SUDS). This is a faster way to learn that your predictions of catastrophe will not
come true.
So, after starting with your lowest SUDS item, jump to one with significantly higher
SUDS, and a higher percent probability of harm. As you expose yourself to items with differ-
ent SUDS levels—some lower, some higher—it serves to better disconfirm your expectation
that bad things will happen. Keep jumping around your inventory by asking the questions
“What do I need to learn next?” and “What avoided experience do I need to face next?”
Special note: Randomizing exposures instead of gradually progressing from lower to

higher fear-evoking items is challenging. We strongly suggest you do this because treat-
ment results are more rapid and complete. However, some people find that random
exposures present a level of fear and difficulty that is too challenging to face. If, after
attempting random exposures, you feel too anxious to go on, we suggest you reorder
your inventory as a hierarchy, with items arranged from the lowest to highest SUDS
rating. Work up the hierarchy gradually, attempting an exposure to the next-highest
item only after learning to face the one below it.
Here are the other general rules to keep in mind as you create your inventory:
Use high-value exposures

When taking on higher SUDS items with more challenging fear levels, initially select expo-
sures that also have higher value ratings. So while the exposure may be more scary, it is also
something you want to do—it really matters to you. If you think back to Harry’s inventory, for
example, high-value items like going to the gym were also quite frightening (high SUDS).
Vary exposure contexts

This means, in Harry’s case, that if he does an exercise exposure in the gym, the next expo-
sure should be in a different setting—a brisk walk by the river, or on the crowded streets
downtown. Keep altering where, how, and with whom you do certain exposures so you’ll learn
to face the fear in multiple contexts.
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Pay attention during exposure

During exposure, fully observe your emotions, body sensations, and thoughts. Notice the full
range of your experience. In your mind, try to name the feelings you have, and watch as they
may shift and change during the exposure. Do nothing to avoid or numb your feelings. Don’t
try to reassure yourself, use coping thoughts, or try to control your fear in any way. In other
words, do nothing to feel safer.
Stay aware of the exposure experience itself. For example, if you are exposing to heights,
you might try to focus on objects below you, noticing how far away they seem. If you are expos-
ing to a social anxiety, it would be helpful to observe people’s tone of voice and facial expres-
sions as they speak to you.
Stay in the exposure long enough

Long enough means the full length of time you planned. Anything less won’t fully disconfirm
your prediction of the worst-case outcome. If you can’t last the whole time, you’ll have to break
up the exposure into two or more sessions in which you can stay for the whole time. Alter your
inventory accordingly as you go along.
Try to stay in the exposure or repeat it until your expectation (percent probability) that the
feared outcome will occur has dropped significantly. It doesn’t matter whether your actual fear
level has gone down—only that your expectation of harm has decreased. If you thought you’d
need to expose yourself to a scary situation for an hour, but your expectation of disaster drops
to 10 percent after fifteen minutes, you’ve accomplished your goal and you can stop.
Combine exposures
Once you have some successful exposures under your belt, you can try combining exposures.
You can combine two situational exposures, or pair a situational exposure with imagery or
interoceptive exposure. Combined exposures result in something called deepened extinction—a
more profound violation of your expectation of harm, and something associated with better
treatment outcomes. But when you combine situational exposures, make sure you have already
done at least one of them already.
Evaluate your results after each exposure

After each exposure, fill out one of the Results Tracker worksheets provided later in the
chapter. It gives you plenty of room to answer four important questions:
1. Did the feared result happen—yes or no?
2. What happened instead?
3. How do you rate the percent probability of the feared outcome now?
4. What did you learn from the exposure?
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Now Do It
You are ready. Grab your fine-tuned Exposure Inventory Worksheet, pick out your first expo-
sure experience, and go out and do it. Work through your list of exposures systematically, fol-
lowing the guidelines and evaluating each exposure upon completion.
• Example: Harry’s Exposure Process

Harry’s first exposure was to his inventory item with the lowest SUDS—going to the
diner to order tea and a sandwich. He had no panic attack and stayed for 40 minutes,
finishing every crumb and drop. Twenty minutes into the experience he realized that
his expectation of a disastrous attack had declined to nearly zero percent. While he
finished his meal he pulled out his Results Tracker and wrote up his experience, rating
the probability of his worst-case outcome happening as 4 percent.
Harry didn’t decide on the order of his exposures in advance. Instead, he kept
asking these questions: (1) “What do I need to learn next?” (2) “What avoided
experience do I need to face next?” (3) “How can I achieve maximum violation of my
predicted outcomes (percent probability that what I fear will actually happen)?”
For his second exposure, Harry skipped eating out with a friend and jumped right
to having dinner with his girlfriend at her favorite restaurant. He was combining a
high-fear with a high-value experience. Though a slow, sit-down meal was scary (he
rated an 80 percent chance of panic), showing his girlfriend a good time was very
important to him. They spent most of their nights at home, and she chafed at the
ways his life had become constricted.
While they waited to give their order, Harry’s heart started to pound. He felt hot
and his breath rate climbed. Harry just observed his experience moment by moment,
feeling his heart and breath, having the thought, Here we go, meaning a panic was
imminent. He looked at the waiters with their trays; he listened to the murmur of
conversation. Despite the fear, he was determined to stay for the full meal, and he did.
Later that night, Harry wrote in his Results Tracker that he had panicked, but it
lasted only a minute or two. He didn’t have to run home, and his girlfriend—best of
all—had a good time on their dinner date. When he re-rated the percent probability
that he would panic and have to leave a restaurant, it was down to 20 percent.
Harry decided to take on something very different for his next exposure item. He
went to the gym for 30 minutes of sauna and treadmill. He had rated the likelihood of
panic at 80 percent, and assumed he’d be forced to leave before the allotted time. To
his surprise, Harry discovered that his heart could race and he could perspire and be
90
out of breath, and yet not panic. He was actually starting to get used to these
sensations. The next day he went to the gym to work out like he used to.
Harry asked the question, “What do I need to do next?” and scanned his
inventory. Intuitively, it occurred to him that he needed to face the fear associated
with his original panic attack. So he visualized the scene on the hiking trail for
1, then 2, then 3 minutes. Though he expected an 85 percent chance of panic, his
heart raced without further symptoms, and the percent probability went down to
5 percent on his testing worksheet.
Next, Harry visualized his first panic just before a hike by the river, and later
combined the same visualization with a movie date with his girlfriend. Though Harry
sometimes had brief panic symptoms, none of them incapacitated him or forced a
return home. He was beginning to believe no great harm would come to him for the
items he’d already tested.
Harry tried other exposure contexts—walking briskly on the crowded downtown
streets, and hiking with his girlfriend in Muir Woods. He continued to vary items in
terms of fear intensity and expectation of harm. Whenever possible, he combined high
SUDS items with things he wanted to do and greatly valued. While these high SUDS
items were scary, they were also experiences he felt very motivated to face.
During each exposure, Harry observed both his internal feelings and the external
sensations. He watched all that went on without resisting, coping, or distracting from
the exposure. And, with each successful exposure, he felt more and more convinced
that the things he’d avoided for so long would not hurt him.
Harry got to where he could “freestyle” exposures that were not planned out on his
inventory. He started taking the subway to work sometimes, or taking the bus partway
and walking the rest. He also chose to walk for various periods on the beach, in an
empty area of a big park, and on several new hiking trails. He even decided to take a
two-hour hike with a group of outdoor enthusiasts at work. His girlfriend pointed out
to him that what he called “freestyling” other people called “living your life.”
Results Tracker
Here is the worksheet for tracking your results after each exposure, followed by an explanation
of how to answer each of the four questions, and examples of how others have used the Results
Tracker. (This worksheet is also available for download at http://www.newharbinger
.com/34749.)
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Results Tracker
Exposure:
Predicted worst-case outcome:
1. Did the worst-case outcome happen? Yes No
3. Percent probability: Before:

After:
5. SUDS 1–100: Before:

After:

Exposure
Write out what you did in detail and how you followed your plan for exposing yourself to
the feared situation without using any of your preferred safety behaviors.
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Predicted Worst-Case Outcome

Write down the worse-case scenario of what you think will happen.
Did the Worst-Case Outcome Happen?

This is a simple “yes” or “no” evaluation of what happened. Either the harm you predicted
occurred, or it did not. Put an “x” next to either yes or no on the Results Tracker. Because
predictions should describe observable outcomes—either events or behaviors—the answer to
this question should reflect actual events, rather than feelings or impressions.
What Happened Instead?

Describe exactly what happened. What behaviors did you or others display, either during
or right after the exposure? Did you follow your plan exactly, or were there differences? If the
worst-case outcome you predicted didn’t occur, what events did you observe during the test?
As much as possible, be a personal scientist and describe the exposure outcome objectively.
An example would be a man who feared germs. Unless he washed thoroughly for half an
hour after touching a series of knobs in a bus station, he predicted, he would grow very ill
within three days. Here’s how he described what happened: “A day after the doorknob test, I
felt a little tired, not quite my usual energy. Day two I was okay, but I blew my nose a few times.
Day three I was okay, no noticeable symptoms. I gave myself an extra day, but even on day four
I felt pretty healthy. I don’t have any symptoms of illness.”
Percent Probability
Write down the percent probability for the worst-case outcome that you had before the
exposure, and the percent probability for the worst-case outcome now, after the exposure
experiment.
What Did You Learn from the Exposure?

This is the time to make sense of your experiment. How do you explain the outcomes? If
the predicted harm didn’t occur—as is almost universally the case—what does that tell you
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about the dangerousness of this experience? Did anything surprise you? How likely does the
predicted harm seem now—in terms of percent probability?
For example, a woman predicted having a panic attack and becoming incapacitated and
unable to drive if she attempted to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. She wrote this summary of
her learning on her Results Tracker: “I was anxious. My heart rate was way up. It was pound-
ing. And I felt light-headed like I get. I was ‘panicky’ but not in full panic. I was able to drive
okay, which surprised me. I was able to react appropriately to traffic, and even get out of the
way of a car that was merging into my lane. I learned I can get anxious without having a panic
attack, and I can drive okay even if my heart is racing. I stay functional. Percent probability
that I won’t be able to drive and have to stop on the bridge: 40 percent.”
SUDS 1–100
Record the SUDS from your Exposure Inventory Worksheet, and the SUDS you felt just
as you ended the exposure. This is probably the least important information on the Results
Tracker, because the object of exposure is not necessarily to reduce your SUDS. However, it
can be interesting to compare post-exposure SUDS to the SUDS level you expected for this
experience in your inventory.
• Example: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

After reading about a child who ran into the street and was killed by a car, Aaron
could hardly get the thought out of his mind, especially while driving. He imagined
that small children could run out and fall under his wheels and he might not even
know it. He began driving only short distances, retracing the whole route at least once
to see if he hit anyone without noticing. He avoided driving anywhere near schools
and playgrounds, and generally would not travel more than fifteen miles per hour.
Here is one of his Result Trackers:
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Aaron’s Results Tracker: Fear of Doing Harm
Exposure: Drive 22 miles to visit mother after Googling and reading articles about children
being hit by cars. No retracing route.
Predicted worst-case outcome: I will hit a child while I drive and read about it in the
newspaper the next day.
1. Did the worst-case outcome happen? Yes X No
2. What happened instead? There were no newspaper reports of children who were victims
of a hit and run. There was an accident where a child was hurt inside a car, but that’s all. I was
also worried, I’ll admit it now, that I’d be so scared I’d have to retrace my route. But I forced
myself to park and ring my mother’s bell.
3. Percent probability: Before: 80 After:

60
4. What did you learn from the exposure? I learned that I can drive at a moderate
speed and a moderate distance without hitting a child, at least this time.

95 After:
75
• Example Panic Disorder

Beth’s first panic attack occurred while she was driving over a high suspension bridge.
She had just left her father’s funeral and was on her way home. It was so horrible that
she was determined never to let it happen again. Over the next few days she vigilantly
watched for the first physiological signs—the feeling that she couldn’t catch her
breath, dizziness, and a pounding heart. But despite her efforts, the panic returned in
several settings—such as in a restaurant, on a bus, and walking to work. More and
more she tried to avoid situations in which she’d previously panicked. But it didn’t
work. The frequency of her attacks went from once a month to twice a week. Here are
the results of her first exposure:
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Beth’s Results Tracker: Panic
Exposure: Run in place for 2 minutes until I’m out of breath and my heart is pounding.
Predicted worst-case outcome: I’ll get so panicked that I can’t stand it and will have to stop
early. I’ll be too upset to do anything the rest of the day.
2. What happened instead? I got winded and my heart was racing. But I made it through
the full 2 minutes. I was able to do the bills after, and go over and visit Joan that night. I was
anxious, but I got though the exercise and could still function.
3. Percent probability: Before: 95 After: 60
4. What did you learn from the exposure? I learned that I could stand the feeling of being
out of breath and having my heart pound. The feeling doesn’t incapacitate me. I can carry on
with my life.
5. SUDS 1–100: Before: 90 After: 50
• Example: Specific Phobia

Janice was afraid of heights. It began at age eleven, when her brother encouraged her
to climb a water tower, then left her up there, terrified to climb back down the ladder.
While completing a degree in structural engineering, Janice landed an internship with
a major construction firm. Part of her job was going to be inspecting construction
sites, which often involved working in tall, partially completed buildings. Moving
forward with her career required that Janice overcome her acrophobia.
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Janice’s Results Tracker: Acrophobia
Exposure: Go with friend to third floor of building under construction.
Predicted worst-case outcome: I will slide, fall, or jump off the edge of the open floor.
Something will pull or compel me to fall.
2. What happened instead? I’m alive and uninjured—I’d be dead if I’d fallen. I felt a little
dizzy up there. I had a picture in my mind of the floor tilting and me sliding off. And then—like
I’d seen in a movie—I imagined myself running full-out over the edge. But none of those things
happened.

40
4. What did you learn from the exposure? That having pictures in my mind of horrible
things doesn’t make them happen. That I’m not going to fall if I’m 10 feet from the edge, no
matter what story I’m on.

80 After:
60
• Example: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Arturo was attacked at an ATM at night. Three men hit him, one with a wrench.
While half-conscious, he felt them meticulously go through his pockets and take
everything of value. Six months after the assault Arturo was experiencing flashbacks,
mood swings, and nightmares. He had become extremely fearful of going out at night
and walking near groups of men, even on safe, well-traveled streets.
97
Arturo’s Results Tracker: Fear of Assault
Exposure: Walk down Market Street between Sixth and New Montgomery (a busy commer-
cial area) at 8 p.m.
Predicted worst-case outcome: I’ll be attacked and beaten on the street.
2. What happened instead? I got all the way to New Montgomery and nobody even seemed
to notice me, let alone make a move toward me. I was nervous at first, although that got better.
I did the visualization of my mugging in a coffee shop. I’d done it before, so it didn’t scare me as
much as I thought. I felt like I could face the walk back, so I did.

50
4. What did you learn from the exposure? I learned that I can probably walk down
Market Street without anyone bothering me and that expecting something to happen doesn’t
mean it will. I have more ability to face things than I thought.

80 After:
50
When Exposure Ends

After you have worked through your inventory, what happens when you encounter some of
those same feared situations again? Your anxiety or subjective units of distress (SUDS) will be
significantly reduced. The anxiety is unlikely to completely disappear, but that’s not the point
of this treatment. The point of the treatment is to significantly reduce your anxiety, and the
time when the formal exposure process ends is when you can do all the things you used to avoid.
No one’s life is free of anxiety. We all have fears. But the goal is to live life fully—free to
do the things that matter to you—even if sometimes the alarm goes off.
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Harry stopped planning exposures when he could do all the things in his inventory that
mattered to him. Sometimes he felt twinges of the old anxiety, and there were situations in
which the thought occurred to him that he might panic. But he had learned one thing: the
old symptoms couldn’t hurt or incapacitate him. He could do everything he wanted to do.
99
CHAPTER 7
You Can Face Fear
This is the first of four chapters that teach what we consider auxiliary skills. This one is about
correctly assessing your ability to cope with threats. The next chapter is about using a tech-
nique called defusion to reduce worry and rumination. Chapter 9 shows how to more accu-
rately assess dangers and threats. And chapter 10 teaches how to increase your distress
tolerance.
A Warning
As you have learned so far, the royal road to anxiety management is exposure. The first half of
this book has taught you how to assess your anxiety, stop safety behaviors, design systematic
exposure experiences, and work through them in real life. The real-life exposure experiences are
the heart of this book. If you have not conscientiously done the exercises in the previous six
chapters, we urge you to go back and do them. It’s the fastest and surest way to feel better.
That said, this and the next three chapters contain instructions for cognitive behavioral
skills that can help you manage your anxiety, especially for situations in which exposure is not
possible or feasible at the moment.
Your Ability to Cope

In chapter 2, you learned about the alarm response that human beings evolved to handle
threats effectively and survive. To review, this alarm response has four steps:
1. Perception of threat—the alarm sounds.
2. Appraisal of threat—you assess how serious the danger is and whether you have the
resources to cope.
3. Physiological and emotional responses—you experience a cascade of physical sensations

preparing you to deal with danger (tightened muscles; adrenaline-mediated changes in
digestion, heart rate, and breathing) and the emotion of fear/anxiety.
4. Behavioral response—you try to avoid the threat, or you do something to feel safer.
Chapter 2 went on to explain that how you accomplish the second step, appraisal of threat,
has a lot to do with how much fear you experience. Part of appraising threat is assessing your
ability to cope with the threat. If you think that you have no ability to cope, then any threat,
even the most minor, becomes overwhelming.
This chapter teaches you to face fear by highlighting your ability to cope. You will start by
writing a “coping memoir.” In your coping memoir you will tell the story of difficult situations
you’ve experienced in the past, and how you survived them. By mining your past for examples
of how you have already coped, you will expand your thinking beyond the narrow scope of
your usual anxious thoughts, allowing you to face your fears more calmly.
After you compose your coping memoir, you will use it to compose a set of coping thoughts.
Coping thoughts are short statements that you can use in the future, when you face anxiety-
provoking situations, to remind yourself of your ability to cope.
Finally, you will imagine your worst-case scenario—what you are most afraid might happen
in the future. You will succinctly describe the disaster you fear, making it as bad as it can pos-
sibly be. Then you will draft a worst-case coping plan instead of spiraling down into a pit of
worry and fear. Your coping plan is a detailed list of what you would do to cope with disaster,
broken down into how you would act, feel, think, speak, and interact with others in your
worst-case scenario. This is a powerful exercise that teaches you the value of thinking flexibly,
realistically, and positively about the future.
The Gap Between Fear and Reality

In chapter 6 you exposed yourself to experiences and situations you fear. It’s likely that you
discovered a significant gap between how well you expected to cope and how well you actually
did cope. This gap between your fearful expectations and the reality of your coping experience
is the opening that you need to change your beliefs, become more flexible in your thinking,
and face your fears with more confidence.
Your lack of confidence in your coping ability is based upon habitual, recurring, overly
cautious thoughts. These thoughts reinforce your negative beliefs about yourself, about certain
scary situations, or about the future in general:
I’ll never be good enough.
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You Can Face Fear
I always screw up.
I can’t face speaking in front of a group.
If I drive that highway, a truck is going to hit me head on.
Something bad is bound to happen.
Don’t blame yourself. Your mind is hardwired by thousands of years of evolution to protect
you from harm. Your negative expectations and elevated level of anxiety are a result of the
natural alarm response that you share with all the other humans who have ever lived. Your
alarm response is just overdeveloped. It needs to be toned down, tempered by more flexible,
realistic, and confident thoughts of how you have coped in the past.
Your goal in this chapter is to expand your perception beyond the overly negative out-
comes you habitually foresee, to include your memories of successful coping in the past. Your
goal is to enlarge and inhabit the gap between fear and reality.
Learning from Exposure

You can learn a lot about your coping abilities from your experiences with exposure in chapter
6. Review your Exposure Inventory Worksheet and recall how you acted and felt when you
actually exposed yourself to the people, places, and experiences you fear.
What did it feel like as you decided on the first exposure to experience? What automatic
predictions did you make? What thoughts went through your mind as you entered into the
experience, passed through it, and came out the other side? What did you do and feel that
surprised you? Your feelings, thoughts, and actions are the raw material of your coping abili-
ties. Use the following worksheet to craft this raw material into some concrete insights about
your coping strategies and abilities. (A downloadable version of this worksheet is available at
http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
In the first column, briefly describe one of your exposure sessions, and rate your Subjective
Units of Distress (1 for zero distress to 10 for maximum distress). In the next column, describe
all the ways you coped with the experience: what you did, what you said to yourself, how you
handled the fear as it rose and fell in intensity. Then rate your SUDS after the experience.
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Learning Coping from Exposure Worksheet
Exposure experience SUDS: How I coped SUDS:

Before After
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You Can Face Fear
Describe and rate several of your exposure experiences, covering a variety of situations
and fears. When Akram filled out this worksheet, one of his exposure experiences was going
into a government office to pick up an application for a green card. This exposure combined
his fear of having a panic attack in a public place and having to interact with authority figures:
Akram’s Learning Coping from Exposure Worksheet

Before After
I took the bus downtown and 5–9 I felt the fear peak and subside, 3
went to the Federal Building, peak and subside, like waves.
talked to the information person Kept thinking, Just do one thing
in the lobby, went up in the at a time. Focused on what I
elevator, found the right office, physically had to do to keep on
and asked the clerk for the going.
paperwork. At each step I felt Focused on my values, that a
scared, afraid I’d have a panic green card was important to
attack or be challenged by me, so I didn’t let myself down.
someone in authority. Wanted to
run away. Wanted to say, “Never
mind, it’s not important.”
Your Coping Memoir

Even if you are relatively young, you have undoubtedly faced some challenging situations in
the past and coped with them successfully. It’s very helpful to remind yourself that you are still
alive today because of your successful coping in the past. It is well worth it to spend some time
composing a brief coping memoir right now. In the following worksheet, tell the story of five
episodes from your life, five challenges that you have had to cope with in the past.
In the first column, write down a situation that you found very challenging. It can be a
social situation, a health crisis, a financial reversal, an accident, or something that happened
in your family or community. Go into as much detail as you can. Include not only what hap-
pened but also how you felt, what other people said and did that made it worse, your thoughts
and feelings at the time, and your actions and reactions as events unfolded.
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In the second column indicate your Subjective Unit’s of Distress (SUDS)—a number from
1 to 10, with 1 indicating almost no distress, up to 10 indicating the most distress you could
possibly feel.
In the third column, write down how you coped: what you did, said, felt, and thought that
helped you to cope with the situation. Ask yourself these two questions:
• How did I cope with the situation?
• How did I cope with the fear itself?
Finally, in the last column, rate the subjective distress you felt after coping. Notice how
much your anxiety and other feelings decreased after you coped with the situation.
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You Can Face Fear
My Coping Memoir
Challenging situation SUDS: How I coped SUDS:

Before After
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If you’re like most people, your life has not been free of challenges. Some of them may have
taxed you to your limit. And yet you have survived. You are still here, still alive to cope and
survive another day. And most likely, what you did to cope in the past helped lower your feel-
ings of distress.
• Example: Amara
Amara was afraid of many things: snakes, spiders, dark holes, sudden noises, traffic,
bridges, tunnels, big trucks, and knives. She worried about her daughter’s health and
safety in a marginal neighborhood, her son’s drug problem, and her own finances. Her
best friend, Betsy, described her as a “nervous wreck at the best of times.” And yet
Amara had somehow managed to survive for fifty-eight years on a planet beset with
dangers on every side. How was that possible? Here is her coping memoir:
Amara’s Coping Memoir
Challenging situation SUDS: How I coped SUDS:

Before After
When I was a kid my dad died 9 At first I was devastated, but 6

and we had to move from our when I saw how devastated
nice suburban house into a Mom was, I made an effort to
horrible Detroit apartment. be more upbeat and complain
Roaches, loud neighbors, cold less. We sprayed for the roaches
concrete, dirt. I cried myself to and hung heavy drapes and
sleep. turned the TV up loud. We
survived by setting aside the
fear and dealing with concrete
problems one at a time.
Changed to a scary inner-city 7 I hid out in the library and later 4

school in fifth grade, bigger and with the school newspaper staff.
tougher than my old school. Found my people and my safe
Felt in the crosshairs all the places. Discovered the world of
time. books. The fear couldn’t follow
me into books.
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You Can Face Fear
Husband left me with two 8 Managed to keep the house, 4

teenage kids and no money, held down two jobs, got the kids
almost no skills. Lonely and through high school alive. Dealt
terrified. Drinking a lot. Mom with fear the wrong way, with
blamed me. wine. And the right way, with
action.
Son was arrested for selling pot. 6 Managed to pay the lawyer, talk 3
I was ashamed, freaked out, the judge into suspended
furious. He was defiant and so sentence, get him into
stupid. counseling. Saw that fear kept
me from being strong, and I had
to be strong because he was so
weak then.
Daughter assaulted last summer 9 Drove her to and from work for 6
at the bus stop. Cops called me three weeks until she was strong
and I fell on the floor in fear. enough to face taking the bus
Could hardly drive to the again. I’m still ready and able to
hospital. support her as she needs it.
Need to show an example of
being scared but carrying on.
Amara tended to forget that she was actually strong and competent in the face of real-life
challenges, especially when they involved protecting and helping her family. She kept a copy
of her coping memoir on her computer desktop and a printout in her purse, as a reminder.
Your Coping Thoughts

Review the coping memoir you just wrote, plus your records from chapters 2 through 6, in
which you wrote about your anxiety and exposure experiences. This material is full of good
ideas for coping thoughts.
Coping thoughts are short, positive self-statements that remind you of your ability to cope.
Here are some examples of good coping thoughts:
• It’s okay to make a mistake.
• I can be satisfied with my best effort.
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• I’ve gotten through this before.
• I can do it.
• Just breathe deeply and relax.
• I know how to do this.
• Just hang in there until the end.
Use the spaces below to write your coping thoughts in your own words. Remember to
compose thoughts that address both what you can do to face challenging situations and what
you can do to face the fear itself. (A downloadable version of this worksheet is available at
http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
Coping Thoughts
My coping thoughts for facing challenging situations
My coping thoughts for facing fear itself
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You Can Face Fear
As an example, here are Amara’s coping thoughts, based largely on her coping memoir:
Amara’s Coping Thoughts
I can deal with one thing at a time.
Keep moving forward, taking action.
It will be over soon.
I am strong for my family.
I can shut my eyes for a moment, breathe deeply, and imagine my safe place.
The fear comes in waves—it always recedes eventually.
I have carried on before when I was scared.
Worst-Case Coping Plan

If what you fear actually were to happen, you assume that you could not cope with it. You have
images of yourself falling apart completely, succumbing to a total catastrophe. You say to your-
self, “I couldn’t stand it if X happens.”
But what if the worst possible “X” happens? What exactly would it look like? Since people
do survive all sorts of horrible experiences every day, and since it is literally impossible to “fall
apart,” what would you actually do in your worst-case scenario? To find out, create a worst-case
coping plan.
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Make a couple of copies of the following worksheet, so that you can use this exercise to
make plans for all the things you fear. (A downloadable version of the worksheet is available
at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.) Then assume that the worst has happened—a cancer
diagnosis, losing your job, a loved one dying, the end of your relationship—one of the main
disasters you tend to worry about. Write it down on the first line of one of your worksheet
copies.
Now imagine how you might cope with this eventuality. Think in terms of four kinds of
coping:
• Behavioral coping. What actions would you take? If you lost your job, how
would you go about looking for another one? What would be your financial
resources? How would you cut expenses and/or raise extra cash? If you faced a
medical emergency, what would you do to get a second opinion, explore treat-
ment options, change your environment or lifestyle?
• Emotional coping. Next, move on to how you would deal with all the feelings
that would come up. Write out how you would deal with your anxiety, anger,
or depression by confronting your fears, enduring difficult situations, and per-
sisting through painful feelings. Review your coping memoir and coping
thoughts for other ways you can cope emotionally.
• Cognitive coping. Here is where you can use the coping thoughts you devel-
oped in the preceding section. Write them down here, as they apply to this
worst-case scenario.
• Interpersonal coping. Who could help? What family members, friends, or

colleagues could you call on for assistance? Write their names here and jot a
note about how you would ask them for help.
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You Can Face Fear
Coping Plan Worksheet

Worst-case scenario:
Behavioral coping:
Emotional coping:
Cognitive coping:
Interpersonal coping:
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Susanna was a student at a junior college, the first in her family to go to college. She had
to pass her math final in order to get her associate’s degree and go on to a four-year college.
With her history of poor performance on science and math tests, and her worries about failure
and letting her family down, she needed to have a coping plan.
Susanna’s Coping Plan Worksheet

Worst-case scenario: I’ll stay up all night studying, be tired and spacey for the test. Too nervous
to eat breakfast, I’ll feel panicky with a stomachache and shaky hands. When I get to the hard
equations on the test, my mind will go blank and I’ll just stare at the page. I’ll hand in an incom-
plete test and get an F.
Behavioral coping: I’ll study until 1 a.m., have a piece of toast and a cup of tea, then go to bed.
Get up at 8, eat breakfast, and get to the test rested and on time. On the test, if I get stuck I’ll skip
that problem and go on to the end, then go back to the hard one if I have time.
Emotional coping: When I feel panicky and my hands start shaking, I’ll close my eyes and just
notice what I can hear and feel in this moment, focusing on what is going on around me here and
now. If my mind goes blank I will sit back and do some deep breathing.
Cognitive coping: When I start thinking about failing and letting my mom and dad down, I’ll
use my mantra: “I know how to do this. I can take it one step at a time.”
Interpersonal coping: Charles has agreed to check over the practice test I did last night, and my
roommate says she will make sure I get to bed on time and will have breakfast with me.
Susanna had to skip a couple of problems and go back to them after completing the rest.
She completed all but one of the problems, got most of them correct, and passed with a
B-minus.
One Exception
This chapter has shown you how to expand your thinking about your ability to cope, remind-
ing you that even if the worst-case scenario comes to pass, there are things you can do to cope
with life’s challenges. However, there is one time when it is not helpful to use your coping
skills: right before or during an exposure exercise. In those situations, the goal is to actually
experience the habitual thoughts and feel the anxiety that they inspire, so using coping mech-
anisms then would lessen the therapeutic effectiveness of the exercise.
The next chapter teaches a powerful technique for dealing with fear in the moment.
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CHAPTER 8
Reducing Worry with Defusion
When you are faced with a threat in life, it’s natural to start predicting outcomes: what’s going
to happen in the next few minutes, tomorrow, next week, or next year? When the doctor tells
you that your blood pressure is too high, your mind leaps to the future and you see yourself
having to eat a very boring diet, gobble pills, struggle to get some kind of exercise, finally
keeling over at an early age from a heart attack or stroke. Or you get a bad grade on a test and
immediately you can see yourself flunking out, stuck in some menial job with no prospects,
impoverished and alone.
Sometimes your worry about the future also includes rumination about the past. You dwell
on how you might have brought high blood pressure on yourself with bad habits. You regret all
the nights you stayed up late partying with your friends instead of studying.
A little of this is a good thing. Predicting outcomes, planning for the future, and learning
from past mistakes are natural and beneficial. They are survival skills that help keep our
species alive. But too much of this is a bad thing. When you think too long and too hard about
all the things that can go wrong, you’re not just planning for the future, you’re worrying. When
you ruminate obsessively on past mistakes and misfortunes, you’re not learning from the past,
you’re just worrying about it.
In this chapter you will learn to respond to worry thoughts with a technique called cogni-
tive defusion. The technique was developed by Steve Hayes, cofounder of acceptance and com-
mitment therapy (Hayes and Wilson, 2003). Hayes realized that anxious people become
“fused” with their fearful thoughts, being their thoughts instead of having their thoughts. He
created a series of exercises designed to “defuse,” or distance yourself from your thoughts by
observing and labeling them.
Cognitive defusion is similar to some Buddhist meditation practices in which you observe
your thoughts, label them, and then let them go. Where Buddhism is a spiritual practice in
search of serenity and detachment from material desire, defusion is a psychological technique
designed to reduce worry by creating distance between you and your fearful thoughts.
How Worry Drives Anxiety

In chapter 3 you assessed your anxiety in terms of what you are afraid will happen in the worst-
case scenario, if everything you’re afraid of were to come true in the most horrific way. If you
habitually imagine catastrophic outcomes, it makes anxiety worse because your mind does not
make a clear distinction between imagined events and real events. Both can trigger the same
alarm response. Thinking intensely about spider bites, high buildings, or a disapproving boss
can make your heart rate and breathing speed up just as much as seeing a real spider, going up
in a glass elevator, or being criticized by your boss.
For example, Pam was afraid of getting into a head-on collision when she was driving.
Hours before she had to drive somewhere she would review the route and think about all the
undivided highways and left turns. She visualized a drunk driver coming the other way and
suddenly veering into her lane. She imagined some distracted teenager not seeing her turn
signal and plowing into her car at a busy intersection. She imagined the air bag exploding in
her face, the sound of squealing tires and crunching metal, the smell of smoke and blood. By
the time Pam got into her car, she was nervous and shaky because she had already been in a
dozen accidents in her mind.
Visualization Exercise
Do this when you are alone and can sit quietly and comfortably, without interruption.
1. Recall the exercise in chapter 3 where you constructed an exposure hierarchy. Pick
one of the situations, objects, people, or events that you rated as producing signifi-
cant anxiety. Jot it down here, describing it in a few short words:
2. Circle a number below to rate how much anxiety you feel right now, just remem-
bering the situation, object, person, or event.
Mild anxiety Moderate anxiety Extreme anxiety
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
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3. Now get comfortable, close your eyes, and imagine that you are encountering the
situation in real life. Visualize what and whom you see, the surroundings, the
objects, and the action. Hear the sounds of people talking, traffic, whatever is
making noise. Feel the warmth of the sun or the coolness of the breeze and the
texture of things you touch. Make the scene vivid and real by using all your senses.
As the encounter unfolds, imagine that the very worst outcome happens.
Indulge your tendency to worry and ruminate and dwell on every catastrophic
detail. Really wallow in the scary details and let yourself have a giant worry-fest.
4. Open your eyes and circle a number below to rate how much anxiety you feel now,
after intensely worrying about the situation, object, person, or event.
Mild anxiety Moderate anxiety Extreme anxiety
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
What was your experience of this exercise? If you are like most people, the worrying will
have increased your feelings anxiety. This is a small example of how your fear level is elevated
and maintained at a high level by chronic worrying.
Learning to Observe Your Thoughts

When you worry, your thoughts follow one after another in a long sequence, each one con-
nected to the one before and the one after in a seemingly unbreakable and inevitable chain of
scary logic. One fear reminds you of another, and that brings up a third, and so on and so on.
One way to slow down this chaining and begin to separate the links is by observing your
thoughts. Instead of just having a chain of thoughts, you take one tiny step backward and
watch yourself having a chain of thoughts. It seems like a small distinction, but it makes a world
of difference.
When you observe your thoughts instead of just having them, you create a little space, a
separation that lessens the emotional impact of each thought. Try it for yourself in these two
exercises.
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News Crawl Exercise

1. Sit or lie comfortably in a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.
2. Close your eyes and relax by breathing slowly and deeply.
3. Imagine that your consciousness is a TV screen on which you see and hear every-
thing that is going on. Since your eyes are closed right now and you are in a quiet
space, the soundtrack is quiet and the screen is blank.
4. Visualize your thoughts as a “news crawl” at the bottom of the screen. Whatever
you’re thinking appears as moving captions, printed words at the bottom of the
screen that appear on the right and move about as fast as you can read them to the
left-hand side and disappear.
5. Just lie there and watch and read your thoughts, seeing them as news reports that
randomly come up.
6. If your thoughts come too fast to put into complete sentences, just use single words
or phrases as shorthand.
7. The news crawl might stall or blank out or repeat the same thought over and over.
That’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Just wait patiently and see what happens.
8. For about five minutes, keep watching the news crawl of your thoughts until you
see how they chain together, one thing connecting to another and another.
When Joan tried this exercise she stretched out on the couch late one afternoon and saw
this news crawl: Okay, this is weird … just watching words stream … how can this work? How
long do I have to do this? Should be shopping … need bread and milk … Tom’s dinner … he’ll be
late … really working? With somebody else … That blonde … Doesn’t care … it’s not fair … got to
be careful … Don’t say anything … be extra nice … no use anyway … he’ll leave me …
How was the exercise for you? Did you notice that the thoughts never really stop? Even if
what you’re thinking is I’m not having any thoughts, or Maybe I’m doing this wrong, those are
thoughts.
If you had trouble with the news crawl stopping or blanking out, it might be that you think
more in visual images than in words. The next exercise is probably better for you. If the same
thought kept repeating, that’s an indication of a particularly stubborn or “sticky” thought that
is very central to your anxious feelings.
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The experience of watching your thoughts as printed words at the bottom of a screen helps
you see them more clearly, slow them down, and achieve some distance between you and your
thoughts. It’s a key experience of having thoughts instead of being your thoughts.
White Room Exercise

Some people experience their thoughts as vivid mental images rather than words. If you had
trouble watching your thoughts as a news crawl of words, you might like this exercise better. It
allows you to observe whatever visual imagery presents itself as part of a scary thought, and
then label it with words. The basic idea is simple: see a thought, label it, and let it go.
1. In a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed for a few minutes, sit or lie down
comfortably. Relax a little by breathing slowly and deeply for several breaths.
2. Imagine that you are in a white room that is completely empty, with no furniture
or decorations. You can position yourself in one of the corners, against a wall, up
high by the ceiling, or near the floor—wherever feels right to you.
3. Visualize two open doorways, one on the right and one on the left. The doors are
open into darkness. You can’t see whatever is on the other side of the doorways.
4. Imagine that your thoughts enter the white room from the left doorway, pass in
front of you, and exit through the right doorway. Your thoughts can take many
forms: words, colors, sounds, images. You can represent your thoughts as animals
or people or things. You might see a tough-looking thug, a nervous bunny, an
orange pyramid, or just a vague cloud drifting by.
5. Some thoughts might move more slowly than others and want to stick around. Just
let them move out the door. They might show up again, but keep them moving
through the room and out the door. Don’t worry if the same thoughts keep showing
up.
6. As each thought appears, give it a label: “there’s an anxious thought,” or “there’s a

what-if thought,” or “there’s a catastrophic thought.” As the thoughts walk or crawl
or drift or drag themselves through the room, identify each one as a type. Don’t
analyze your thoughts at length; just come up with a short description.
7. Keep this up for five or ten minutes. Then remind yourself of your actual surround-
ings and open your eyes.
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How was this exercise for you? Was it difficult to let some thoughts leave the room? Did
some thoughts circle back and transit the room again and again? Were some thoughts harder
to classify and label than others? Did you have the same kind of thought over and over? Or did
you experience a variety of thoughts?
When Roberto did the White Room Exercise, he saw many of his thoughts in the form of
people: he saw a homeless woman pushing a shopping cart and labeled it “a what-if thought
about losing my job.” He saw one thought as a stern police officer and labeled it “guilty.” A
crying little kid went through the room and Roberto labeled that thought “catastrophe
thought.”
Letting Go
Once you have some facility in observing your thoughts, your next task is to practice letting
your thoughts go. The three exercises in this section draw on meditation techniques for letting
distracting thoughts go and returning to focus on the present moment.
Present Moment Walk

1. Take your mind for a walk. Go for an actual walk outdoors.
2. Focus your attention on the things you are seeing, hearing, and feeling: the ground
beneath your feet, the buildings and trees and people, the weather, the sounds you
hear.
3. Inevitably you will be distracted by random thoughts. They may be anxiety

thoughts or thoughts about anything. Notice each thought, then let it go and
return your attention to the present moment—what you see, hear, and feel.
4. Continue this process for ten or fifteen minutes, noticing and letting go of distract-
ing thoughts, continually returning your attention to the here and now. The goal
of this exercise is not to keep your attention fixed on the walk, but to repeatedly
have the experience of being distracted by your thoughts, noticing that you are
distracted, and returning your attention to your surroundings.
How did you do? Were you surprised by how many thoughts came up? It is remarkably dif-
ficult to concentrate on the here and now. When Darcy took her Present Moment Walk, she
found herself thinking about an upcoming dinner party, then returned her attention to the
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bike trail she was walking on. But thoughts of the dinner kept intruding: whether everybody
liked Brussels sprouts, should she invite Jack’s coworker, did she have enough plates that
matched, and so on. At one point, she was so distracted that a man on a recumbent bike
almost mowed her down.
Breath Counting
1. Sit or lie down in a comfortable spot where you won’t be disturbed.
2. Focus your mind on your breathing—taking a slow, deep breath, holding it for a
second, and then letting it out in a gradual exhale.
3. Count your breaths. You can count one on the first inhale, two on the exhale,
three on the next inhale, and so on. Or just count complete breaths—whatever
feels right to you.
4. Very soon a thought will intrude. Again, it can be a fearful thought or not, but for
sure it will take your attention away from counting your breaths.
5. When a thought comes up, notice it, then let it go and return to counting your
breaths.
6. If the thought makes you lose count, start over at one.
7. Keep this up for five to ten minutes, counting breaths, noticing any distracting
thoughts, letting them go, and returning to breath counting.
This is a simple but profound experience, basic to several meditation traditions. How did
you do? Did you get so distracted that you lost count? Did you get better at noticing the
thoughts more quickly, or did the more interesting thoughts carry you away into an extended
reverie? There’s no wrong way to do this exercise, since the goal is to notice how often your
mind wanders away from the task at hand, and how you notice the distractions and return
your focus to the here and now.
Leaves on a Stream
1. Lie or sit down comfortably in a spot where you will not be disturbed. Relax by
breathing slowly and deeply.
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2. Imagine that you are on the edge of a slow-moving stream, on a quiet day in fall.
See the red and orange and brown leaves on the shore. Sometimes a leaf falls into
the steam and floats away.
3. When you have a thought, place it on one of the floating leaves and let it drift out
of sight. Return to enjoying the streamside until the next distracting thought
arises. Place this thought on a leaf as well and let it float away downstream.
4. You can sum up your thoughts in a word or phrase, or use little images that you
place on the leaves.
5. Don’t try to make the stream move faster or slower, and don’t change what you put
on the leaves. Just let them float away.
6. For five or six minutes, as each thought comes up, put it on a leaf and let it float
away.
7. Don’t be surprised or worried if your stream won’t flow or you get stuck with one
thought on a leaf that doesn’t want to go away. The whole scene might even disap-
pear for a while. That’s all right. Just recreate the scene and carry on as best you
can.
8. Open your eyes and record your experience: whether your stream wouldn’t flow, or
the scene disappeared for a while, or whatever happened:

If you could not get a clear image of the scene, describe what you were thinking about
while attempting the exercise:

Did you enjoy the stream imagery and letting your thoughts float away on the leaves? This
exercise can show how persistent and “sticky” some thoughts are, and that you can eventually
let them go. If you had trouble getting your stream to flow or got stuck on leaf, that’s cognitive
fusion. When your stream was flowing freely and you could let leaves go, that’s cognitive
defusion.
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Some people prefer to do this exercise with different kinds of scenes: attaching thoughts
to helium balloons and releasing them to disappear into the sky; or imaging that they are in
their car at a railroad crossing, watching boxcar after boxcar carry their thoughts away.
Carl liked to do this exercise using the boxcars. He visualized himself in his pickup truck,
watching the train cars go by with his thoughts spray painted on them like graffiti: father-in-
law … graduation … stupid exercise … need a tune up … nervous … When Carl thought of
specific people he sometimes saw them as photographic posters pasted on the boxcars, or as
actual human figures clinging to the ladders and couplings. Once he put a poster of his wife
on a boxcar and the train stopped moving and he couldn’t get it to start up again for quite a
while.
Distancing
When you have a “sticky” recurring thought that often causes you anxiety, consider these four
questions:
1. How old is this? When can you remember first having this thought? Was it years ago,
when you were a little kid? Does it date back to your school days? Did it start when you
began dating? When you started working for a living? Recalling the history of this
thought will remind you that it is just a thought. You have survived all this time while
having this thought frequently, and you are still alive, still carrying on from day to day.
Juliana often thought, He’s out of my league, whenever she was introduced to a new guy.
The thought went back to grade school, when she never felt like one of the cool kids,
and always considered herself the last to be chosen, the least interesting, the bottom of
the social barrel.
2. What’s its purpose? Think about why your mind keeps throwing up this thought.
What is it in service of? Is your mind trying to warn you of danger, protect you from
risk, help you avoid rejection or failure? For Juliana, the thought He’s out of my league
was serving to keep her safe from the pain of rejection. If she never tried to fit in and
make friends or find a boyfriend, she would never be excluded or dumped.
3. Has it worked? How well has this habitual fearful thought worked out for you? Have
you felt safe, protected, secure, and happy? Evaluating the success of your anxious
thought will highlight the consequences of being your thought instead of having your
thought. Fear of being mugged might keep you “safe” at home, but over time you
become isolated and lonely, while your friends and loved ones carry on with fuller lives
without you. For Juliana, the result of thinking He’s out of my league was years of
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loneliness. She avoided social gatherings and didn’t even like to make phone calls to
the few friends she had. By trying to avoid possible rejection, she cut herself off from
any kind of acceptance and love. She ended up rejecting herself before anyone else
could reject her.
4. Can I tolerate it? This is the payoff question. By answering the first three questions,
you have distanced yourself from your habitual thought, defusing yourself from your
mind so that you can have the thought without being the thought. Ask yourself now if
you are willing to take your thought with you, while you pursue what you really want
in life. Complete this statement in your own words:
I can take this thought with me and still:
Juliana completed her distancing exercise like this:
I can take this thought with me and still:
Talk to men I meet, accept invitations, and initiate phone calls.
Defusion in Everyday Life

As you go about your day-to-day existence, the same old thoughts will continue to come up:
I might run someone over.
They don’t like me.
What if get so nervous I throw up?
That looks so germy.
I can’t stand it.
I’ll fall.
Strangers! Careful!
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When you have your fearful thoughts again, remember the defusion skills you have mas-
tered in this chapter. You can imagine that the thoughts are merely a news crawl at the bottom
of your screen, not the main program you are intent on watching. You can say to yourself,
There’s that thought again, passing through the white room of my mind, and continue on your way.
You can distance yourself from your thought by saying to your mind, Thank you, mind, for that
thought.
When a thought keeps intruding, you can refocus your attention on your surroundings,
seeing and hearing what is around you in the here and now, like you did in the “Present
Moment Walk.” Or you can focus your attention on your breathing and count two or three
breaths to calm and distract yourself from the thought.
You can also label thoughts as they come up: Oh, there’s another stranger/danger thought …
there’s a catastrophic prediction again … I’m magnifying risk now. Imagine letting these labeled
thoughts float away like leaves in a stream, balloons in the air, or boxcars on a train track.
One Exception
There is one time when it is not helpful to use your defusion skills: right before or during an
exposure exercise. In those situations, the goal is to actually experience the habitual thoughts
and feel the anxiety that they inspire, so using defusion then would lessen the therapeutic
effectiveness of the exercise.
The next chapter presents a new auxiliary skill in your anxiety arsenal: correcting your
anxiety lens.
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CHAPTER 9
Correcting Your Anxiety Lens
Anxiety is like a distorting lens through which you view the world. Your anxiety lens filters
out rays of hope, blocks your view of possible good outcomes, blurs anything positive, brings
the negative into sharp focus, and magnifies any kind of threat in your life.
You are probably reading this chapter because in chapter 2 you identified misappraisal as
one of the problems that significantly contributes to your anxiety. Misappraisal is the inaccu-
rate or distorted assessment of danger or threat. When you consistently overestimate the level
of threat you are facing, you set yourself up for chronic anxiety.
All misappraisals of threat arise from three negative thinking patterns, or habits of percep-
tion that distort reality. The three negative thinking patterns that comprise the anxiety lens
are:
1. Negative Predictions
2. Negative Focus
3. Problem Magnification
In this chapter you will determine which of these negative thinking patterns you use most
often and practice exercises that will help you correct your anxiety lens, more accurately assess
threats, and reduce your anxiety.
Assessing Your Thinking Patterns

The first step in correcting your anxiety lens is to practice identifying the three negative
thinking patterns. In the first exercise you will analyze typical anxiety thoughts and categorize
them. In the second exercise you will do the same, using your own anxiety thoughts from a
Thought Log that you keep for a week.
Your mind does its best to prepare you for possible danger, assess your ability to cope, and
keep you safe. It’s part of your human survival instinct. But sometimes the anxiety your mind
creates is more of a problem than the threats it seeks to avoid. The exercises in this section will
allow you to take a step back from your thoughts, to notice how your mind’s natural survival
instinct can go too far, and to see how your anxiety thoughts go beyond protecting you and
instead make you feel scared and unable to cope. Take your time doing these exercises and
don’t skimp on them. They will lay down a solid foundation of analytical skill that will serve
you well in the rest of the chapter and the rest of your life.
Recognizing Negative Thinking Patterns

This exercise will give you practice in discriminating among negative predictions, negative
focus, and problem magnification. To get you started, here are some examples of the three
types of negative thinking:
Negative predictions:
I’m going to lose my job.
This backache is going to get worse and require surgery.
If I’m late with the rent we’ll be evicted.
He’s going to dump me.
Negative focus:
Her class is so boring.
My life is just one problem after another.
Nobody ever gives me a break.
I can’t stand how insensitive he is.
Problem magnification:
The stress is killing me.
It’s impossible.
I’ll never get there on time.
This wedding is a total disaster.
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Now that you have some idea of the differences among the three negative thought pat-
terns, categorize the anxiety thoughts below as:
A. Negative predictions
B. Negative focus
C. Problem magnification
1. A Example: I’m going to flunk out.
2. The whole house is falling apart.
3. I’m never going to get out of this town.
4. She never calls, and when she does, she hangs up after five minutes.
5. He’s nothing but trouble.
6. My daughter is so late, I know she’s been in an accident.
7. This lecture is boring.
8. Every time I come here it’s so frustrating.
9. I’ll probably die alone.
10. The soup was bland; the dinner was just awful.
Answer key: 2. C, 3. A, 4. B, 5. C, 6. A, 7. B, 8. C, 9. A, 10 B.
How did you do? Don’t worry if you got some wrong answers. It is not easy to make these
subtle distinctions among the three types of negative thinking that lead to anxiety. They tend
to overlap and blend into each other, since all anxiety is to some degree concerned with pre-
dicting the future, highlighting the negative, and magnifying problems. And short statements
like these are open to subjective interpretation. You will probably find the next exercise easier,
when you are dealing with your own anxiety thoughts, expressed in your own words, in situa-
tions where you know the full details.
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Thought Log
For the next week, keep a Thought Log. Whenever you feel anxious, jot down a few words to
sum up what you are thinking. Then note whether the thought is primarily negative predic-
tion, negative focus, or problem magnification.
Make several copies of this worksheet so you’ll have enough for the week. (A download-
able version of this worksheet is available at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
Thought Log
Thought Negative Negative Problem

prediction focus magnification
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After a week, look back at your log and notice which type of negative thinking pattern
most often creates your anxiety. Take some time to consider how your habits of thought have
contributed to painful anxiety over the course of your life.
The exercises that follow are organized according to which of the three negative thinking
patterns they most directly target. You should read over all of them to familiarize yourself with
the various methods of correcting your anxiety lens. Then go back and really get to work on
the exercises that are most appropriate for your particular style of misappraisal.
Negative Prediction Exercises

This whole chapter is designed to increase your cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility
means that you are able to come up with several explanations or interpretations for any event
or situation. This section teaches three ways to handle negative predictions flexibly: by calcu-
lating the “Validity Quotient,” by keeping a Predictions Log, and by exploring the purpose of
your predictions.
Calculating the Validity Quotient

This exercise will give you a concrete number to score how accurately your negative predic-
tions forecast the future. It targets a single negative prediction, going back five years in your
life to count how many times the prediction has come true.
Pick a negative prediction that you often find yourself making. It can be something you
worry about happening to your kids; in your primary relationship; or in your finances, health,
job, or school situation. Sum up the negative prediction in a few words and write it here:
In the last five years, how many times have you made this prediction?
Estimate the number of times and write it here: ______
How many times in the last five years has this prediction come true?
Count up the number of times and write it here: ______
Divide the second number by the first number and write the result here:
Validity Quotient ______
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This calculation gives you the Validity Quotient, the exact odds of your negative predic-
tion coming true. If you are like most anxious people, this number will be a very small fraction
or decimal number—way less than 1. Here is an example of how Conrad determined the
Validity Quotient of his worries about his teenage son’s driving:
Donny’s so reckless, I worry he’s going to crash the car and hurt himself.
In the last five years, how many times have you made this prediction?
Estimate the number of times and write it here: 250
How many times in the last five years has this prediction come true? Count up the number
of times and write it here: 1
Divide the second number by the first number and write the result here:
Validity Quotient 0.004
In the past five years, Conrad’s son Donny had had one small fender bender that gave him
a sore neck for a couple of days. Conrad realized that he had spent hours and hours worrying
about Donny getting in an accident, when in fact the likelihood, the Validity Quotient of that
negative prediction, was very small.
Keeping a Predictions Log

In the previous exercise, you worked on past predictions. In this exercise you will keep track
of your negative predictions as they occur, jotting them down in the Predictions Log that
follows. From time to time you will review what you have written and see which predictions
have come true.
Over the next week or two, carry a copy of the log with you. Every time you catch yourself
worrying about the future, write down a brief summary of the negative predictions you are
making in your mind. (A downloadable version of this contract is available at http://www
.newharbinger.com/34749.)
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Predictions Log
Predictions What actually occurred

(What terrible thing will
happen and when)
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When the predicted time of each terrible thing arrives, get out your Predictions Log and
note what actually occurred. How many of your predictions came true? Of those that did
come true, if any, how many were as terrible as you thought they would be?
When Jenny did this exercise, she was approaching finals week at the junior college where
she was taking nursing classes. She wrote six different predictions about her school work: that
she would flunk Anatomy, that she’d get a bad grade in Statistics, that her advisor would make
her switch to a lab tech program, and so on. Of all six catastrophic predictions, only one actu-
ally occurred. She got a C-minus in Statistics, which didn’t look very good on her record, but
she passed. Keeping her Predictions Log helped Jenny see that her negative predictions were
just thoughts, not sure things. She felt a little less anxious about her classes, more confident
about her career choice, and calmer when she went to see her advisor to plan the next
semester.
Questioning the Purpose of Predictions

This exercise is simple. When you catch yourself making negative predictions about the future,
ask yourself these two questions:
1. What is the purpose of this prediction?
2. Is this prediction accomplishing its purpose?
Every activity has a purpose, including the mental activity of thinking about the future
and making predictions. You will find that the purpose of negative predictions is almost always
the same: to reduce uncertainty, to prepare you for bad things that might happen, and to
somehow keep you safe. And you will find that the answer to question number 2 is almost
always the same: Your predictions make you feel more anxious and threatened, not less.
Dwelling on catastrophic visions of the future does not make you feel more secure, does not
make you feel more prepared, and does not make you feel safe.
When you notice that you are worrying and making negative predictions, ask yourself
these two questions and let the answers serve as a reminder that your anxious thoughts are not
accomplishing anything. This will help you notice your thoughts, take them less seriously, and
let them go more easily.
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Negative Focus Exercises

Your anxiety lens focuses your awareness on the negative aspects of any situation, exaggerating
dangers, ramping up your feelings of fear, and blinding you to the positive factors in the situa-
tion. The first two exercises in this section will help you expand your focus, and the third will
analyze the purpose of negative focus.
Big Picture Awareness

Viewing your life constantly through the lens of anxiety can be like watching a horror or
action movie shot entirely in close-up. Everything is huge, fast, and scary. It’s confusing and
claustrophobic. You never see a wide shot in which you can relax, get your bearings, clearly
identify everything that is going on, and understand a scene from a comfortable distance.
When you focus consistently on the negative it’s like listening to music and hearing only
the dissonant, sour notes. Whether you are thinking about your job, an upcoming trip or
move, your relationship, your health, or where you live, you zero in on the negative details that
turn everything dark and frightening.
The way to modify this cognitive habit is to regularly step back and look at the big picture.
After you have said or thought something negative about a situation, find at least two things
that are positive about it. Make this a rule—that for each negative appraisal you make of a
situation, experience, or person, you will come up with two positive aspects.
Here is a list of possible considerations that will help you find the positive in a situation
that at first appears only negative. Keep a copy of these on an index card and carry it with you
in your purse or pocket.
• Physical pleasure or comfort
• Pleasant emotions
• Calm, peace, rest, relaxation
• Feelings of accomplishment, completion, satisfaction
• The opportunity to learn something new
• Closeness, connection to someone
• Being loved or appreciated
• Finding value or meaning
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• The chance to give or be of service
When you find that you are focusing on the negative, take a look at the ideas on your
index card. Balance your perspective by identifying two positive aspects of what you are think-
ing about.
It’s not wrong or stupid to make negative evaluations, and they might even be true. But it’s
one-sided. There are always some positive aspects to every situation, and ignoring them leads
to chronic anxiety.
For example, Joyce was looking for a better job. She hated making calls on the phone to
follow up on resumes she had emailed. All she could see when she contemplated calling a
prospective employer was that she was very vulnerable, that she was opening herself up for
rejection. She consulted her index card of possible positives and reminded herself that the calls
were a chance to learn valuable information about each company, and that she would feel a
sense of accomplishment by making the calls.
Remember that nearly all experiences are a blend of the pleasant and the unpleasant, the
positive and the negative. Widening your focus to include the big picture will make your
habitual thinking patterns more flexible and less likely to lead straight to anxiety.
Seeing Both Sides of the Coin

Most painful experiences have a flip side—some beneficial lesson learned, insight gained,
friendship deepened, or ability improved. This tendency for a bad experience to include an
opposite, compensatory good experience is the basis for clichés like “What doesn’t kill you
makes you stronger” and “Every cloud has a silver lining.”
Your anxiety lens prevents you from easily seeing the other side of the coin, but it’s there.
The dreaded airplane flight does eventually deliver you to some place you want or need to go.
The terrifying speech or interview can lead to acclaim or a better job. The walk past the
neighbor’s barking dogs gives you a shorter route home and the satisfaction of overcoming fear.
As with the previous Big Picture Awareness exercise, the positive aspects of painful situa-
tions tend to lie in certain categories:
• Getting in touch with new determination or strength
• Learning something new
• Achieving greater acceptance
• Letting go of attachments to certain outcomes
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• Appreciating others’ struggles
• Glimpsing new or hidden parts of yourself
• Receiving unexpected support and love from others
• Increasing confidence in your ability to cope
• Affirming your values and what is most important to you
Practice seeing both sides of the coin by filling out the worksheet below with three nega-
tive experiences you have had, and the possible positive sides of those experiences.
Both Sides Worksheet
Negative experience Positive side of the coin
John used this exercise to explore his experiences as a bookkeeper for a large nonprofit
foundation. He had been anxious about making mistakes, getting fired, and being unem-
ployed. Going to work seemed like a purely stressful and tense experience, but he thought long
and hard about the positive side of the coin. He realized that he did enjoy and value the two
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colleagues with whom he ate lunch once a week. A positive evaluation from his supervising
accountant—something that usually would make him think, I fooled them for another year—
this time gave him a feeling of job satisfaction. And finally, he realized that he really did value
the philanthropic programs that his organization financed. He felt that he was contributing
something positive and doing something worthwhile by going to work every day.
Understanding the Purpose of Negative Focus

Every human behavior has a purpose, even thought. Negative focus tends to have one or more
of these purposes:
• Discharging anxiety that has built up during stressful experiences
• Lowering expectations
• Avoiding disappointment
• Avoiding future stressful experiences
• Improving yourself by doing better or correcting errors or faults
Think about the negative thoughts that you tend to dwell on. Which of these purposes
could your thoughts be trying to achieve? You might even come up with a purpose we haven’t
listed.
The key question is this: Are your negative thoughts achieving their purpose? Are they
discharging anxiety, helping you avoid disappointment, or making you a better person? If they
are, that’s good. But since you are reading this book, chances are that your negative focus goes
too far, goes beyond any reasonable purpose, and is just causing you distress.
Fact is, most people overdo negative focus and get no benefit from it. They feel more pain,
not less. They cannot avoid all future stressful situations. Their anxious thoughts make them
feel less safe, not more.
When you find that you are focusing on the negative, ask yourself whether your thoughts
are really serving any beneficial purpose. If they are not benefiting you, label those thoughts as
unnecessary negative focus. Tell yourself, “There’s one of my negative, anxiety-provoking
thoughts again.” Just labeling the thoughts will create distance and allow you to let them go.
Of course, they will return, but when they do you will know how to question their purpose and
let them go again. Eventually, these thoughts will become less potent and troubling.
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Problem Magnification Exercises

When your anxiety lens magnifies problems, they become too huge to surmount. They domi-
nate your mental landscape, fence you into a cage of anxiety, and prevent you from moving
forward in your life. The exercises in this final section of the chapter will help you dial down
the magnification factor, correct your anxiety lens, and view your problems as something
closer to their actual size.
Problem Continuum
One way to judge size is by comparison to nearby objects. This exercise places your current
problems on a continuum, or scale, of problems that range from huge to tiny. Read over the
list of problems that follow and pick the largest, worst one. Rewrite it in the top blank space
in the middle column. Then pick the next largest problem and rewrite that one in the second
space in the middle column. Continue until you have ranked all the problems from biggest to
smallest.
Then pick your own largest problem, the thing you worry about most. Write it down in one
of the spaces on the right, picking a spot where it fits in the continuum of problems, across
from a problem of about the same size, with a larger problem above it and a smaller problem
below it. Do this with one or two other problems you worry about. (A downloadable version
of this contract is available at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
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Problem Continuum Worksheet

Problems Problem continuum
(Rank big to small) Your problems
A terminal diagnosis
Death of a loved one
Loss of your job
House foreclosure
Divorce/breakup
Mild criticism from your boss
Mild disagreement with a friend
Loss of your wallet
A big auto repair bill
Car breakdown—need to be towed
Refrigerator needs replacing
Late for work
When Sherrie did this exercise, she found that visiting her sick mother-in-law, driving on
the bridge, and going to the dentist, which all seemed enormous to her, barely made it halfway
up the problem continuum. It put her problems in perspective and made her grateful that she
still had her health and her husband and a job.
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Just the Facts

If you forget your glasses in a restaurant, you can have a friend read the blurry words on the
menu for you. This exercise works kind of the same way. Since you sometimes see the world
through a distorting anxiety lens, you are going to imagine that your problems are being
viewed and described for you, by someone else.
Do you have a level-headed friend whom nothing ever seems to bother? One of those
practical, resilient, down-to-earth folks who seldom worries? The kind who stays calm in
frantic situations and says things like, “Relax and don’t sweat the small stuff”?
Imagine that kind of person describing your problems for you. Actually close your eyes,
take a couple of deep breaths, and imagine that you can hear that person’s voice, speaking in
the first person (as you), talking about your situation and your fears. Listen to the voice of your
friend using neutral, accurate, factual words to lay out your life.
In the space below, sum up what you hear in this imaginary description.
When George did this exercise, he imagined his second cousin Marjorie describing his
relationship and living situation. George had just moved into a very expensive apartment with
his new girlfriend, Carol, who made a lot more money than he did, came from a wealthy
family, and had Champagne and caviar tastes. George’s own mental summary of his situation
went something like this:
I’m screwed. I’m way out of my league with Carol. I don’t dare tell her I can’t afford this
place. I’m barely making it and she wants to have the place painted and buy a gazillion
bucks’ worth of furniture. As soon as she sees what a cheapskate loser I am, she’s sure to
dump me.
When George imagined Cousin Marjorie describing his situation, it sounded more factual,
more confident, and a lot less dire:
I’m not sure Carol realizes I can’t swing a full half of these expenses. I need to make it clear
that if she wants this kind of lifestyle, she’ll have to pay for more than half. If that bothers
her, I’m better off knowing now, and so is she. Hopefully, our relationship is more
important to her than furniture, but if not, I guess I’m also better off knowing that now.
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The Day in History

This exercise is simplicity itself. It’s based on the truisms that things change, time marches on,
and nothing lasts forever. When you are obsessing about one of your problems, ask yourself
this simple question: How long will I remember this problem and be worried about it? (Choose
one.)
2 days
1–2 weeks
1 month
6 months
1 year
5 years
10 years
Until I die
Clarice was worried about her upcoming wedding—the venue, the dress, the flowers, the
registry, the guest list, the million details that kept her up at night and made her so tense she
would snap at anyone who had the temerity to tell her to calm down and relax. It helped to
ask herself, “How long will I remember this problem? Will I be insanely worried forever?” She
realized that the day after the wedding her worry would plummet. By the time she experienced
her first anniversary, giving birth to a child, or buying a house, she would have forgotten
almost all the worries of the wedding. Clarice still worried about her wedding, but taking the
long view once in a while kept things a bit more in perspective, and allowed her to be less of
what her maid of honor called “Monster Bride.”
One Exception
There is one time when you should not use the new techniques you’ve learned in this chapter:
while you are doing the exposure exercises in the earlier chapters in this book. The whole
point of exposure treatment is to fully experience the anxiety associated with specific situa-
tions, thoughts, or events. During those highly structured exercises, using the techniques in
this chapter can actually make results take longer to achieve. So save your anxiety lens
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correction skills for those times when you are not actively working on specific fears. Use them
when you catch yourself in garden-variety worrying, in a free-f loating state of anxiety.
Correcting your anxiety lens is a long-term project. Continuing to do the exercises in this
chapter will help you develop new habits of thought over time. It’s like getting glasses for the
first time. At first you forget to put them on in the morning, you leave them on your dining
room table or in your car, or you reach for them and can’t immediately recall where you left
them. But eventually you develop the habits that keep your glasses within arm’s reach. Likewise,
repeated practice will keep your anxiety-reduction habits fresh. You’ll remember to analyze
your negative predictions, sweeten your negative focus, and cut your problem magnification
down to actual size.
Turn to the next chapter to learn the last of the auxiliary skills for handling anxiety: dis-
tress tolerance.
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CHAPTER 10
Distress Tolerance Skills
Distress tolerance is one of those rare psychological terms whose meaning is clear. It means
the ability to experience negative stress without being overwhelmed by painful feelings. It is a
skill that you can learn and improve upon, just as you might work on improving your tennis or
bridge game. It is not an inborn characteristic like blue eyes that you either have or don’t have.
Distress tolerance is a key skill taught in dialectical behavior therapy to handle situations
that are impossible or very difficult to change, such as divorce, job loss, or health problems.
Distress tolerance is an acquired resilience that helps you regulate the anxiety you feel in such
challenging life experiences (Linehan, 1993).
In this chapter you will learn five ways to improve your distress tolerance skills: mindful-
ness, relaxation, self-soothing, positive distraction, and coping thoughts. These are all tech-
niques that will help you reduce anxiety in stressful situations that you can’t or shouldn’t avoid.
There is one time when you should not use the distress tolerance techniques you learn in
this chapter: when you are doing the exposure exercises you learned in the earlier chapters of
the book. Since research has shown that exposure exercises work best and fastest when you
fully experience the target emotion of anxiety, using distress tolerance techniques at the same
time will just make exposure take longer.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a centuries-old practice that originated in Eastern religions. In Western psy-
chology, mindfulness has become an important part of emotional awareness in all three of the
universal treatments for emotional disorders: dialectical behavior therapy, cognitive behav-
ioral therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy.
There are three aspects of mindfulness: awareness, acceptance, and present-focus. First,
you experience the world around you with all your senses while at the same time being aware
of your internal sensations. Second, you observe without judgment, without being for or against
what you perceive. Third, you confine your perceptions to the present moment, letting go of
all thoughts of the past or future.
Mindfulness helps reduce anxiety by shifting your attention away from ruminating on the
past or dreading the future. It also allows you to see that your anxiety is only a part of the
present moment, and that anxious thoughts and feelings are transitory—arising, peaking, and
declining over time.
Five Senses
This is a simple exercise you can do in two or three minutes, almost any time. Just pay atten-
tion to what each of your senses is telling you, taking the five senses in turn:
1. Sight: Spend about half a minute looking around and listing all the things you
can see.
2. Sound: Then close your eyes and listen to whatever sounds you can hear.
3. Smell: What do you smell right now?
4. Taste: Are you aware of any particular tastes?
5. Touch: How warm or cold are you? Does anything itch or hurt? Where do you feel
pressure or weight?
Distracting or judgmental thoughts will pop up: This is silly, or There’s that stupid dog
barking again. When that happens, let the thought go and return to cataloging your sensations.
You’ll be surprised how calming and centering this exercise can be.
Mindful Breathing
Breathing meditations have been used for thousands of years in many cultures. When you pay
attention to your breathing, you automatically take attention away from your anxious thoughts.
Mindful breathing has three components: attending to your breath, labeling each breath, and
letting go of distracting thoughts.
1. Sit in a comfortable chair or lie down on your back with your arms and legs
uncrossed. Close your eyes and notice your breath. You can focus on your
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diaphragm area at the bottom of your rib cage that rises and falls when you breathe.
Or you can concentrate on the path of the air from your nose to your throat and
down into your chest. Become conscious of the subtle changes in the temperature
of the moving air, the feelings of pressure and release, and the sounds of your
breathing.
2. Label your breathing by saying “in” to yourself as you inhale and “out” as you
exhale. Or you might count your breaths, saying “one” to yourself on the first
exhalation, then “two” on the next exhalation, and so on. Most teachers suggest
starting over after “four.” Experiment with different labeling methods until you
settle on the one you like best.
3. Notice and let go of each thought that comes up. Don’t be discouraged if you expe-
rience a steady stream of distracting thoughts. That’s natural and to be expected.
As soon as you notice that your attention has shifted away from your breathing,
say to yourself, “thought,” and return your focus to your breathing. Many medita-
tion experts say that the essence and most valuable part of meditation is this shift
from distraction back to your intended focus.
Mindful breathing works best if you do it two or three times daily. Start with two-minute
sessions. After a few days, increase to three minutes for a few more days, then go to four or five
minutes.
Mindfulness of Emotions
Once you have experienced mindful breathing for a while, you can go on to mindfulness of
emotions, a systematic way of observing the natural ebb and flow of painful feelings without
being swept away by them. This technique is particularly helpful when you are starting to feel
anxious about something, especially if you are tempted to avoid the feeling. Trying to avoid
anxiety makes it stronger and more enduring. Practicing mindfulness of anxiety makes it
weaker and briefer.
The secret to this skill is to allow the feelings of fear and nervousness to exist. Don’t try to
block or stifle them. Every emotion is like a wave in that it starts small, grows to a crest, and
then declines. If you observe this happening, without amplifying the feeling, analyzing it, or
judging yourself, then you will get a clear picture of the temporary nature of emotions.
1. When you’re feeling a painful emotion and it is possible to get some privacy, get
comfortable and close your eyes. Focus on your feeling and give it a name: fear,
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nervousness, resentment, guilt, sadness, and so on. Ask yourself how strong the
feeling is, and whether there is just one feeling or several mixed together.
2. Pause and attend to your breathing for a few breaths, making it slow and regular,
paying attention to the air flowing into your nose and down your windpipe, filling
your trunk, and flowing out again.
3. When thoughts come up, label them: judgment, planning for the future, memory, and
so on. Then return to observing your breath and your inner emotional state.
4. Expand your awareness. Notice any physical sensations in your body. Listen for
sounds around you. Imagine space extending around you wider and wider, until
you are aware of your neighborhood, your continent, the planet, the solar system,
the universe of stars and planets.
5. Stay with this exercise, cycling from your feelings to your breath to the universe,
until the original feeling subsides, until it changes into a different feeling, or until
you feel you have done enough for now.
Watching your emotions like this allows you to see them for what they are: feelings that
come and go while you continue to live in the full context of your existence. It’s like feelings
are weather and you are the sky. Weather constantly changes, but the sky remains the sky.
Sometimes the weather can get very violent and scary, but it never destroys the sky. The sky
persists no matter how dark the clouds, and eventually the sun always comes out again.
Carol, a bookkeeper for a casino in Nevada, was terrified of being assaulted when she had
to drive downtown or to the store after dark. When she had to drive after dark, she used
mindfulness to calm herself before starting the car. When she parked at the store or on a
downtown street, she would take a minute to watch her emotions and sense impressions before
getting out of the car. While she was shopping or dining, she would label her intrusive fearful
thoughts: planning … worrying … living in the future.
Relaxation
Many different cultures and traditions use attention to your breathing as a way to relax.
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Diaphragmatic Breathing
When you’re feeling anxious, your body tenses and your breathing becomes faster and more
shallow. By consciously slowing your breathing and drawing air deep into your lungs with your
diaphragm, you send your body a strong message that everything is okay and it can relax. Your
diaphragm is the wide, strong sheet of muscle at the bottom of your rib cage. It moves down
and out to fully inflate your lungs and moves up to push air out of your lungs. The instructions
for diaphragmatic breathing are simple.
1. Find a quiet place where you won’t be bothered for about five minutes. Lie down
on your back with your arms and legs uncrossed. Or sit up straight in an upright
chair.
2. Put your hand on your stomach just below your rib cage and breathe in slowly
through your nose. Feel how the inhalation pushes your hand out as you breathe
deeply into your belly.
3. Exhale fully through your mouth and feel how your stomach moves inward as your
diaphragm moves in and up.
4. Continue to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, observing
how your hand moves out and in. Notice how your body feels more and more
relaxed as you breathe this way.
5. Your mind will wander over the next five minutes. When it does, return your
awareness to your breath and your diaphragm.
Practicing diaphragmatic breathing two or three times a day will go a long way toward
increasing your distress tolerance.
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Cue-Controlled Relaxation
When you have become familiar with the relaxing feeling of your mindfulness or breathing
exercises, you can use cue-controlled relaxation to very quickly lower your feelings of tension
or anxiety. To prepare, choose a “cue word” that you will use to remind yourself of what relax-
ation feels like. It can be calm … relax … easy or any other word that appeals to you.
Close your eyes for a moment and scan your body for tension. Notice wherever your muscles
are holding tension. Then say your cue word to yourself and let your whole body relax.
Denny’s cue word was serenity. He pictured the word carved in flowing script on a hard-
wood log, deep in the forest. When he was feeling nervous about entering a meeting at work
or making a confrontational phone call, he would close his eyes, take a deep diaphragmatic
breath, and say “serenity” to himself, imagining that he was seeing the word carved into the
log, surrounded by the peaceful woods. It helped a great deal to remind him of his relaxation
skills and allowed him to let go of tension quickly.
Self-Soothing
Any activity, experience, or pastime that you enjoy or that relaxes you can qualify as self-
soothing. It can be listening to music, playing an instrument, reading, taking a walk, knitting,
painting a picture, or some other kind of craft or hobby. (Dangerous or destructive habits such
as drinking, taking drugs, or driving recklessly are not appropriate.) Self-soothing is one of the
key distress tolerance skills taught in dialectical behavior therapy (Linehan, 1993).
Take the time to soothe yourself by feeding your five senses. Watch a sunset; listen to a
song; taste and smell good food; wear soft, comfortable clothes.
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Sight
Since sight is perhaps your most important connection with the outside world, what you
look at can have profound effects on tension and relaxation. Look over this list of pleasures
involving sight, check off those you want to try, and add any other items you can think of:
Go to a favorite spot and just look at water or mountains or art in a gallery.
Carry a favorite photo in your wallet or purse that you can pull out and look at
whenever you want.
Put up pictures on your walls at home and at work.
Get picture books from the library of whatever you like to look at.
Make a drawing or a collage of images that please you.
Other:
Other:
Other:
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Hearing
What you hear has a huge effect on how you feel. Have you ever watched a movie with the
sound muted? It’s amazing how much the emotional impact of a scene is created by the music
and other sounds. Taking the time to add pleasant sounds to your environment can lower your
stress level in a big way. Try some of these suggestions, or add favorites of your own:
Listen to an audiobook. Most libraries have a selection. You don’t even have to
follow the storyline closely. Just hearing a human voice in the background can
be soothing.
Listen to the kind of music you like best. Pop, classical, jazz, new age, world—it
doesn’t matter as long as you enjoy it.
Use the TV or a fan as white noise to relax you. Turn the sound down low so
that it is like a babbling brook, a soothing background mumble.
Or actually listen to a white noise recording or machine. This can mask other
distracting or annoying sounds such as traffic or noisy neighbors.
Get a fountain that you like the sound of.
Open the window so you can hear the birdsong and wind and other natural
sounds. Or if your window doesn’t offer that option, get a recording of nature
sounds that you like.
Other:
Other:
Other:
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Taste
You have to eat and drink every day, so why not make meals and snacks an opportunity
for self-soothing? On the other hand, if you are overweight because you already do a lot of self-
soothing with food and drink, perhaps you should concentrate on your other senses. If eating
is not a problem for you, try some of these ideas and add some of your own:
Enjoy your favorite foods, savoring every bite and really getting into the taste,
texture, temperature, and so on.
Carry a favorite food with you to snack on later in the day.
Eat a juicy piece of fruit, enjoying the cool sweetness.
Drink your favorite beverage, such as coffee or tea. Have it in a special cup or
glass and really pay attention to all the sensations of thirst and satisfaction.
Don’t have anything else with it and don’t do anything else while you’re
drinking.
Have a special treat, like ice cream or candy, once in a while.
Other:
Other:
Other:
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Smell
Humans are instinctively drawn to pleasing smells. The sense of smell plays a big role in
memory, in appetite, and in sexual attraction. Don’t overlook your sense of smell when search-
ing for ways to soothe yourself. You can try these ideas or come up with additional smells you
like:
Wear perfume or cologne that pleases you.
Burn incense or scented candles.
Drop by the bakery, florist, or restaurant whose smell you love.
Bake cookies or a cake and enjoy the smell that fills your home.
Put some fresh flowers on your desk or dining table.
Other:
Other:
Other:
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Touch
Your skin is the largest organ in your body, rich in sensitive nerve endings and a powerful
source of pleasure. From this list select some ways to pamper your sense of touch and add other
ideas of your own:
Stretch to loosen your muscles and ease aches and pains. You can do real yoga
or runner’s stretches, or just experiment with your own moves.
Wear your most comfortable clothes—the worn jeans or soft sweatshirt that
just feels good.
Take a hot bath or cool shower and enjoy the sensations of water on your skin.
Carry some worry beads or a small polished stone with you in your purse or
pocket, to touch when you feel tense.
Have a massage, or just massage your own muscles.
Pet your cat or dog. Research shows that contact with animals is very soothing.
Other:
Other:
Other:
Jeanie used self-soothing to counteract her tendency to ruminate about her failed marriage
and poor relationship with her ex-husband. She brightened up her studio apartment with col-
orful prints and some throw pillows in vivid colors and soft fabrics she loved. She hooked up
her laptop to her receiver so she could put her favorite music on “shuffle” and have it playing
in the background while she fixed dinner or did the laundry or dishes. She swapped her old,
scentless shampoo and body wash for products whose smell she liked, and sometimes she
burned sandalwood incense. She set up a weekly date with a friend to treat themselves to
manicures, movies, or hot fudge sundaes.
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Positive Distraction
To keep chronic anxiety going you need to pay regular attention to your worries. Distraction
reduces anxiety by turning your attention elsewhere, away from your fears. We call this “posi-
tive distraction” to distinguish it from the kind of knee-jerk, desperate, negative, momentary
distraction that serves as a safety behavior. Positive distraction involves planning ahead to
engage over time with other people in meaningful activities, or to occupy your mind with
pleasurable games or productive thoughts such as planning exciting home improvements or a
vacation.
Pay Attention to Other People

Volunteer. Serve at the soup kitchen. Visit shut-ins. Stuff envelopes for your favorite non-
profit. Collect unwanted items for the community rummage sale. By doing something positive
for other people, you will distract yourself from the negative things in your own life.
You don’t have to get involved in an organized charity to pay attention to other people.
Call up a family member or friend who needs help and offer your assistance. Help your grandma
organize her photos. Help Uncle Bill clean out the garage. Babysit while your friend goes to the
doctor. Or just have lunch with friends and listen to their problems instead of dwelling on your
own.
In fact, you don’t even have to know the other people you are using for distraction. Go
people-watching at the park or mall. Plant yourself in the middle of a lunch counter and let
your awareness of others expand. Eavesdrop on their conversations. Observe how they sit,
stand, and walk. Keep a tally of bright or dull colors, kinds of shoes, or hairstyles. If you catch
yourself worrying about your own usual problems, refocus on what other people are doing.
You can use photos of other people to distract yourself when you are alone. Carry pictures
of people you love or admire. Take them out and look at them for a ready source of
distraction.
What other ways can you think of to distract yourself by observing others?
Pay Attention to Other Activities

Tasks and chores can take your mind off your worries. If you’re like most people, there are
plenty of things in your life that you have been meaning to do, but you never seem to get
around to them. Take a moment right now to update your “To Do” list. The next time you find
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yourself consumed by anxiety, do something on the list as a distraction from worry. Here are
some typical items to get you started, and room to add your own tasks:
Reorganize your filing system, address book, desktop, etc.
Cook a real dinner for yourself or friends.
Get a haircut or your nails done.
Pay your bills.
Wash the dishes.
Make a phone call you’ve been putting off.
Write down a plan to get a better job.
Fill a box with stuff you don’t want and drop it off at the thrift store.
Flatten all the cardboard boxes in the recycling.
Rearrange the furniture.
Really clean up one room.
Weed a flower bed or mow the lawn.
Cut your toenails.
Polish shoes or jewelry.
Straighten out a messy drawer or cupboard.
Other:
Other:
Other:
Pay Attention to Other Thoughts

It’s hard to stop thinking about your worries because the deliberate attempt to suppress a
thought often makes that thought more likely to occur. This mental quirk was studied in the
1980s by social psychologist Daniel Wegner, who called it the “ironic mental process” (1987).
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Over a hundred years earlier, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky put it this way: “Try to pose
for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will
come to mind every minute” (1863). To this day people refer to ironic mental processes as the
“white bear problem.”
You can escape the white bear problem by consciously choosing to think about other, more
interesting things. Here is a list of alternative trains of thought onto which you might jump to
avoid the white bear:
Recall happier times. Dwell on your experiences in the past that were fun,
exciting, or gratifying. What happened when? Who was there? How did events
unfold? Go into great detail with all the sense impressions of sights, sounds,
smells, and so on.
Indulge in sexual fantasies you enjoy. What would you like to do? Who would
you like to do it with? Think of as many details as you can.
Become the hero of your own story. Reimagine a past experience and edit the
scene so that you are the center of the action, the one who pulls off amazing
feats, wins the game, saves the day.
Imagine that someone you greatly respect is praising you. Listen as this person
tells you how smart, important, accomplished, attractive, or special you are.
Enjoy a fantasy in which a dream comes true: how you would spend six million
dollars, what it would be like to win a gold medal at the Olympics, what you
would say when you received the Nobel Peace Prize.
If you have a favorite saying, quotation, or prayer, write it out carefully on a

small card and carry it with you. When you need to distract yourself from
other thoughts, pull out the card and read the inspiring words.
Other:
Other:
Other:
Sandy took her mind off her health and financial troubles by staying busy. She volunteered
at the public library, shelving books and pricing paperbacks for the annual book sale. Each
week on Sunday morning she cleaned out one drawer or cabinet in her house, sorting things
into “keep here,” “move there,” “throw out,” or “donate.” When thoughts about her dwindling
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savings or possible future surgery intruded, she reminded herself to take it “one day at a time,”
a meaningful saying that she had written on an index card and kept in her purse.
Coping Thoughts
Tolerating distress is largely a mental ability. In this section you will improve your mental dis-
tress tolerance by exploring the probabilities that the events you dread might come to pass,
and by preparing mental coping statements to use when you do have to get through distressing
situations.
Probabilities
If you live in fear of having a panic attack, this is the section for you. It counteracts the
two processes that can lead to panic: overestimation and catastrophizing. Overestimation is
the tendency to overestimate the odds of bad things happening. For example, the chance of
the average driver having an auto accident in any 24-hour period is 0.0015 percent, or about
one in ten thousand; however, a panicky person drives as if it were a 60 percent possibility.
Catastrophizing is the tendency to predict that when a bad thing does happen it will be a
total catastrophe. So a panicky driver will assume that if an accident happens then everyone
will die, even though only 1 percent of traffic accidents involve a fatality.
The way to fight panic is to explore your overestimation and catastrophizing and revise
your thinking about probabilities. To do that, use the following Probability Worksheet. (A
downloadable version of the worksheet is available at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
Here are instructions:
Event: In the first column, write down an event that you typically dread. This can be an
observable external experience like fainting or vomiting while giving a speech, or a
purely internal experience like feeling dizzy or spacey.
Automatic thoughts: In the second column, write down your automatic thoughts about
the event. These are the things you say to yourself about what is likely to happen.
Probability: In the third column put a percentage from 0 to 100 percent, according to
how likely it seems that the dreaded event will occur. Zero percent means that there is
no chance of experiencing the event, and 100 percent means that the feared event will
inevitably happen.
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Anxiety: As you imagine experiencing what you fear, in the next column rate your level
of anxiety in the same way, from 0 to 100 percent, with 100 percent being the worst
anxiety you have ever felt.
Evidence pro and con: In this column write down whatever evidence you can think of
to support or contradict your automatic thoughts. Ask yourself these questions:
• In all the times I’ve feared this happening, how many times has it actually
happened?
• When it didn’t happen, what happened instead?
• Have I had any outcomes in the past that were better than I feared?
• What actual facts about this event do I know? (statistics, medical realities,
observations)
• How long is the feared event likely to last? Can I tolerate it that long?
Coping alternatives: In this column describe what you can do if the event occurs.
Include things like the breath exercises in this chapter, family or friends you can call on
for help, coping skills you’ve used in the past, strategies you’ve seen others use success-
fully, and so on.
Probability and anxiety: Finally, in the last two columns re-rate your estimate of the
probability of the occurrence and your anxiety level now, after reviewing the evidence
pro and con and your coping alternatives.
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Probability Worksheet
Event Automatic Probability Anxiety Evidence Coping Probability Anxiety

thoughts 0–100% 0–100% pro and con alternatives 0–100% 0–100%
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How did you do? Hopefully the process of weighing the evidence and your coping alterna-
tives accomplished two goals: helping you estimate risk more accurately and increasing your
confidence in your ability to cope.
Here is how Juan filled out his Probability Worksheet to process his fears about his daugh-
ter’s safety:
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Juan’s Probability Worksheet

My daughter She’s so 90% 95% Pro: it hap- Her mother 35% 45%
Angela will get vulnerable, pened to her survived it,
mugged and it’s bound mother, this is there is less
raped to happen a dangerous stigma and
neighborhood. more coun-
seling these
Con: she’s days, she has
careful, doesn’t loving
walk alone at parents.
night, we have
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Neighborhood
Watch now.
Cognitive Coping Statements

To prepare for the events you dread, prepare cognitive coping statements ahead of time.
These are short mental affirmations that perform many important functions in regulating
anxiety. They remind you that you have coping alternatives, that there is no need to panic,
and that you can relax away any stress you feel. Your coping statements should say that cata-
strophic fear is not valid and provide a realistic estimate of the worst that could happen.
Finally, these statements can help you lower unreasonably high expectations and focus on
meeting the challenges of difficult situations. Here are some examples of good cognitive coping
statements:
• I can always pause for a moment and take a deep breath to relax.
• Feeling nervous is normal; no need to panic about it.
• I’ve survived this before. Just breathe and get through it.
• At the very worst, it will be over soon.
• I know my stuff.
• I’ll do my best and that will be good enough.
Now try composing some cognitive coping statement for yourself:
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In this chapter you have learned five different ways to build up your tolerance for anxiety,
starting with mindfulness and relaxation exercises to aid you in feeling calmer when you need
to. The suggestions for self-soothing and distraction can help in forming positive new habits
and making lifestyle changes that will make anxiety a smaller and less constricting part of
your daily life. Finally, your increased skill in formulating coping thoughts will get you through
unavoidable stressful situations with less anxiety.
Please keep in mind that the distress tolerance techniques in this chapter should not be
used while you are doing the exposure exercises in the earlier chapters. In exposure treatment,
the goal is to actually experience the full range of emotions. Practicing distress tolerance at
the same time will make exposure less effective.
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CHAPTER 11
Relapse Prevention
When you’re talking about anxiety, relapse is not actually “preventable,” in the sense that it
will never happen again. The occasional feeling of anxiety is an inevitable fact of life. You are
bound to feel anxious again, probably sooner rather than later. But if you face your fears and
carry on with your chosen path in life in spite of your anxiety, that’s not really a relapse in the
terms of this chapter.
However, if you fall back into your old patterns of avoidance and allow anxiety to divert
you from what you want to do in life, that is the kind of relapse we’re talking about in this
chapter. And let’s be honest: that kind of relapse is also a fact of life, because no change is
perfectly straightforward. In the real world, psychological change happens in a stop-and-start,
back-and-forth fashion. You take two or three steps forward, then a step or two backward. It’s
like driving a manual shift car up a hill in heavy traffic. Periodically, traffic stops your forward
momentum and you have to brake, push in the clutch, downshift, and then try to get going
again. Typically, you have to roll backward a little bit before you get the gas and clutch coor-
dinated and start going forward again. The key is to not stall the engine, not stop too long, and
not roll so far backward that you have a fender bender.
To switch metaphors, let’s compare emotional health to physical health. It would be nice
if anxiety could be treated the way we treat some physical problems. If you could have your
anxiety surgically removed like a bad appendix, that would be great. But it doesn’t work that
way. Fixing emotional problems is more like renewing your tetanus shot every few years or
developing the habit of applying sunscreen before you go out. You have to keep treating the
problem. The emotional skills you’ve learned in this chapter have to be renewed or reapplied
from time to time, so consider the skills you have learned in this book to be something you
have on hand, to use as needed when you relapse into avoiding what you fear.
If you find yourself relapsing into prolonged anxiety and avoidance, remember that’s
natural. It happens to everybody. It’s the signal that you need to apply the plan you made in
this chapter, to apply your emotional sunscreen, step on the gas, let out the clutch, and resume
your journey.
How Relapse Happens

For perhaps the first time in your life you have accepted and endured your anxiety by exposing
yourself to a feared situation that you formerly avoided. And you got through it okay. You
didn’t die, didn’t melt down, didn’t explode or blow away in the wind. This success gives you a
rush of very pleasant self-confidence and pride. It can be a high, even an altered state. Brain
chemicals called endorphins flood your neurons like a runner who has just crossed the finish
line at the head of the pack.
But eventually the endorphins of successful change are reabsorbed. Your brain chemistry
literally changes and the thrill is gone, the honeymoon is over. Along comes a stressor, you feel
anxious, and old patterns of avoidance reassert themselves. Anxiety starts to feed off itself and
spiral upward. The whole process is not only scary, but it’s also depressing, because it feels like
failure. Your new confidence and self-esteem evaporate.
Making a Relapse Plan

Since relapse is inevitable, it makes sense to plan for it. The first step in crafting a plan is to
make a list of alarm bells.
My Alarm Bells
Alarm bells are all the things in your life that can signal the start of a relapse. An appoint-
ment in a high-rise building can be an alarm bell if you fear heights. A person such as a police
officer or tax auditor can be an alarm bell if you get nervous around authority figures. Certain
thoughts or memories can be alarm bells if you can’t stop thinking about them. An upcoming
meeting on your schedule might be an alarm bell, or it might not be an alarm bell unless you
try to postpone it or start obsessively overpreparing for it. Everybody’s alarm bells are
different.
In the following exercise, make a detailed list of your personal alarm bells. (A download-
able version of this worksheet is available at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
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Relapse Prevention
Stressor Alarm Bells

Who (particular people)
What (things, situations)
Where (places)
When (events)
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Cognitive Alarm Bells

Thought suppression
Distraction through fantasies, mantras, prayer
Rigid thinking (obsessively repeating the same thoughts)
Prolonged worrying
Misappraisal of threat (overestimating danger)
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Relapse Prevention
Sensation Avoidance Alarm Bells

Feeling too hot or cold
Being very tired, exhausted
Getting out of breath, sweaty
Sexual arousal
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Safety Behavior Alarm Bells

Excessive reassurance seeking
Distraction
Procrastination
Overpreparation
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Relapse Prevention
Checking and double-checking
Rituals
Perfectionism
Overreliance on a support person
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• Example: Allison’s Fears

Allison was a forty-two-year-old physical therapist who was afraid of heights, enclosed
spaces, authority figures, and confrontations with her father and ex-husband. She
filled out her Alarm Bells lists like this:
Allison’s Stressor Alarm Bells
Father, ex-husband
Evaluations with my supervisor, talking to the lawyers or judge
Where (places)
Hospital administration offices, high-rise hotels, steep hiking trail
When (events)
Camping with daughter in claustrophobic tent, cliffside trail
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Relapse Prevention
Allison’s Cognitive Alarm Bells
Thought suppression

I’ll never be free of my ex-husband
My father likes my ex more than me
Prolonged worrying
When I catch myself staring at the wall, worrying, frozen in place
Thinking supervisor wants to fire me, hospital administration thinks I’m a malcontent

Thinking it’s inevitable that I’ll lose my job and be homeless someday
Allison’s Sensation Avoidance Alarm Bells

Camping trip this summer

Hiking with my daughter
Sexual arousal
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Allison’s Safety Behavior Alarm Bells
Pestering my daughter about snakes, poison ivy, first aid kits
Distraction
Playing games on my phone when I should be taking care of business
Procrastination
Being late with papers that need to be signed
Overpreparation
More than two drafts of an equipment request
Spending more than an hour on case notes
Rituals
Perfectionism
See “Overpreparation”
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Relapse Prevention
My Relapse Plan
When one or more of your alarm bells goes off, it’s time to apply the skills you’ve practiced in
this book. It is a three-step process:
1. Name it and claim it. Don’t pretend everything is okay. Go immediately back to the
first three chapters of this book, where you learned about the nature of anxiety and
assessed how it particularly affects you.
2. Cut avoidance short. Use chapters 4, 5, and 6 of this book to figure out how best to
expose yourself to your fears and get past them.
3. Use auxiliary techniques as needed. Review chapters 7 through 10 for other ways to
cope with anxiety in addition to exposure.
• Example: Allison’s Relapse Strategy

Alarm bells went off for Allison as her daughter Rachael’s school camping trip
approached. Twice, Allison almost “accidentally” signed up for extra physical therapy
hours at the hospital on the same weekend as the camping trip. She annoyed her
daughter by repeatedly quizzing her about such things as the likelihood of rattlesnakes
or polluted stream water.
“Mom,” Rachael said, “if you don’t want to go, I wish you’d just say it.”
“No, no, I want to go,” Allison lied. She realized that her alarm bells were ringing
loud and clear and that she was on the verge of backing out of the trip, which would
have deeply disappointed her daughter. She needed to “name it and claim it” before
she relapsed completely and avoided the trip entirely.
Allison stopped her safety behavior of asking for reassurance, and blocked out the
weekend clearly on her calendars at work and at home. When the dreaded weekend
arrived, she loaded the car and set off with Rachael on time, biting her tongue to stop
herself from worrying out loud. In the mountains she drank the water, slept in the
dark and confining tent, and hiked up the scary trail to the waterfall. She felt anxious
several times during the weekend, but the feelings soon passed. Overall, she had a
good time, especially when Rachael said that camping together was “the best.”
A couple of months later, Allison had to receive an evaluation from her
supervisor. She caught herself ruminating furiously about the upcoming meeting,
when there was nothing she could do about it. She wanted to call in sick, maybe even
quit, to avoid her supervisor, but she didn’t. She fell back on her defusion skills from
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chapter 8, telling herself, “There’s a ‘getting fired’ thought again” and “Thank you,
mind, for that inadequacy thought.” Her anxiety relaxed a little and she got through
the evaluation with her job intact. In fact, her supervisor remarked, “You haven’t
seemed so nervous lately.”
Allison’s father and ex-husband were involved in a family business, so her divorce
was a nightmare of recriminations, bad feelings, and complex negotiations. She was
supposed to read and sign a thick stack of papers that sat on her nightstand for two
weeks past the date by which she had promised to return them. She moved them to
the dining room table to work on them, then distracted herself by binge-watching TV
until the papers were covered with junk mail and she forgot where she had put them.
One day she was playing a game on her phone when yet another text from her ex-
husband reminded her that she was avoiding signing the papers. She realized that her
procrastination and distraction behaviors were alarm bells. She turned off her phone
right then, ransacked the house until she found the papers, and forced herself to sit in
a straight chair at the dining room table until she had read and signed them all. It
took a painful two hours, but she was relieved when she was finally done.
A Contract with Yourself

Summarize your relapse plan by using the following worksheet to make a contract with
yourself. Even though you have already listed your alarm bells in the previous exercise, it’s a
good idea to refine that list here to reinforce your plan. (A downloadable version of this con-
tract is available at http://www.newharbinger.com/34749.)
178
Relapse Prevention
Contract
When these alarm bells ring:
I will:
1. Name it a relapse and claim responsibility for it.
2. Confront, encounter, and expose myself to what I fear, cutting avoidance short.
3. Handle my stressors with my auxiliary skills of cognitive flexibility, defusion, accu-

rate threat assessment, and distress tolerance.
Signature Date

179
• Example: Allison’s Contract

Here is Allison’s contract with herself:
Contract
Scary trip with daughter
Business meeting with ex-husband
Avoiding entering a high building
Being evaluated or judged by others
Overpreparing for stressful work meetings
Constant worry
I will:

Signature Allison Date April 23
Going Forward
You’ve come a long way in your journey through this book. Congratulations on your persis-
tence and your dedication to living your life according to your true values, in spite of your fears.
As you go forward and encounter challenges from day to day, remember that although some
relapse is inevitable, you have a plan to get back on track, and the skills to accomplish it.
180
APPENDIX I
Comprehensive Coping
Inventory (CCI)
The Comprehensive Coping Inventory (CCI) is here in the appendix so it can be easily repro-
duced. The CCI was used in chapter 2 to assess your use of four maladaptive coping
mechanisms:
Avoidance of danger—the foremost safety behavior
Worry or rumination about danger
Misappraisal or overestimation of danger
Underestimation of your ability to cope with danger
Each of the four subscales of the CCI targets one of the four causes and maintaining
factors of anxiety. You are encouraged to take the inventory several times during this treat-
ment program so you can recognize progress, as well as what still needs work.

or do.
than face them.
be completely true.
or upset.
decision.
turn out to be.
happen.
fearful.
182
Comprehensive Coping Inventory (CCI)
them.
anxious.
could take.
This is where the change starts to happen.
Let’s look at what’s significant for you.
to avoid.
183
APPENDIX II
Worksheets
All the worksheets for The CBT Anxiety Solution Workbook program are gathered here so they
can be easily reproduced, and so that you can see the key elements of treatment in one place.
Comprehensive Coping Inventory 186

Exposure Inventory Worksheet 188
Cost of Avoidance Worksheet 189
Values Worksheet 190
Exposure Inventory Worksheet 191
Results Tracker 192
Learning Coping from Exposure Worksheet 193
My Coping Thoughts for Facing Challenging Situations 194
Coping Plan Worksheet 195
Thought Log 196
Predictions Log 197
Problem Continuum Worksheet 198
Probability Worksheet 199
Stressor Alarm Bells 200
Cognitive Alarm Bells 201
Sensation Avoidance Alarm Bells 202
Safety Behavior Alarm Bells 203

or do.
than face them.
be completely true.
or upset.
decision.
turn out to be.
happen.
fearful.
186
Worksheets
them.
anxious.
could take.
This is where the change starts to happen. Let’s look at what’s significant for you.
to avoid.
187

0–100
188
Worksheets
Cost of Avoidance Worksheet

Friendships
Family
Parenting
Work/education
Self-care/health
Pleasure,
recreation,
social activities
Life goals
Service to
others
Romantic
relationships
189
Values Worksheet

1–5
190

and to expose
191
Worksheets
Results Tracker
Exposure:
Predicted worst-case outcome:
1. Did the worst-case outcome happen? Yes No
3. Percent probability: Before:

After:

After:

192
Worksheets
Learning Coping from Exposure Worksheet

Before After
193
My Coping Thoughts for Facing Challenging Situations
194
Worksheets
Coping Plan Worksheet

Worst-case scenario:
Behavioral coping:
Emotional coping:
Cognitive coping:
Interpersonal coping:
195
Thought Log
Thought Negative Negative Problem

prediction focus magnification
196
Worksheets
Predictions Log
Predictions What actually occurred

(What terrible thing will
happen and when)
197
Problem Continuum Worksheet

Problems Problem continuum
(Rank big to small) Your problems
A terminal diagnosis
Death of a loved one
Loss of your job
House foreclosure
Divorce/breakup
Mild criticism from your boss
Mild disagreement with a friend
Loss of your wallet
A big auto repair bill
Car breakdown—need to be towed
Refrigerator needs replacing
Late for work
198
Probability Worksheet

199
Worksheets
Stressor Alarm Bells
Where (places)
When (events)
200
Worksheets
Cognitive Alarm Bells
Thought suppression
Prolonged worrying
201
Sensation Avoidance Alarm Bells
Sexual arousal
202
Worksheets
Safety Behavior Alarm Bells
Distraction
Procrastination
Overpreparation
203
Rituals
Perfectionism
204
Worksheets
Contract
I will:

Signature Date

205
APPENDIX III
Depression Anxiety Stress

Scales-21 (DASS-21)
This widely used questionnaire allows you to identify your levels of depression, anxiety, and
stress. Norms are provided so you can see how your scores rate in terms of severity. This is a
repeatable measure, meaning you can take it over and over. You are encouraged to take the
DASS-21 several times throughout the treatment program to assess your progress.
DASS-21
Name: Date:
Please read each statement and circle a number (0, 1, 2, or 3) that indicates how much
the statement applied to you over the past week. There are no right or wrong answers. Do
not spend too much time on any statement.
The rating scale is as follows:
0 Did not apply to me at all
1 Applied to me to some degree, or some of the time
2 Applied to me to a considerable degree, or a good part of the time
3 Applied to me very much, or most of the time
1 I was aware of dryness of my mouth. 0 1 2 3
2 I experienced breathing difficulty (e.g., excessively rapid breathing, 0 1 2 3

breathlessness in the absence of physical exertion).
3 I experienced trembling (e.g., in the hands). 0 1 2 3
4 I was worried about situations in which I might panic and make a 0 1 2 3

fool of myself.
5 I felt I was close to panic. 0 1 2 3
6 I was aware of the action of my heart in the absence of physical 0 1 2 3

exertion (e.g., sense of heart rate increase, heart missing a beat).
7 I felt scared without any good reason. 0 1 2 3
208
Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21)
Scoring: Add up your scores for all items and compare to the table of anxiety norms below:
0–7 Normal
8–9 Mild anxiety
10–14 Moderate anxiety
15–19 Severe anxiety
20+ Extremely severe anxiety
209
APPENDIX IV
Interoceptive Exposure
Interoceptive exposure* involves using exercises that reproduce or mimic body sensations
associated with panic, such as rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, feeling hot or flushed, diz-
ziness or lightheadedness, or shakiness and weakness in your legs. Because people who struggle
with panic come to fear these sensations, overcoming panic disorder involves exposing them-
selves to these very same sensations.
Included here is a full range of exercises typically used for interoceptive exposure. You can
briefly try them all, and then fully expose yourself to the exercises that feel most similar to
your own panic sensations.
Interoceptive Desensitization
Interoceptive desensitization is among the most effective—and challenging—components of
the treatment program for panic disorder. What you’re about to do is recreate, in a safe way,
bodily sensations similar to those you associate with panic. You can learn to experience these
sensations as something uncomfortable but not frightening. Dizziness, rapid heartbeat, even
feelings of unreality can become no more than annoying effects of the fight-or-f light response.
And when these feelings are no longer associated with panic, you’ll find yourself less vigilant
toward, and less focused on, the sensations inside your body.
Desensitizing to frightening bodily sensations is accomplished in three stages. In the first
stage you briefly expose yourself to ten specific sensations and then rate your reactions. Most
of the following exposure exercises were developed and tested by Michelle Craske and David
Barlow (2007). They induce feelings similar to those many people report prior to or during a
panic.
* Reprinted with permission from McKay, Davis, and Fanning, 2011, Thoughts and Feelings: Taking Control of
Your Moods and Your Life.
• Shaking your head from side to side
• Lowering your head between your legs, then lifting it
• Running in place (check with your doctor first)
• Running in place wearing a heavy jacket
• Holding your breath
• Tensing the major muscles—particularly in your abdomen
• Spinning while you sit in a swivel chair (not to be done standing up)
• Breathing very rapidly
• Breathing through a single, narrow straw
• Staring at yourself in a mirror
As you review this list, you can probably already tell that some of these sensations will be
quite uncomfortable. But it is precisely the feelings you most fear that you must desensitize to
in order to recover from panic disorder. If exposing yourself to these interoceptive (physically
arousing) experiences feels too frightening to do alone, enlist a support person to be present
throughout the exercise. Later you can discontinue support as you get more comfortable with
the sensations.
When you expose yourself to each of the ten sensations, you’ll need to keep records to
identify which ones create the most anxiety and have the greatest similarity to your panic feel-
ings. Fill in the Interoceptive Assessment Chart that follows as you sequentially expose your-
self to each interoceptive experience.
212
Interoceptive Assessment Chart
Exercise Duration Anxiety Similarity

0–100 to panic
sensations
0–100%
Shaking head from side to side 30 seconds
Lowering your head between your legs, then 30 seconds

lifting it (keep repeating)
Running in place 60 seconds
Running in place wearing a heavy jacket 60 seconds
Holding your breath 30 seconds

(or as long as
you can)
Tensing the major muscles—particularly in 60 seconds

your abdomen (or as long as
you can)
Spinning while you sit in a swivel chair 60 seconds
Breathing very rapidly Up to 60

seconds
Breathing through a single narrow straw 120 seconds
Staring at yourself in a mirror 90 seconds
213
When rating your anxiety intensity, the scale ranges from 0 to 100, where 100 is the worst
anxiety you’ve ever felt. The column where you rate each exercise’s similarity to panic sensa-
tions is very important. The range is from 0 percent similarity to 100 percent—absolutely
identical feelings.
Stage 2 of interoceptive desensitization involves making a hierarchy of frightening sensa-
tions from the Interoceptive Assessment Chart. Here’s what you do: Put a check by each
exercise that you rated 40 percent or above in similarity to actual panic sensations. Now, on
the Interoceptive Hierarchy/Anxiety Intensity Chart, rank the checked exercises from the least
to the greatest anxiety-intensity rating. Fill in the anxiety rating from your first exposure
under Trial 1.
214
Interoceptive Hierarchy/Anxiety Intensity Chart
Exercise
Trial 1
Trial 2
Trial 3
Trial 4
Trial 5
Trial 6
Trial 7
Trial 8
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
215
Once you’ve developed your hierarchy, it’s time to begin stage 3—the actual desensitiza-
tion process. Start with the item lowest in anxiety on your hierarchy chart. If you need to have
a support person present during initial exposure, that’s fine. Here’s the actual desensitization
sequence:
1. Begin the exercise and note the point where you first experience uncomfortable sensa-
tions. Stick with the exercise at least thirty seconds after the onset of uncomfortable
sensations—the longer the better.
2. As soon as you stop the exercise, rate your anxiety in the box for each exposure trial
(on your Interoceptive Hierarchy/Anxiety Intensity Chart).
3. Immediately following each exercise, begin controlled breathing.
4. Following each exercise, remind yourself of the medical realities relevant to the bodily
sensations you’re experiencing. For example, if you feel light-headed or dizzy after rapid
breathing, remind yourself that this is a temporary and harmless sensation caused by
reduced oxygen to the brain. Or, if you have a rapid heart rate after running in place,
you could remind yourself that a healthy heart can beat 200 times a minute for weeks
without damage, and it’s certainly built to handle this little bit of exercise.
5. Continue trials of desensitization with each exercise until your anxiety rating is no
more than 25.
216
Sample Interoceptive Hierarchy/Anxiety Intensity Chart
Exercise
Trial 1
Trial 2
Trial 3
Trial 4
Trial 5
Trial 6
Trial 7
Trial 8
1. Staring in the mirror 40
2. Holding breath 45
3. Breathing through straw 50
4. Running in place 60
5. Running wearing jacket 70
6. Breathing rapidly 80
7.
8.
9.
10.
Interoceptive Desensitization in Natural Settings

When you’ve worked through your hierarchy to the point where each exercise triggers an
anxiety-intensity rating of no more than 25, you can begin desensitization in real-life settings.
With medical clearance, you can begin exposure to activities and experiences you’ve avoided
because you feared a panic attack. Make a list of these activities and arrange them on the
Interoceptive Hierarchy/Anxiety Intensity Chart. Rank them from least anxiety-evoking to
most.
218
APPENDIX V
Acceptance and Action

Questionnaire (AAQ-II)
The Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-II) is a measure of acceptance versus

avoidance. You are encouraged to fill out the questionnaire in the beginning, around the
middle, and at the end of your exposure work. Scores should change as your level of avoidance
goes down.
AAQ II—Acceptance and Action Questionnaire:

A Measure of Your Level of Avoidance
Below you will find a list of statements. Please rate how true each statement is for you by
circling a number next to it. Use the scale below to make your choice.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
very almost
seldom sometimes frequently always
never true seldom always
true true true true
true true
1.
My painful experiences and memories make it
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
difficult for me to live a life that I would value.
2.
I’m afraid of my feelings. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3.
I worry about not being able to control my worries
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
and feelings.
4.
My painful memories prevent me from having a
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
fulfilling life.
5.
Emotions cause problems in my life. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6.
It seems like most people are handling their lives
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
better than I am.
7.
Worries get in the way of my success. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
This is a one-factor measure of experiential avoidance. Score the scale by adding up the
scores for the seven items. Higher scores equal greater levels of experiential avoidance.
Bond, F. W., S. C. Hayes, R. A. Baer, K. M. Carpenter, N. Guenole, H. K. Orcutt, T. Waltz,

and R. D. Zettle. (2011). “Preliminary psychometric properties of the Acceptance and
Action Questionnaire-II: A revised measure of psychological inflexibility and experiential
avoidance. Behavior Therapy, 42(4): 676-88.
220
References
Cannon, W. 1915. Body Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage: An Account of Recent
Researches into the Function of Emotional Excitement. New York: Appleton.
Clark, T. 2011. Nerve: Poise Under Pressure, Serenity Under Stress, and the Brave New Science of
Fear and Cool. New York: Little Brown & Co.
Craske, M. and D. Barlow. 2007. Mastery of Your Anxiety and Panic. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Craske, M., M. Treanor, C. Conway, T. Zbozinek, and B. Vervliet. 2014. “Maximizing exposure
therapy: An inhibitory learning approach.” Behavior Research and Therapy, 58, 10–23.
Dostoevsky, F. 1863. “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions.” In Notes from Underground and
the Double. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.
Hayes, S. C., and K. G. Wilson. 2003. “Mindfulness: Method and process.” Clinical Psychology:
Science and Practice, 10, 161–165.
Linehan, M. M. 1993. Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. New

York: Guilford Press.
McKay, M., M. Davis, and P. Fanning. 2011. Thoughts and Feelings: Taking Control of Your
Moods and Your Life. 4th ed. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications.
McKay, M., P. Ona, and P. Fanning. 2011. Mind and Emotions: A Universal Treatment for
Emotional Disorders. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications.
Wegner, D. M., D. J. Schneider, S. R. Carter, and T. L. White. 1987. “Paradoxical effects of

thought suppression.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53: 5–13.
Matthew McKay, PhD, is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has authored
and coauthored numerous books, including The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, Self-
Esteem, Thoughts and Feelings, When Anger Hurts, and ACT on Life Not on Anger. McKay received
his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and special-
izes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression. He lives and works in the
greater San Francisco Bay Area.
Michelle Skeen, PsyD, is a therapist who lives and works in San Francisco, CA. She helps indi-
viduals overcome fear-based beliefs utilizing schema awareness, self-compassion, and behavioral-
and mindfulness-based approaches. She is author of Love Me, Don’t Leave Me and coauthor
of Communication Skills for Teens. Skeen hosts a weekly radio show called Relationships 2.0 with
Dr. Michelle Skeen. To find out more, visit her website at www.michelleskeen.com.
Patrick Fanning is a professional writer in the mental health field, and founder of a men’s support
group in Northern California. He has authored and coauthored eight self-help books, including
Self-Esteem, Thoughts and Feelings, Couple Skills, and Mind and Emotions.
FROM OUR PUBLISHER—
As the publisher at New Harbinger and a clinical psychologist since 1978, I know that
emotional problems are best helped with evidence-based therapies. These are the treat-
ments derived from scientific research (randomized controlled trials) that show what
works. Whether these treatments are delivered by trained clinicians or found in a self-help
book, they are designed to provide you with proven strategies to overcome your problem.
Therapies that aren’t evidence-based—whether offered by clinicians or in books—are

much less likely to help. In fact, therapies that aren’t guided by science may not help
you at all. That’s why this New Harbinger book is based on scientific evidence that
the treatment can relieve emotional pain.
This is important: if this book isn’t enough, and you need the help of a skilled
therapist, use the following resources to find a clinician trained in the evidence-
based protocols appropriate for your problem. And if you need more support—a
community that understands what you’re going through and can show you ways to
cope—resources for that are provided below, as well.
Real help is available for the problems you have been struggling with. The skills you
can learn from evidence-based therapies will change your life.
Matthew McKay, PhD

Publisher, New Harbinger Publications
If you need a therapist, the following organization

can help you find a therapist trained in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
The Association for Behavioral & Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) Find-a-Therapist
service offers a list of therapists schooled in CBT techniques. Therapists listed are
licensed professionals who have met the membership requirements of ABCT
and who have chosen to appear in the directory.
Please visit www.abct.org and click on Find a Therapist.
For additional support for patients, family, and friends,

please contact the following:
Anxiety and Depression Association of American (ADAA)
please visit www.adaa.org
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
please visit www.nami.org
For more new harbinger books, visit www.newharbinger.com

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SELF-HELP A N E W H A R B I N G E R S E L F - H E L P W O R K B O O K
The
CBT
You are stronger than your anxiety!
CBT Anxiety Solution WORKBOOK

If you suffer from anxiety, you may try to avoid the situations that The
cause you to feel worried, uneasy, or panicked. You might even think that
terrible things will happen to you if you face these situations head-on. But
Anxiety Solution
avoidance isn’t a long-term solution, and in the end it can cause feelings of
isolation, relationship problems, and even more anxiety. So, how can you
understand and overcome your fears, rather than just trying to avoid them?
Using this breakthrough approach, you’ll discover what really feeds your
anxiety, and find practical exercises to face what you fear. You’ll get help to
step back and observe your thoughts, rather than allowing them to be the
“ultimate truth.” You’ll also develop mindfulness and self-soothing coping
WORKBOOK
skills to help you work through your anxiety in the moment. Over time, these
practices will show you that you are more powerful than your fears. If you’ve
been stuck in a cycle of anxiety and avoidance, this workbook will help you A BREAKTHROUGH TREATMENT for
make the changes you need to get your life back.
OVERCOMING FEAR, WORRY & PANIC
“three
Combining the best approaches from all
generations of cognitive behavioral The New
therapy (CBT) research and practice, this book Inhibitory » Learn what drives your anxiety
is a reliable, evidence-based guide to expand Learning Model » Break the avoidance cycle
your life when it is restricted by fear.
—STEVEN C. HAYES, PhD, author of
” for Anxiety » Change the beliefs that keep you stuck
Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life » Use distress tolerance to cope with uncertainty
» Reclaim your life
MATTHEW MCKAY, PhD, is a professor at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. The
author and coauthor of numerous books, he specializes in the cognitive behavioral
treatment of anxiety and depression. McKay resides in the greater San Francisco
MCKAY • SKEEN
Bay Area.
A New,
MICHELLE SKEEN, PsyD, is a therapist, author, and radio host of Relationships 2.0
More Effective
with Dr. Michelle Skeen. She resides in San Francisco, CA. FANNING
PATRICK FANNING is a professional writer in the mental health field. He resides in Exposure
Northern California. Treatment
newharbingerpublications
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MATTHEW MCKAY, P h D • MICHELLE SKEEN, P sy D
PATRICK FANNING

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“Anxiety, panic, and worries can have crippling and debilitating effects on a person’s life.

A BREAKTHROUGH TREATMENT for

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright © 2017 by Matthew McKay, Michelle Skeen, and Patrick Fanning

Cover design by Amy Shoup

Acquired by Catharine Meyers

Edited by Susan LaCroix

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

1 The Anxiety Problem 1

2 The Alarm Response 5

6 The Anxiety Solution 79

7 You Can Face Fear 101

8 Reducing Worry with Defusion 115

9 Correcting Your Anxiety Lens 127

10 Distress Tolerance Skills 145

11 Relapse Prevention 167

Appendix I: Comprehensive Coping Inventory (CCI) 181

Appendix II: Worksheets 185

Appendix III: Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-­21 (DASS-­21) 207

Appendix IV: Interoceptive Exposure 211

Appendix V: Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-­II) 219

The Anxiety Problem

How to Use This Book

1. Generalized anxiety disorder

2. Social anxiety disorder

6. Post-­traumatic stress disorder

• Avoiding what’s making you anxious

• Seeking reassurance from others

• Checking and double-­checking

• Overpreparing for stressful encounters

• Ritual thoughts or actions

• List making to avoid forgetting and uncertainty

• Using drugs or alcohol to take the edge off

The Alarm Response

1. Perception of threat—­the alarm sounds.

3. Physiological and emotional responses—­you experience a cascade of physical sensations

Perception of Threat: The alarm sounds: Danger!

3. More than I can cope with?

Physiological and Emotional Responses

• Example: Sheila’s Alarm Response

• Habitual avoidance—responses to conditioned or other low-danger threats.

• Ruminating about future catastrophes—­trying to predict and plan for every

• Misappraising the level of threat—­deciding the danger is worse than it is.

The Anxiety Disorders

 Generalized Anxiety Disorder

• difficulty controlling worry

Situations I worry about: 

 Social Anxiety Disorder

• feeling highly anxious around people and experiencing difficulty talking to

• self-­consciousness in front of people and fear of being rejected, humiliated, or

• fear of being judged

• worrying for days or weeks before a social event

• avoiding places where there are people

• difficulty making friends and keeping friends

• blushing, sweating, or trembling around other people

• fear of talking to strangers

• doing harm (hitting a pedestrian, hurting someone with a knife)

Appendix III: Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) 207

Appendix V: Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-II) 219

6. Post-traumatic stress disorder

• Checking and double-checking

1. Perception of threat—the alarm sounds.

3. Physiological and emotional responses—you experience a cascade of physical sensations

• Ruminating about future catastrophes—trying to predict and plan for every

• Misappraising the level of threat—deciding the danger is worse than it is.

Situations I worry about:

• self-consciousness in front of people and fear of being rejected, humiliated, or

2.4 I doubt my ability to face situations that trigger anxiety.

5.4 I don’t feel strong enough to face fear-inducing situations.

Checking and double-checking. This safety behavior might manifest as double-checking