My guest this week is Dr. Joel Minden, back for his fourth time on the podcast and the first of a four-part series on anxiety. All the techniques we discuss are drawn from Joel’s fantastic book, Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss (affiliate link). In this conversation we focus on effective ways to deal with anxious thoughts. As you’ll hear, Joel has some really helpful ways to get out of the anxious mental ruts we often find ourselves in. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure to check out the other three episodes in this series.

Topics we discussed included:

• Useful predictions vs. anxious fictions
• An example from my own life of anxious fictions
• Overestimating danger and underestimating our ability to cope
• Dichotomous thinking vs. matters of degree
• The downsides of giving ourselves reassurance
• The “economical thinking” that leads to vague, unnuanced predictions
• Asking ourselves, “What specifically do I think is going to happen?”
• Dealing with things in the moment vs. preparing for all possibilities
• Emotional reasoning as a cognitive distortion
• Fear vs. intuition
• The anxious fiction that anxiety itself is a problem we have to solve
• The limitations of deep breathing as an antidote to anxiety
• The overwhelming fiction that we have to make anxiety go away

Joel Minden, PhD, is a clinical psychologist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety and related disorders.

He is the author of Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss, founder of the Chico Center for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, diplomate of The Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies, and lecturer in the Department of Psychology at California State University, Chico.

Find Joel online at his website, follow him on Twitter, and read his blog on Psychology Today.