My guest this week is Dr. Joel Minden. He’s back for our series finale in this 4-part series on effective ways to manage anxiety. This time we applied his 3-step program from his book Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss (affiliate link) to managing fear and anxiety in OCD, panic, and worry, including examples from my own life in these areas.

As I try to make clear in our discussion, many people experience more severe versions of what I describe, and there’s no quick and easy fix for overwhelming anxiety. At the same time, the same types of techniques tend to be really helpful, regardless of severity. Joel and I also talked about what it’s like to deal with anxiety as someone who specializes in treating anxiety, which I found super helpful. 

Topics we considered together included:

• Dealing with obsessive fears in OCD and related conditions
• Deciding for ourselves when anxiety is no longer adaptive
• Distinguishing between realistic and unrealistic fears and behavior
• Addressing our anxious fictions using the cognitive techniques of CBT
• Shifting from “what if?” (worry) thinking to “if … then” (problem solving)
• My own history of panic
• Panic as anxiety about anxiety
• Three steps for managing panic attacks
• Bringing on physical sensations of panic on purpose in a safe setting
• The common feeling in anxiety of being stuck, and the metaphor of a finger trap
• Leaning into problems in order to be able to maneuver better
• How terrifying it can be to be restrained against our will, as when being arrested
• The false utility of spending time worrying
• The usefulness of writing down our worries
• The importance of having options for dealing with anxiety
• Moving from helplessness to personal control when we’re anxious

I hope you take a lot from this discussion.

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.