Recommended Resources
After speaking engagements, I am often asked for resources for people to use in furthering their knowledge of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Within the field of CBT, there are a wide variety of approaches; the approach I generally take comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, known as a “third wave” in Continue Reading
Mindfulness and Exposure: At Odds?
Patients often ask about the relationship of mindfulness and acceptance exercises and exposure therapy. I am an advocate of both, even though they can feel so opposite: acceptance exercises are about not striving in the face of anxiety, while exposure exercises are clearly a form of effortful striving in order Continue Reading
Know Trigonometry
Is it important to you to be free from anxiety? There’s a curious maxim that I once heard, which says that one should “know trigonometry -- the shortest distance between two points isn’t always a straight line.” In the case of being free from anxiety, this somewhat cryptic maxim is Continue Reading
Finding a therapist
I'm often asked how people can find good therapists that treat anxiety. Here's how I go about trying to find possible referrals: 1) My first strategy is to find therapists who practice Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a form of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy that is great for helping anxiety disorders. Go to Continue Reading
How to do “Pan-Exposures”
inIn OCD, contamination can magically spread from object to object, as I reviewed here. This magical propagation of contamination gives OCD tremendous power; but it is also provides half of the key to its undoing. The other half of the solution comes from how people with contamination obsessions typically live Continue Reading
The Magical Spread of Contamination
One of the most common themes in obsessive-compulsive disorder is the fear of contamination. If it were just a matter of thinking one particular thing is contaminated, then perhaps the OCD sufferer would be able to do without that particular thing and life would move on. This could perhaps be Continue Reading
Only Focus on Compulsions
An interesting study has been recently published by Twohig et al. comparing standard Exposure and Response Prevention to "cognitive restructuring" to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. If it sounds confusing, try reading all the tables and figures. At any rate, the idea behind the study (which is the most interesting part, Continue Reading
Love, the One Thing Necessary?
We have positive psychology to thank for bringing the concept of virtue back into psychological discussions. Representatives of the movement define virtue as “a disposition to act, desire, and feel that involves the exercise of judgment and leads to a recognizable human excellence” (Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, 2009, p. Continue Reading
