Dancing with Fear - 2nd Edition by Paul Foxman (Paperback)

About the Book

According to experts, anxiety develops from the combination of three ingredients: genetic traits (such as "biological sensitivity"), family influences, and stress (the "why now" factor). The stress ingredient accounts for the widespread prevalence of anxiety today. Translation? Anxiety is essentially a learned response to stress overload in sensitive people. Based on the author's years of experience with anxiety, both personally and professionally as a seasoned psychologist, "Dancing with Fear" uses a recovery approach to treating this widespread problem. Dr. Foxman offers a wide range of self-help strategies -- from drugs and diet to herbs and yoga -- for combating panic attacks, phobias, avoidant behavior, worrying, unwanted obsessions, and body symptoms such as racing heart, shaking, breathing problems, sweating, nausea, and weakness. With 20 percent new material in this edition, "Dancing with Fear" offers a proven plan for reclaiming one's life by replacing anxiety with peace, optimism, and joy.

Book Synopsis

According to experts, anxiety develops from the combination of three ingredients: genetic traits (such as "biological sensitivity"), family influences, and stress (the "why now" factor). The stress ingredient accounts for the widespread prevalence of anxiety today. Translation? Anxiety is essentially a learned response to stress overload in sensitive people. Based on the author's years of experience with anxiety, both personally and professionally as a seasoned psychologist, Dancing with Fear uses a recovery approach to treating this widespread problem. Dr. Foxman offers a wide range of self-help strategies -- from drugs and diet to herbs and yoga -- for combating panic attacks, phobias, avoidant behavior, worrying, unwanted obsessions, and body symptoms such as racing heart, shaking, breathing problems, sweating, nausea, and weakness. With 20 percent new material in this edition, Dancing with Fear offers a proven plan for reclaiming one's life by replacing anxiety with peace, optimism, and joy.

From the Back Cover

This book is for everyone who has experienced severe anxiety and wants to be free from abnormal fear. It is also for therapists, counselors, and other helping professionals who treat patients suffering from anxiety disorders. Dancing with Fear, which features a unique cognitive-behavioral approach, is a complete mind-body plan for understanding and overcoming anxiety disorders. Known as the CHAANGE program, this specific method has been found to be 80 percent successful in treating anxiety and to have reduced health care expenses by more than 50 percent in the year following treatment.

Review Quotes

Responsible, sensitive, hardworking, and desiring to please others- these traits might charactirize one's ideal partner or employee. They are also, strangely enough, among the traits found in those most prone to anxiety disorders. Foxman, the author of two othe books and director of the Center for Anxiety Disorders in Burlington, Vermont, helps readers reduce or even prevent the development of anxiety disorders by teaching how to work with one's particular biology and personality traits. Based in his own battle with anxiety disorder and decades of research and work with clients, his book is compassionate and wise, offering multiple alternatives to pharmaceuticals while clarifying the situations in which medication is necessary and helpful. - Kristen Morris, Foreword Magazine

There have been endless books written by countless authors on the subject of anxiety and how best to identify and cope with its paralyzing manifestations. What makes Dancing with Fear so special and so welcome is that Paul Foxman speaks eloquently and intelligently to the two key people involved in accomplishing full recovery from this insidious problem: the sufferer and his therapist. Because Dr. Foxman knows, firsthand, what gut-wrenching anxiety feels like, he never minimizes its impact nor does he hide his own humanness behind his degree. It become obvious from the first chapter that Dr. Foxman is a consummate professional who, thank heavens, can honestly teach from his heart. - Ann Seagrave coauthor of Free from Fears

Dr. Foxman's book, Dancing with Fear, is a comprehensive and compassionate overview of the most crippling of our 'social diseases'-fear-with a wealth of practical approaches to loosening its hold on us. The work will find a wide and appreciative audience. - Joseph Chilton Pearce author of Magical and Evolution's End

For anybody who recognizes that stress can't be avoided, only managed, psychologist Paul Foxman's Dancing with Fear is a splendid resource. Dr. Foxman delivers the coping tools and techniques all the more effectively for his wisdom, compassion, insight, and graceful prose. - John Stickney, Senior Features Editor, Fitness Magazine

This book by Dr. Paul Foxman has all but paved the path to peace, the way to freedom from anxiety. He offers a clear exposition of what severe anxiety is, where it comes from, and what to do about it. He shares his personal experience with trauma and anxiety, as well as his understandings gained from decades of helping others. Is his easy style, Dr. Foxman provides unlimited hope and specific information on how anxiety can be overcome..."undoubtedly the finest book ever on this topic...Surely the most profound and yet readable book on anxiety and its treatment...You will feel greatly rewarded by reading this best of all possible books on anxiety and its cure. You will be excited by this powerful book. - John R. Pullen, Ph.D., National Director of CHAANGE (Center for Help for Anxiety/Agoraphobia through New Growth Experiences)

Paul Foxman offers not only inspiration and hope, but also a practical road map that explores the various aspects of recovery from anxiety. Readers will be in good hands as Foxman compassionately shares his hard-won wisdom, starting with the sometimes-brutal origins of his own anxiety and continuing with his personal and professional journeys. This timely book is a godsend to those struggling to find inner peace in an ever-shrinking world of accelerating changes. - Erika B. Hilliard, MSW, RSW, author of Living Fully with Shyness and Social Anxiety

Anxiety, stress and fear are emotions we all feel at one time or another. A test, a certain work assignment, or a near miss at the red light, can cause us to feel this way. But what if you felt this way all the time? Approximately thirty seven million Americans suffer from severe