The Monster in the Cave: How to Face Your Fear and Anxiety and Live Your Life

Maybe you feel nervous and ill at ease allday, every day—or maybe it’s only social situations (or elevators, or heights, or injections) that make you break out in a cold sweat. Maybe your fears keep you from leaving your house—or just keep you from living life to the fullest. Whether the problem is mild or debilitating, this book can help you gain a solid understanding of the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of your ongoing struggle, and arm you with an array of tools, based on the latest scientific research and evidence based practice, to face your fears and live your life.

In The Monster in the Cave, David Mellinger and Steven Jay Lynn—respected scholars and clinicians with over fifty years’ experience between them—offer you a menu of techniques to help you confront and calm your fears, whether you are plagued by panic attacks and phobias or just get a little shy at parties. They review effective treatments including cognitive-behavioral therapy and SSRI antidepressants, and walk you through their novel, step-by-step approach that applies the time-tested principles of reverse engineering to help you understand the inner workings of your anxiety and rebuild your reactions from the ground up.

With inspiring real-life stories, useful charts and diagrams, state of the science information, and straightforward advice for sufferers, including when more intensive professional help is needed, this book can show you how to fight back, and finally live the life you want.