A thorough and quietly encouraging manual on the causes and containment of panic attacks.
A comprehensive book looks at the science of acute anxiety—and possible new approaches to treatment.
Manning (CBT Diary and Worksheets, 2017, etc.) is the son of two efficient, hardworking Irish immigrants to Britain who rose to positions of power in their professions. But, according to the author, they were stymied when it came to parenting a son who was hesitant, introverted, and, from an early age, prone to periods of depression. Manning sketches in his autobiography in quick, economical strokes and skillfully uses it to ground the broader inquiry he and Ridgeway (Think About Your Thinking, 2009) conduct into the causes, nature, and possible treatments for panic attacks, which they describe briefly as “a whole-body response to perceived threat or danger.” The key word being “perceived”—the authors point out that one of the many cruel ironies of panic attacks is that they happen in the absence of any actual danger, producing the whole range of physiological and psychological symptoms that would be provoked in a genuine crisis. The amygdala fires repeatedly in the brain; the stomach contracts out of fear; the bowels tighten; the brain goes into a state of irrational hyperalertness; and the individual has little or no control over any of it. The authors make the unsubstantiated but surely correct assertion that far more people undergo panic attacks than anybody knows, since most sufferers probably avoid the associated stigma by refusing to report the incidents. Those secret victims—and their loved ones—should find the authors’ breakdown of the specific causes of fear and anxiety invaluable reading. And they may take comfort from the subsequent lucid discussion of cognitive behavioral therapy, a method of dealing with panic attacks that encourages sufferers to analyze the precise steps and timing of what’s happening to them through a variety of approaches. The authors’ wise choice to avoid hypertechnical professional jargon makes their book immediately accessible to the people who need it the most.
A thorough and quietly encouraging manual on the causes and containment of panic attacks.Pub Date: July 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5355-7085-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
