Cognitive Therapy of Anxiety Disorders: A Practice Manual and Conceptual Guide 1st Edition

I was planning an all day course for therapists on cognitive therapy for anxiety disorders when someone told me about Wells' book. It made my day or more accurately it made my day much easier. This book is clear in conceptualizing anxiety disorders with a cognitive model, illustrating them with diagrams and leading the therapist to the logical steps in treatment. I found it helpful not only in teaching but also in treating individual patients with anxiety. Any cognitive therapist will find this well thought out book a helpful source.

Not only will this book interest you if you want to learn about Wells work and Metacognitive therapy. It is also also a piece of art in describing and teaching how to conduct therapy without ever violating the principle of guided discovery and collaborative empirism!

This book is an excellent, state-of-the-art review and manual for the treatment of the major anxiety disorders. Wells provides clear, practical, and insightful examples of interventions in the treatment of generalized anxiety, panic, social phobia, health anxiety and ocd. This book will be helpful to clinicians who are new to cognitive-behavior therapy as well as therapists who are experienced in the model. The significant advances made by the groups at Oxford, Manchester, and the University of Pennsylvania are convincingly described here and important new applications are described.

Very interesting book for cognitive therapist. Framework is built, chapters on each anxiety disorder are clear and pertinent. Theoretically, this book helps to conceptualise a cognitive approach. But, on the other side, although some tools are offered, sometimes you ask yourself if what is advocated is fully related to day-to-day treatment. Chapters on GAD and panic disorder are really good. Chapter on OCD is less good, because too theoretical, less practical.