Understanding and Treating Anxiety Disorders: An Integrative Approach to Healing the Wounded Self [Hardcover]

Barry Wolfe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2005

Understanding and Treating Anxiety Disorders: An Integrative Approach to Healing the Wounded Self provides in an effective new way to treat anxiety disorders that shows how, by evaluating the specific needs of a client and selecting appropriate approaches from several different therapeutic methods, one can identify and treat the specific emotional basis for a particular anxiety. This book includes an integrative theory of the etiology of various anxiety disorders and an integrative psychotherapy that incorporates psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive behavioral, humanistic experiential, and biomedical perspectives on anxiety. The approach is based in the premise that no single psychotherapeutic orientation is sufficient for the comprehensive and durable treatment of anxiety disorders. The integrated theories are first presented for anxiety disorders in general and then are applied to specific anxiety disorders, including specific phobias, social phobias, panic disorder with and without agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The author proposes that, in all of these variations of anxiety disorders, wounds to the client's sense of self are always central, and only by taking a tailored approach to a client's specific wounds can healing begin. This research-informed and clinically tested approach to helping clients resolve anxiety disorders will be of great interest to mental health practitioners of all orientations.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

For the past 30 years, Dr. Wolfe has been in private practice in the Bethesda-Rockville area, where he specializes in the treatment of anxiety and mood disorders, marital therapy, and therapy for life transitions. Through his clinical experience and his intimate knowledge of psychotherapy research, Dr. Wolfe became interested in the integration of the psychotherapies. This interest reached its fruition when Dr. Wolfe became a founding member of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration, (SEPI), an organization devoted to the development of the best approaches to psychotherapy, independent of theoretical orientation. A native of Washington, D.C., Dr. Wolfe completed his undergraduate work at Howard University in 1963 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 1970.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 301 pages
• Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA); 1 edition (May 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591471966
• ISBN-13: 978-1591471967
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #728,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most effective model of integrative treatment of anxiety, February 10, 2007

By 

Kara Sandor Von Dresner "Kara Sandor von Dresner" (Norfolk, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Understanding and Treating Anxiety Disorders: An Integrative Approach to Healing the Wounded Self (Hardcover)

I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone treating or researching anxiety disorders. Wolfe provides an excellent method of addressing anxiety through the integration of cognitive, cognitive behavioral, and psychodynamic techniques. He offers the expertise of his extensive career in research, academia, and clinical treatment in an extraordinarily prosocial manner: it is clear that Dr. Wolfe has developed a method of treatment for anxiety and would like clinicians and patients alike to benefit from his discoveries. This book will help you develop a more comprehensive understanding of your patients and provide an outline for effective holistic treatment. I can tell you from personal experience that once you apply Wolfe's model in clinical practice, all previous conceptualizations will seem superficial, at best. It is a MUST-HAVE for students or clinicians dealing with, assessing, or treating anxiety disorders, however the application of Wolfe's model does require previous understanding of cognitive behavioral and psychodynamic theory.