Clair Pollard

questions to challenge your worries or anxious thoughts

• How important will this be in my life 5 years from now?

• What would my best friend say I should do about it?

• What would I advise my best friend to do if this was their problem?

• Am I assuming my way of seeing things is the only one possible?

• Am I jumping three events ahead when the first step hasn’t even happened yet?

•Am I overestimating the chances of disaster?

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.

Men are disturbed not by things but by the views which they take of them … when, therefore, we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never blame anyone but ourselves: that is, our own judgments.
Epictetus, Greek philosopher

Ian McLeod, Visiting Professor of Law at Teesside University has provided invaluable input to enhance clarity and simplicity, contributing greatly in the usefulness stakes.

Duncan Heath, our editor, and his team at Icon Books for their assistance in making this book amongst the most useful in enabling people to change.

Men are disturbed not by things but by the views which they take of them … when, therefore, we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never blame anyone but ourselves: that is, our own judgments.
Epictetus, Greek philosopher

looking at the way in which dogs can be ‘conditioned’ to salivate at the sound of a bell.

What many people don’t know is that Pavlov was actually studying the digestive system of dogs and just happened to observe this ‘conditioned reflex’.

Dr Aaron Beck, originally a psychoanalyst, is generally credited with founding cognitive therapy in the 1970s.

He divided them into 3 categories: negative thoughts relating to the self, to the world and to the future.