“Ask Dr Neuman” Advice Column
It is possible to have too much of a good thing Individuals who suffer from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) tend to see things in black or white. There is the proper way to do something—and there is everything else. So, some patients with this condition struggle...
Confronting fears is critical–as it is in the treatment of the other anxiety disorders. It is easy to set down in a few sentences the principles underlying the treatment of health anxiety, but implementing these principles in a practical program of treatment is not...
Six principles Health anxiety is, simply, a condition in which certain individuals (“health worriers”) worry too much about their health. They include patients who cross a number of theoretical and diagnostic categories, including generalized anxiety disorder,...
The Worry Wheel The start of health anxiety and the way it progresses When I first developed a program for the treatment of health anxiety, I sent out a letter to the physicians affiliated with White Plains Hospital informing them that we were offering a behavioral...
Certain habits of mind are so common they are usually taken for granted, yet they can cause emotional distress and can contribute to the development of certain emotional disorders. Take, for example, the inclination some people have to be “very private.” Most people...
I always feel amused (when I don’t feel annoyed) by therapists of one sort or another telling people to “trust their instincts.” The truth is, people should not trust their instincts– if instincts refer to their immediate perceptions and/or their judgment. The reason...
The wish to behave ethically taken to an extreme.Evolution seems to push pack animals (including human beings) in opposite directions. Individuals are rewarded for behaving aggressively and selfishly with a heightened likelihood of success, namely, a greater chance of...
The best way of dealing with any fear, rational or irrational, is to confront it. I think this is conventional wisdom. Everyone has the experience of growing up and being afraid of all sorts of things: the monster under the bed, standing up in class, being left home...
It is often said, “It does no good to worry.” Why, then, do people worry? In particular, it is often said, “It does no good to worry about things you can’t do anything about.” Of course, the kinds of things people worry about are precisely those things...
In my last post, I suggested I didn’t really understand why some people, more than other people, tend to procrastinate. A related and sometimes overlapping problem, is why some people are chronically late. I don’t really understand this either. Consider these three...
Everyone tends to put off doing things that are unpleasant. Some of these things seem inherently unpleasant, such as paying bills, writing up a resume, cleaning the attic, and so on. People procrastinate at other things also, which may not seem to everyone to be...
Bernie, the caveman, was a worrier. He worried about big things and little things; but some people only worry about the big things. I know a joke about this: One guy is talking to another at a bar. (Imagine some sort of ethnic accent) “I worry about the big...