Books

Overcoming Paranoid and Suspicious Thoughts

Overcoming Suspicious and Paranoid Thoughts is the first self-help guide to coping with fears about others. In a clear and accessible style the book explains how these fears arise and presents practical steps to deal with them.

Overcoming Suspicious and Paranoid Thoughts is written by leading international experts who draw upon the latest scientific and clinical studies. The book presents personal accounts by those affected by paranoid thoughts and includes questionnaires and exercises to help readers learn about and combat their fears.

"This is the definitive practical guide from the leaders in the field on a hugely important topic. Written in an engaging, easy-to-understand style, the book tells how new research on paranoia is revealing how best to overcome it. The first edition helped many thousands of sufferers and the second edition promises even more."

Mark Williams, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Oxford, co-author of Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World

"The authors of this excellent and timely book have played a major role in developing our understanding of how suspicious thoughts arise and, crucially, how we can learn to cope with them."

Nicholas Tarier, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Manchester University

"Everybody is upset from time to time by suspicious thoughts regarding other people's motives. For the first time, the problem of the exaggerated fear of being harmed is laid out in detail. In a clear, engaging style, the authors trace the origins of these fears and tell us what to do about them. This book is essential reading for the large number of people who are plagued by suspicions of other people."

Aaron T. Beck, University Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania and President of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research, USA.

"Although fears and suspicions about others are extremely common and a source of great suffering and social conflict, no book has ever been published to help people deal with such problems. Now finally a group of the world's foremost scientists in the field have come up with a very accessible and readable text providing solutions for those who previously had no source to access."

Jim van Os, Professor of Psychiatry and Head of University Psychiatric Clinic, Maastricht University Hospital, The Netherlands

"Until recently the problems caused by suspicious thoughts were greatly underestimated. We had little idea that they were so common, no real sense of what caused them, and no clear strategy for how to tackle them. The authors of this excellent and timely book have played a major role in developing our understanding of how suspicious thoughts arise and, crucially, how we can learn to cope with them. Overcoming Suspicious and Paranoid Thoughts is a first-class distillation of their ground-breaking research that will surely establish itself as the best self-help guide on the subject for many years to come."

Nicholas Tarrier, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Manchester University and Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Manchester Mental Health and Social Care NHS Trust.

"Many of us harbour paranoid and suspicious ideas that have no basis in fact, but it's not something we tend to talk about. This pioneering book shows that, just as many of us can have mild anxiety or depressed feelings without ever requiring specialist help, many of us have minor (but troubling) paranoid thoughts. Most importantly, the book proposes simple and practical ways to understand and overcome these ideas."

Robin Murray, Professor of Psychiatry, King’s College London, and Head of the National Psychosis Unit, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust.

"Suspiciousness and irrational fears of being harmed by others are common and distressing experiences, but often go unrecognised. This book is the first to offer practical help to people suffering from this type of difficulty. It is written in a warm and engaging style, aimed at the nonspecialist. It will be enormously helpful both to people suffering from suspiciousness and paranoia, and to their friends and relatives."

Richard Bentall, Professor of Experimental Clinical Psychology, Manchester University

"Feeling depressed, anxious or having an urge to re-check things are universal experiences; in fact they are helpful emotions that motivate us to face up to the day to day problems that life throws at us. But they can often escalate and we become aware that they have become our masters and need to be reined in. Suspiciousness is likewise a normal emotion that can serve us well; but overuse it and we can lose the capacity to trust people and soon we are on a slippery slope to isolation and despair. This book is a welcome addition to the self-help literature. It firmly places suspicious thinking in a normal context and offers straightforward, scientifically based guidance to the average man or woman in the street to understand it and to bring it back under control again."

Max Birchwood, Professor of Mental Health, University of Birmingham and Director of Early Intervention Services Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Trust

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Paranoia: the 21st Century Fear

Terrorists, child abductors, muggers, delinquent teenagers, malicious colleagues… Who wouldn’t be worried?

The world can be a dangerous place, for sure. But have we lost the knack of judging risk? Are we letting paranoia get the better of us? In this entertaining and thought-provoking book, based on the most up-to-date scientific research, Daniel and Jason Freeman highlight just how prominent paranoia is today. One in four of us have regular paranoid thoughts. The authors analyse the causes of paranoia, identifying the social and cultural factors that seem to be skewing the way we think and feel about the world around us. And they explain why paranoia may be on the rise and, crucially, what we can do to tackle it.

Witty, clear, and compelling, Paranoia takes us beyond the tabloid headlines to pinpoint the real menace at the heart of twenty-first century culture.

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"An absorbing, entertaining, and illuminating examination of one of the defining topics of our time."

Professor Aaron T. Beck, University of Philadelphia and President of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy

"This engaging and accessible book, written by one of the world's leading experts on the subject, shows how paranoia is at the heart of twenty-first century society and culture. Wide-ranging, up-to-date and enjoyable, it is a must read for anyone curious about human psychology and modern life."

Professor Richard Bentall, Bangor University