Today, I’m reviewing the book, “Worrying is Optional” by Ben Eckstein, LCSW, who is a leading voice in the field of anxiety and OCD treatment. I’ve read a lot about anxiety and worry throughout my career, and when I picked this book up, I figured it would be more of the same of what I’ve read in the past. However, I found the author had a unique perspective in differentiating between thoughts of worry and the act of worrying.
The book sets out to describe worrying “as a process rather than an outcome, making a clear distinction between a triggering thought and the ensuing, volitional activity of worrying.” The book dives into some of the forms this process may take, including behavioral reinforcement, intolerance of uncertainty, faulty beliefs, fusion with thoughts, and the development of worry as an automatic habit.
In part 1, Eckstein clarifies how worry works, normalizing it, and providing hope that worrying can be undermined “as a control strategy…that, with practice, can be changed over time.” He introduces the difference between worry and worrying, which I have never really thought about before. He normalizes the presence of worry in our lives – we will all have worry thoughts, that are sometimes helpful and sometimes not helpful. Worrying is what happens when our minds are preoccupied with worry. Worrying is the specific way you respond to thoughts of worry, something you choose, that is active. He goes on to describe the two main functions of worrying, as well as how it self-perpetuates. He concludes this part by stating that, “the habit of worrying is not inevitable,” and responds to reasons people often give for stating that worrying is inevitable.
In part 2, he assists readers in developing a “less adversarial and more workable” relationship to anxiety and worry through strategies from evidenced-based treatment for anxiety. He explains how to step back from the content of our thoughts and instead focus on the nature of them. allow for uncertainty, and live according to our personal values.
In part 3, Eckstein provides “clear, actionable strategies to stop worrying.” He explains the concepts of awareness, attention, and engagement and uses these as a framework for relating to anxious thoughts. He draws from Exposure Response Prevention (the recommended treatment for OCD) and ACT to describe strategies to do this. In part 4, he focuses on self-compassion and willingness to practice skills described in previous sections. He describes characteristics of non-worriers, which I thought was interesting and could have been fleshed out more. It was one short chapter and I felt like more time and attention could have been devoted to it.
The book was easy to read and understand. Personally, I really appreciated Eckstein’s differentiation of worry vs. worrying and uncertainty vs. doubt, as well as his conceptualization of awareness, attention, and engagement. I think he succeeded in providing a broad, general overview of the strategies to stop worrying, but readers may find it helpful to work with a therapist to apply and put into practice these strategies to their individual situations.
If you’d like more information about how I help clients step back from the act of worrying, you can contact me here to schedule a 15 minute phone consultation.
