Summary of Eli R. Lebowitz's Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Anxiety is a system that helps us recognize possible threats and dangers and keeps us safe from them. We use our senses to keep out of trouble, such as when we jump at a loud noise, look both ways before we cross the street, or sniff a yogurt container to decide whether it smells good enough to eat. #2 When we are anxious about imaginary dangers, we become vulnerable to worries that are not realistic or likely at all. We must learn to evaluate these scenarios and assign values to them so that the most realistic and likely ones carry more weight than the highly unlikely or outlandish ones. #3 When we say that a child is anxious, we are usually describing a child who shows some predictable patterns in how he uses each of these abilities: overestimating the likelihood of negative events and downplaying the likelihood of positive ones. #4 An anxious child is not able to simply ignore all the negative possibilities that come to mind. It is easy to see why a child prone to higher levels of anxiety would decide to skip the party altogether.