Phobia categories

Resources And News

Here you can find the latest helpful resources and news relating to phobias and anxieties, older resources are still listed in the archive. If you've got an item that should be listed here please get in touch.

Information about phobias and anxiety disorders

For dipping your toe into the pool of information about phobias and anxiety disorders, start with the national organizations:

In the United Kingdom: www.phobics-society.org.uk

In the United States: www.adaa.org

In Canada: www.anxietycanada.ca

Consider addressing your phobias with the Virtual Reality environments that have been designed for safe and gradual exposure therapy. Learn more here: www.virtuallybetter.com

Posted on: 10th April 2008

Antidepressants

If you are considering taking an antidepressant for situational anxiety, for example to cope with a divorce or job stress or PMS/menopause, first make a point of undertaking your cost-benefit analysis. Some of the costs you need to be aware of are laid out here, in a briefing by Dr. David Healy, a professor at Cardiff University College of Medicine in Wales: www.socialaudit.org.uk/58092-DH.htm

If you are taking an antidepressant for anxiety, and wonder how to safely taper off the drug, check out these resources by Dr. Joseph Glenmullen from Harvard:

This latter is a tapering program involving nutritional supplements which I used to part ways with Lexapro, thus road-tested by me and found to be safe and appropriate.

Here is a PDF by Dr. Healy that provides tapering advice: Download PDF

Posted on: 10th April 2008

www.crazymeds.us

For seriously great, fair-minded, well-researched and often funny advice about psychotropic medications, here is your must-visit site after being handed a doctor’s prescription: www.crazymeds.us

As the site’s co-founder, Jared Poore, makes very clear on the home page: “A lot of people are going to feed you lines about how you can deal with mental illness through therapy, prayer, meditation, and by taking various herbs, vitamins, supplements and amino acids, and by practicing Yoga or similar arts, by changing your diet and various lifestyle changes, and so forth. Well all of those things are really good. I do a lot of those things. Hell, I do most of those things. They are all part of a balanced mental health diet. For some types of mental illness for a lot of people those things alone may be the answer. I'm talking about mild to moderate depression, slight anxiety, moderate compulsions, stuff like that. Not being seriously sick in the head.

Not bipolar disorder.

Not epilepsy.

Not schizophrenia.

Not clinical depression that keeps you in bed staring at the ceiling for weeks at a time.

Not obsessive-compulsive disorder where you're checking to see that the door is locked for half an hour before you can leave your house.

Not anxiety/panic disorder so bad that the physical symptoms are obvious to another person. Or agoraphobia so bad you can't leave your house. Ever.

Not ADD/ADHD where you can't hold a consistent train of thought for longer than 10 seconds and are a serious threat to yourself and others when trying to do anything involving, oh, I don't know, heavy objects or machinery.”

If you fit into these groupings, then hop over to crazymeds.us for consumer reports’ style info. about the good, the bad and the ugly on all of the individual medications being proferred.

Posted on: 10th April 2008

Psychiatry and pharmaceuticals

If you want to follow the latest, evidence-based research in psychiatry and pharmaceuticals without having to put up with the advertising and spin, check out:

For alternative (non-pharmaceutical) approaches to buffering yourself against phobia and anxiety, peruse the following options, as outlined by Stanford psychiatrist Dr. James Lake:
www.IntegrativeMentalHealth.net

For information about “Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy,” see: www.mbct.co.uk

Psychopharmaceuticals and children: www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/medicatedchild

Posted on: 10th April 2008