Hachette India

New

Narrowing

Dr Alexandra Shaker

'A powerful reframing of anxiety' Anna Mathur, author of The Uncomfortable Truth

'Compassionate, thoughtful and nuanced . . . I loved this beautiful, brilliant book' Lucy Jones, author of Matrescence

'A transformative and compassionate exploration of anxiety' Galit Atlas, Ph.D., author of Emotional Inheritance

Almost all of us are intimately familiar with anxiety, and with its increasing hold on our minds, our hopes and plans, and our bodies. But how well do we really understand it, and what can we do to transform it into something new - into resilience, or courage, or creativity?

In this extraordinary book, Dr. Alexandra Shaker, a clinical psychologist, takes us on a journey through the body-from brain to blood to heart to guts - to examine the connections between our emotional, psychological, and physical lives. She unravels what the body can teach us about anxiety, and what we can learn from our long cultural history of the anxious impulse.

Melding psychology, neuroscience, history, and literature, she considers why - despite all the checklists and therapies and scientific advancements - we are still struggling to outrun our oldest terrors, and how a new approach accepting anxiety as part of the human condition can help build resilience.

Dr Alexandra Shaker

Dr. Alexandra Shaker is a licensed clinical psychologist with a background across inpatient and outpatient treatment settings. She has experience in research, teaching, and clinical practice. Dr. Shaker's writing is an interdisciplinary exploration of the human condition: she integrates psychology, literature, history, anthropology, and language to speak to the meaning and vitality we find in the stories we tell one another and the stories we tell ourselves. Dr. Shaker received her PhD in clinical psychology from The New School for Social Research and conducted her doctoral research at the Brief Psychotherapy Research Program. She completed her clinical training at Columbia University Medical Center/New York Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Shaker also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in perinatal mental health at The Motherhood Center of New York, held a position there as a clinical psychologist, and is now a clinical consultant.