Marjorie Raskin

The Anxiety Expert: a Psychiatrist's Story of Panic Marjorie Raskin

Marjorie Raskin takes readers through a lifetime coping with panic attacks that seemed to come from nowhere and shows how she was able, in her fifties, to manage her problems after confronting hidden feeling about being abused as a child in both overt and subtle ways. Her symptoms were treated primarily by psychotherapy, something rarely described in other books. Marjorie believes in using medication for Panic Disorder, but feels that therapy's role in helping anxious individuals resolve their underlying problems is too often dismissed, leaving them markedly dissatisfied with themselves and their lives. This book offers hope, understanding, and direction to individuals who recurrently endure attacks that make them feel about to run, scream, die, or go crazy. It also adds to the understanding of those with less severe anxiety symptoms. Many individual will identify with some of the situations Marjorie describes -bringing up two children as a single parent, working to appear confident in competitive work situations, and re-entering the singles world in her fifties, a Valium in her pocket. Marjorie's professional work allows her to naturally incorporate the evolving saga of psychiatry's attempts to understand and cure panic and anxiety into her own story.