David Burns just released a new book, Feeling Great. There are some sections related to extreme anxiety that may be helpful. He would encourage exposure over avoidance.


I found that I really had to take my time with the book, even though I was already familiar with CBT and cognitive distortions, but the methods do seem to work. Like I haven't worked in a while and would get really stressed out/sick at the thought of just looking at job ads, to the point where I couldn't do it. I applied his TEAM-CBT to the problem and can look at the ads. I don't even really understand why it worked as well as it did. He has a podcast where he talks about this stuff, too.