Anxiety and OCD Books for Kids:
​

• What to Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety (What-to-Do Guides for Kids)

  • Info: Focuses on skills to reduce anxiety through drawing and writing prompts for kids to overcome their worries.

  • Age Range: 6-12 years

• What to Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming OCD (What-to-Do Guides for Kids)

  • Info: An interactive self-help book that teaches kids how to respond to OCD’s tricks through CBT methods.

  • Age Range: 6-12 years

• What to Do When You're Scared and Worried: A Guide for Kids

  • Info: Find out where worries and fears come from and coping mechanisms are explained. Part 1 focuses on explaining fears and worries and Part 2 has chapters on more specific issues (phobias, OCD, etc).

  • Age Range: 10-14 years

• What to Do When Good Enough Isn't Good Enough: The Real Deal on Perfectionism: A Guide for Kids

  • Info: Explains the problem of perfectionism in the context of school and relationships, and how to free themselves from it.

  • Age Range: 9-13 years

• What to Do When Mistakes Make You Quake (A Kid's Guide to Accepting Imperfection)

  • Info: An interactive self-help book for kids who worry about making mistakes, and may blame others for their mistakes or hold themselves back from certain activities.

  • Age Range: 6-12 years

• A Thought Is Just a Thought: A Story of Living with OCD

  • Info: Shows Jenny’s visits with her mother to her doctor, and Dr. Mike helps her overcome her fears.

  • Age Range: Not specified, short book likely for younger children

• Up and Down the Worry Hill: A Children's Book about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and its Treatment

  • Info: A worry hill is used to describe the experiences of OCD in children, explains his struggles and recovery from OCD. (Parent accompaniment book: “What to do When Your Child has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Strategies and Solutions).

  • Age Range: 5-7 years

 

Anxiety and OCD Books for Adults:
 

• Coping with OCD: Practical Strategies for Living Well With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

  • Info: Helpful for anyone with mild to moderate OCD, and uses a three part program with exposure to upsetting thoughts, mindfulness practice, techniques to restructure thinking.

• Overcoming Compulsive Checking: Free Your Mind from OCD

  • Info: Exposure, ritual prevention, and awareness therapy (ERPA) is used to combat checking OCD. Teaches how to confront fears and maintain progress.

• Overcoming Compulsive Washing: Free Your Mind from OCD

  • Info: Focuses on fear of contamination by identifying specific ritualistic compulsions being caused by a fear to wash and get clean.

• Overcoming Obsessive Thoughts: How to Gain Control of Your OCD

  • Info: Addresses thoughts perceived as violent, disgusting or blasphemous. Explains how thoughts are not harmful and provides safe exposure exercises.

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders: A Complete Guide To Getting Well and Staying Well

  • Info: The book covers the entire spectrum of OCD, explains the best treatment for each type of OCD and how to avoid relapse. Different types of medication are also discussed.

• The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD: A Guide to Overcoming Obsessions and Compulsions Using Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)

  • Info: Combines mindfulness and CBT to manage unwanted thoughts and urges. The workbook focuses on present-moment awareness, challenging distorted thinking, and how to stop treating thoughts and feelings as threats and facts.

• Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts

  • Info: Focuses on different kinds of disturbing thoughts, myths around these thoughts, and how your brain can get stuck in a cycle of thoughts. Ineffective techniques are replaced with cognitive behavioral skills so readers can move on with life.

• OCD Workbook: Your Guide to Breaking Free from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)

  • Info: Provides self-assessment tools to identify symptoms, create a recovery strategy, and learn about the most effective medications and treatments. Day to day strategies and self help tips to maintain progress are used.

• Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty, Updated Edition

  • Info: The program includes self-assessment tests, case studies, therapy scripts, trigger sheets, and more to help make sense of compulsions and provide courage.

• Getting Over OCD, Second Edition: A 10-Step Workbook for Taking Back Your Life (The Guilford Self-Help Workbook Series)

  • Info: Tools help understand the effects of OCD, create a plan for change, find relief from thoughts, confront situations, break free of rituals, and reduce anxiety and improve relationships.

• Stop Obsessing!: How to Overcome Your Obsessions and Compulsions (Revised Edition)

  • Info: Explores programs for OCD, effective ways to let go of obsessions, charts and fill-in guides, questionnaires for self-evaluation, guidance for finding professional help, information about medication.

• Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things

  • Info: Explains how to identify hoarding, causes of the disorder, and outline case studies and common treatments.

• The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook: Bourne, Edmund J.: 9781684034833

  • Info: Tools for taking charge of anxious thoughts through breathing techniques, exposure therapy, and mindfulness tips from a CBT perspective.

• When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life

  • Info: Explains thought distortions that lead to worry and inability to relax, multiple techniques are recommended to overcome these worries.

• Tormenting Thoughts and Secret Rituals: The Hidden Epidemic of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

  • Info: Includes self diagnosis tests, steps to conquering OCD, early signs of OCD, guidelines for family members, and medications that work.

• Brain Lock, Twentieth Anniversary Edition: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior

  • Info: Uses cognitive self-therapy and behavior modification to develop new patterns of responses to their obsessions.

• Mastery of Your Anxiety and Panic: Workbook (Treatments That Work)

  • Info: Focuses on panic attacks and provides strategies for those with panic disorder or agoraphobia, learn how to deal with agoraphobic situations and the symptoms of panic.

• Managing Social Anxiety: A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Approach (Treatments That Work)

  • Info: Helpful to read in conjunction with therapy, includes case examples and worksheets to improve quality of life and relationships.

• The Mindful Way through Anxiety: Break Free from Chronic Worry and Reclaim Your Life

  • Info: Emphasizes the importance of not fighting anxious thoughts by gaining awareness of feelings without letting them escalate to achieve well-being.

 

Anxiety Books for Parents/Loved Ones:
 

• Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents: 7 Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle and Raise Courageous and Independent Children

  • Info: Explains damaging practices parents do that can reinforce anxiety, exercises and techniques are provided to change both parents and children’s thinking.

• Helping Your Anxious Child: a Step-by-Step Guide for Parents

  • Info: Teaches parents how to help their children practice “detective thinking”, how to respond when a child is frightened, how to expose children to challenging situations, and teach social skills.

• Freeing Your Child from Anxiety, Revised and Updated Edition: Practical Strategies to Overcome Fears, Worries, and Phobias and Be Prepared for Life--from Toddlers to Teens

  • Info: Provides tools for teaching children how to outsmart their anxiety and withstand pressure.

• You and Your Anxious Child: Free Your Child from Fears and Worries and Create a Joyful Family Life (Lynn Sonberg Book)

  • Info: Differentiates between different types of anxiety and explains when to get treatment, proven therapies are explained and emotional needs of parents are also discussed.

• Growing Up Brave: Expert Strategies for Helping Your Child Overcome Fear, Stress, and Anxiety

  • Info: Helps parents identify anxiety in their children, explains parenting techniques to reduce anxiety, and how to promote bravery for long-term confidence

 

OCD Books for Parents/Loved Ones:
 

• ​Talking Back to OCD: The Program That Helps Kids and Teens Say "No Way" -- and Parents Say "Way to Go"

  • Info: The first half of the book helps kids zero in on problems and develop skills to fight OCD, and the second half shows parents how to be supportive so family is prepared.

• What to do when your Child has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Strategies and Solutions

  • Info: Uses the metaphor of the “Worry Hill” to explain a step-by-step approach that she recommends to children with OCD. (Children’s accompaniment book: “Up and Down the Worry Hill”)

• Freeing Your Child from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Powerful, Practical Program for Parents of Children and Adolescents

  • Info: Part one and two explain the rules and customs of OCD to parents and how parents can prevent themselves from being pulled into their child’s rituals and create a plan for their child. Part three provides specific advice on how to respond to specific OCD concerns their child might have.

• When a Family Member Has OCD: Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Skills to Help Families Affected by Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

  • Info: Teaches parents and family how to communicate with each other when OCD is present, and provides advice for all family members.

• Loving Someone with OCD: Help for You and Your Family

  • Info: Includes basic information about OCD, tips for family involvement, making accommodations, and creating an action plan for change. Parenting, marriage, self-care, and support networking are also discussed.