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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.85225
EAN num: 9781572243873
ISBN number: 1572243872
Label: New Harbinger Publications
Manufacturer: New Harbinger Publications
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 164
Printing Date: March 03, 2006
Publishing house: New Harbinger Publications
Sale Popularity Level: 362528
Studio: New Harbinger Publications
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Product Description:
For an individual with a medical phobia, receiving the care that can relieve pain and cure illness can be a daunting task. Fear of receiving an injection, visiting a doctor, or seeing blood may put any of these some 30 million Americans at great risk—especially if they avoid receiving necessary medical care because of it.
Fortunately, specific phobias are among the most responsive of anxiety disorders to behavior therapy, the research-proven treatment adapted for self-help readers in this book. If you struggle with a medical phobia, this book will very first explain the basics about your phobia: where it comes from, what factors influence it, and how best to prepare for treatment. Then you’ll learn to confront and overcome your medical phobia with safe and gradual exposure exercises. These techniques are effective and fast. The book includes information about avoiding relapse and helping someone else who suffers from a medical phobia.
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Rated by buyers 
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If you are suffering from a general fear about going to the doctor or dentist, getting vaccinated or giving yourself insulin injections (for example), or can't stand the sight of blood....then this book can be quite helpful to you. This book is for general fears only, so if you have more specific fears, you may find this book to be a total waste of time and money. I certainly did.
I personally was quite disappointed and felt misled by this book. First of all, the authors claim that their technique(s) can help with fears of medical procedures. When I read the book, the "medical procedures" they talked about didn't seem to amount to more than just a blood pressure check, etc. If you are facing surgery, especially major surgery, this book is not at all helpful to you. The authors don't even elaborate on this level of procedure.
The book puts a lot of emphasis on your "exposure" to the source of your fear to help you deal with it. However, some of the suggestions the authors gave on ways to gain exposure were really unrealistic or, as I put it, downright crazy.
First of all, to gain exposure regarding visiting a doctor, one suggestion given by the authors was to "schedule physicals with a number of different doctors" (p.83). An example provided by the authors has one lady getting physical exams 6 times in a two week period--all between different doctors! (p. 95).
Who the heck has the kind of resources to do this, let alone the necessary insurance coverage?
Another suggestion by the authors regarding exposure to injections (needle fears) has me questioning their sanity. In one part of their book, on page 67, the authors describe "good injection scenes" in movies they suggest to rent--one of which is "DEAD MAN WALKING!" (A film about the death penality).
Not only do I find these authors' suggestions grossly unrealistic, some of their suggestions are just plain absurd. If you still feel like you need to check out this book, please check the local library first.
Rated by buyers 
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To put the review in context, a bit of background might be helpful: I'm a 35 year old man who's been deathly afraid of having my blood drawn for as long as I can remember. My phobia had become so bad that for some years now, I'd been skipping the blood work portion of my yearly medical checkups (which is probably the most important part). Every time I needed to go to get my blood drawn, I'd come up with an excuse and not go. I also used to feel intense discomfort and anxiety whenever I saw a needle in someone's arm on TV or in a movie (whether it was real or a special effect); if I could (i.e. If I was at home), I'd curl up into the fetal position (and if I couldn't, I'd cover or close my eyes and want to curl up into the fetal position).
Wanting to overcome my fear, I bought this book. At very first I wasn't thrilled with the idea of exposure therapy (and thought "so you mean the way to get over my fear is to look at and otherwise expose myself to the thing/situation I'm afraid of?"). However, since the book states that despite the fact that you'll initially feel uncomfortable, little by little, the discomfort will go away, I decided to push myself and give it a try.
I've been subjecting myself to as intense an exposure regimen as I could take for about a month and a half now (going from short, 5 minute exposures to diagrams and photographs on images.google.com 2 - 4 days per week to longer exposures to photographs and YouTube videos for 15 minutes 4 - 6 days per week)... And today, I graduated. My goal was to be able to go to the lab, sit down in "the chair" without any fuss, stick my arm out and get my blood drawn (without fainting or having to have my blood drawn lying down for fear of fainting). And that's exactly what I did.
Having my blood drawn is still not my favorite thing and I didn't look at the needle in my arm yesterday but if I had to do it again subsequent week, I could.
In short, if you have a medical phobia that you want to overcome, this approach works (and if you have a history of fainting, the skills you learn in the chapter about preventing fainting will do just that).
Rated by buyers -
After being brutally operated on without anesthetic in a third-world hospital as a teenager, I developed a phobia of medical procedures. Later as an adult I started passing out when given needles, which is both distressing and embarrassing. Even though I've since fixed my phobia, as a recovered medical procedures phobic and a psychologist specializing in the area of anxiety and phobias, I can say that this book is a must read on the topic. It's written in simple terms, is very easy to understand and is based on the latest scientific research. Added to this the author, Martin Antony, is a leading world expert in the area of anxiety.
Anthony Gunn, author of Fear is Power.
Fear Is Power: Turn Your Fears Into Success
Rated by buyers -
Purchased this book to help a patient understand her previously undiagnosed medical phobia. She felt it to be extremely helpful; explaining the disorder,
the nature of fainting, the course of treatment. She has used it along with our work together to begin to master her fears.
Rated by buyers -
While some folk dutifully see the doc and dentist while needed, others find their phobias of medical professionals so strong that they can't even make a preventative visit nor take common medical tests. This audience would do well to look at the self-help guide OVERCOMING MEDICAL PHOBIAS: HOW TO CONQUER FEAR OF BLOOD, NEEDLES, DOCTORS & DENTISTS. From the roots of fears and how to address underlying issues of such phobias to strategies for preventing fainting, stress and avoidance, this doesn't just admonish - it offers a step-by-step 'can do' program for overcoming phobias. A top pick.
Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch
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