I found this book extremely helpful for working with my anxiety. My therapist recommended some other books having to do with just understanding how the brain works (Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Pittman and Karle) and positive self talk (Negative Self Talk and How To Change It by Helmstetter) and those were very helpful too. I found that Dare kind of tied the other books and techniques together: breathing exercises, meditation, and positive self talk are hugely helpful but at some point when anxiety rears its ugly head, you have to have a process to implement in that moment. I found the Dare process to be the best thing for that. ( )

3.5/5

My therapist gave me this book to read and it wasn't bad but I felt like it was extremely repetitive. I generally liked the idea of the DARE method but after so many pages, I felt like I was just reading the same thing over and over.

I did enjoy the later chapters that focused more on intrusive thoughts, leaving your safe zone, being so hard on yourself, etc. I found these chapters focused a little bit more on what I struggle with after I had grasped the concept of the DARE method. As with any anxiety book or book that focuses on any facet of mental health, we all experience things differently and struggle in different ways. While I liked a lot of the general points, I found there were quite a few things where the answer was something that exacerbates my anxiety even more than the initial problem. Also, if one more person tells me to drop caffeine to make my anxiety better I'm going to scream. Coffee has never made my anxiety worse! Leave me alone to my cup of coffee!!!!

Overall, I like the concept of the DARE method and I'll definitely have to try to implement it even though challenging things to get worse seems insane. Who knows. ( )