Scott Stossel’s book, “My Age of Anxiety,” is attracting a great deal of attention as the author makes the rounds of talk shows and interviews. Reviewers are citing it for its fairness, and its good mix of personal experience and well-documented research. Stossel has lived with severe anxiety throughout his life, and by his own description has tried nearly every available medication and treatment available, with widely varying degrees of success.
Despite his own enormous challenges, Stossel maintains a sense of humor and does a great deal to bust myths about people living with mental illness. This is useful book for people seeking to understand symptoms, diagnoses, treatments and society’s view of anxiety and depression. He firmly rejects one-size-fits-all views about any aspect of mental illness treatment, and avoids the black-and-white pronouncements of many who write on this subject.
The full title of the book, published by Knopf, is “My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind.”