The Worry Trick
David A. Carbonell
The Worry Trick by clinical psychologist David A. Carbonell explains why chronic worry feels like useful problem-solving but actually keeps anxiety running: your brain treats discomfort as a sign of danger, and every attempt to argue, check or avoid confirms the alarm. Its answer is counterintuitive: notice worried thoughts without obeying them, postpone them to a set time, and face feared situations gradually instead of escaping them.
If you've ever spent an hour 'thinking through' a problem and ended up more frightened and no closer to a decision, this book names the trick being played on you.
The book in essence
Carbonell, a Chicago-based psychologist who has spent decades treating anxiety, starts from an uncomfortable observation. Most of what people do to fight worry keeps it alive: reassuring themselves, arguing with the thought, checking, distracting and avoiding. The relief is real but short, and the brain learns that the 'what if' was worth taking seriously.
The 'trick' is that worry presents itself as a premonition or a to-do list. It speaks in 'what if' sentences that feel urgent and specific, yet rarely lead to an action you can take now. Carbonell isn't claiming the thoughts are false. He argues that your relationship with them matters more than their content.
So the book moves you from fighting to practising. You treat thoughts as mental noise you can observe, give worry a scheduled slot, and run small exposure experiments without safety behaviours. It draws openly on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and acceptance-based approaches, in a plain and often funny voice.
Honest caveat: this is a self-help book, not a treatment plan. The methods work through repetition. The first weeks of postponing worries or climbing a fear ladder usually feel harder before they feel easier.
Who it's for
- People who lie awake rehearsing 'what if' scenarios about health, work or family
- Chronic checkers and reassurance seekers who know the habit doesn't help but can't stop
- Readers who tried 'think positive' or 'just stop worrying' and found it backfired
- Anyone curious how CBT and acceptance-based ideas apply to everyday anxiety
Who it's not for
- — Anyone in acute crisis or whose anxiety stops them functioning: start with a clinician. The book can supplement care, not replace it.
- — Readers looking for an academic review of anxiety research
- — People whose fear is about a real, present danger (an unsafe home, for example): that calls for safety and support, not exposure.
Key lessons
01
Worry disguises itself as problem-solving
Worry gives you the feeling of working on a problem, but most of the time it is rehearsing danger. Real problem-solving ends in a concrete next step: a call, an appointment, a decision. Worry turns the same 'what if' over and over from new angles. Worse, the brief relief you get from avoiding, checking or asking for reassurance doesn't close the loop. It feeds it. Your brain files the episode as 'the danger was real and the precaution saved us', and sounds the alarm sooner next time. A simple test: is there a step I can take right now? If not, you're rehearsing, not solving.
Priya, a freelance translator, sends a quote to a new client and reopens the email five times in an hour to check the figures. Each check buys her a few minutes of calm before 'what if I got the rate wrong?' returns louder. She asks, 'Is there anything I can do right now?' The honest answer is no. She closes the laptop, and the urge fades on its own.
02
Unhook from sticky thoughts
A worried thought is a string of words your mind produces. It is not a prophecy and not an order. Carbonell doesn't ask you to suppress it or disprove it, because arguing is another way of taking it seriously, and that makes it stickier. Instead, notice it and name it: 'My mind is producing another what-if sentence.' That small step back lets you hear the thought like a radio playing in the next room: present, but not in charge. The goal isn't to get rid of the thought. It's to keep living without obeying it, believing it or wrestling with it.
On the train to work, Tom is thinking about tomorrow's presentation when 'what if I freeze halfway through?' pops up. He used to spend the whole journey arguing with that sentence. This time he silently says 'there's that sentence again', lets it sit there, and goes back to his slides. It returns a couple of times, but it's no longer steering.
03
Give your worries an appointment
Every 'what if' feels as if it needs an answer now. A worry appointment defuses that urgency. When a worry shows up, jot it down in one line and postpone it to a fixed slot, say fifteen minutes in the early evening. When the slot arrives, review the list, plan anything that genuinely needs a step, and let the rest go. Your brain learns two things: worries can wait, and many of them fade while waiting. One important detail: this isn't suppression. You're not banishing the thought. You're telling it 'not now, this evening'.
At 11:40 pm, Maria starts thinking about her father's biopsy results, which are due on Thursday. Nothing can be done tonight. She writes one line in the notebook by her bed and moves the worry to a 6:30 pm appointment the next day. When she opens the notebook at that appointment, the line carries a fraction of the weight it had at midnight.
04
Climb the fear ladder, one rung at a time
Avoidance lowers anxiety in the short term and grows it in the long term. Carbonell's alternative is gradual exposure. You break the feared situation into steps from easiest to hardest, stay in each step until the anxiety eases, and repeat. The crucial part is dropping safety behaviours, such as constantly phoning someone, carrying and touching medication, or standing near the exit. As long as those continue, your brain concludes the precaution is what saved you. Small, repeated, unprotected experiences teach through experience rather than argument: what you fear is survivable.
Daniel avoids motorways, and when he can't, he calls his partner on speaker. His ladder starts with a short stretch on a quiet Sunday morning. Next he rides the same route as a passenger, then drives it himself at an off-peak hour. In week four he drives it with the phone off. His heart races, but for the first time he feels the fear rise and fall on its own.
Try this today
The next time a 'what if' shows up today, write it in one line on a note, book it into a 15-minute slot this evening, and go back to what you were doing. At the appointment, see which worries still feel urgent.
Quick check
According to Carbonell, why does checking or seeking reassurance make worry worse over time?
What is the main purpose of giving worries an appointment?
Selected quotes
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
“The best way out is always through.”