Corinne Zupko is a licensed counselor who has struggled with debilitating anxiety. Based on her experiences working through A Course in Miracles with a sprinkle of psychology, New Age spiritualism, and counseling, she mixes her personal experience into the techniques found in From Anxiety to Love. This book is geared towards people who have debilitating anxiety which severely affects their daily lives. If traditional psychology has not worked, this book offers an alternative look at anxiety and how to address it. It is presented in three parts.
Part 1 the Descent into Anxiety. It’s about how the severely anxious person feels and views the world. She reassures the reader with statements like “You are not your fear, your anxiety, or your worry. You may feel that these things define you, because they are really good at capturing and overpowering your attention.” (p8-9). The chapters in this section offer activities and questions to reflect on.
Part 2 is the Ascent into Peace. She offers three steps to healing – “be willing to see the problem differently, give your willingness to see the problem differently over to the inner therapist and ask for a miracle, and rest in trust that it is done.” Then she offers five steps in handing it over and five more steps in strengthening your choice. From there she offers different ways of shifting the way to think in order to address issues and then giving five more ways to shift the way to think. In this part she brings in the practice of meditation. Her meditations are broad strokes rather than a guided meditation. Unfortunately there are no descriptions for the first time or beginner person for meditating. She jumps in and has the person deep breathing with no instructions on what to expect or how to achieve a meditative state.
In Part 3 she discusses Putting it all Together. This section is an overview of the technique. She discusses miracles in action. She says “Everything I’ve written mean squat unless it is lived and put into action.” (p143). In this section she writes about scenarios one might face and how her technique can help work through the scenarios.
The writing is easy to read, conversational in tone. She writes in a manner which will connect for most readers. In the opening of the book she describes a debilitating panic attack where she is curled on the floor crying. Her mother talks her through the attack. For those with severe anxiety, this is an excellent way to connect with the readers. As a licensed counselor, her job is to listen and guide rather than tell the person how to fix their problems.
It’s important the reader understands this was Zupko’s story of how she worked through her own anxiety using A Course in Miracles. A Course in Miracles was created in 1976 by Helen Schucman, an American clinical and research psychologist. Schucman produced this because she heard an inner voice which she felt was the voice of Jesus. Zupko rehashes this earlier work into her own version. While Zupko has a background in psychology, there is little in the way of actual science behind her technique. Throughout the book, she discusses the ego; however, this does not appear to be a discussion based on the Freudian concept of Ego but of an amalgamation of her own beliefs of ego, a bit of sloppiness which can cause some confusion.
As a self-help book this is an interesting concept but the reader should be aware it is not based in psychological theory or counseling practices. It is, in fact, the author’s own steps to coping with debilitating anxiety.
review by Eileen Troemel
Author: Corinne Zupko
New World Library, 2018
p. 208
