A Review of Published Self-help Books for Panic Disorder Per Carlbring 1 , Bengt E. Westling 1 and Gerhard Andersson 1,2 1 Department of Psychology; 2 Department of Audiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden This brief review of 14 self-help books on panic disorder compares: target group, treatment time, included components, existence of structured exercises, and whether or not daily record-keeping is encouraged. Six of the books cover all components deemed necessary for a multimodal cognitive-behavioral treatment package, and five of these are recommended. The reviews are followed by a brief summary of published bibliotherapy studies in which a selection of the books has been used. The results of these studies suggest that bibliotherapy is effective, with an effect size ranging from d = 0.5 to d = 1.5. Key words: anxiety disorder; bibliotherapy; effect size. Correspondence address: Per Carlbring, Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Box 1225, SE-751 42 Uppsala, Sweden. Fax: 46 18 471 2123. E-mail: per.carlbring@psyk.uu.se D uring the past 10 years, bibliotherapy has become very popular, and mental health professionals are using it more and more as an adjunct to traditional psychotherapy (Febbraro, Clum, Roodman, & Wright, 1999). It is commonly used by cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) practitioners. Self-help books can be a good alternative when professional psychotherapy is inaccessible or too expensive. Starker (1988) reported that a majority of clinical practitioners regularly recommend self-help books as supplements to traditional treatment, and Febbraro et al. (1999) have estimated that there are probably millions of individuals who regularly use self-help books in the hope of producing change in their lives. Various studies suggest that CBT presented via a self-help manual can be a useful form of treatment for panic disorder (Hecker, Losee, Fritzler, & Fink, 1996), as well as for conditions such as depression and headache (Gould & Clum, 1993; Scogin, Jamison, & Gochneaur, 1989; Stro ¨m, Pettersson, & Andersson, in press). However, since there are many self-help books on the market, especially regarding panic disorder, it is important to know whether they are suitable for use in treatment and whether they are validated and supported by empirical investigations (Rosen, 1987). The selective use of self-help material is further encouraged by the trend in CBT towards using brief treatments which have been successfully implemented for panic disorder (Clark et al., 1999; Westling & O ¨ st, 1999). The aim of this paper is first to give a brief review of the available self-help books on the market, as listed in PsychINFO and the Swedish Internet-based bookshop Bokus. The review is then followed by a brief summary of the published bibliotherapy studies in which a selection of the reviewed books has been used. Finally, recommendations for future use and research are given. Review of Self-help Books on Panic Disorder In this section we review books currently available on the market. We selectively favour those adhering to existing DSM nomenclature (APA, 1994), and those that are easily comprehensible SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF BEHAVIOUR THERAPY VOL 29, NO 1, PAGES 5–13, 2000