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Hello, dear listener and welcome to this episode of owning it the anxiety podcast with me, Caroline

Ford.

This week I'm joined by a very esteemed expert.

His name is Dr. Brian McLean, and he's the principal clinical psychologist.

He is incredibly knowledgeable on such a massive range of topics.

Here we're talking about

phobias. We do touch a little bit on sleep for the first seven or so minutes because that

is one of his main interests and main focuses in his work but then we move swiftly on to

phobias. So are they different to general anxiety? Are phobia something we can overcome? What

do all phobias have in common? What can actually help us address our phobias? And does getting to the root of our phobias matter? We discuss all of this and more on this episode. Don't forget to sign up for owning it real time, which Dr. Brian McLean himself has endorsed, especially the guide for waking up in the middle of the night

and struggling to get asleep. He says that it is exactly the kind of advice that he would

offer in clinic. So there you go. You can sign up with a link in the podcast notes. And in the

meantime, enjoy this episode.

Dr. Brian McLean, Principal Psychologist with ABI Ireland, thank you so much for joining me on Owning at the Anxiety podcast. It's a pleasure to have you here.

Hi, Carlin. Very happy to be here. Horick described you. He couldn't say enough good things

about you as a most eminent expert in many different

areas who he says he's learned a huge amount from you. So no pressure. I think I need to teach

Park something about managing expectation, you know, set the bar low and you'll surely get over it.

Well, you are, I mean, you are an expert in lots of different areas.

I know you have a particular interest in sleep. He said that you had done, you've done a lot of

talks and sleep. And I think that's probably an episode we could do entirely on its own. It's such a

...