Anxiety for Beginners offers a vivid insight into the crippling impact of anxiety disorder, a condition that is often invisible and frequently misunderstood.

A powerful and beautifully written account of Morgan's experiences with anxiety and depression, and a rigorously researched examination of why they happen and how they can be managed. As well as speaking to fellow sufferers, Morgan consults psychiatrists, psychologists, OCD specialists, gastroenterologists and nutritionists, and bones up on Kierkegaard, Freud and Hippocrates (the latter was the first to describe a patient with social anxiety).It is with a mixture of humanity and clear-sightedness that she analyses genetic and environmental influences, trauma, hormones, fertility, parenthood, medication, social stigma and language, all the while linking back to her own stories and those of fellow sufferers.In assuming the dual role of memoirist and investigative journalist, Morgan gradually comes to terms with her own anxiety disorder. She offers no firm answers or miracle cures, and is careful to remind us that, when it comes to mental illness, no two cases are the same. Her willingness to share what so many others strive to keep hidden, to thoroughly demystify her condition, is courageous and compelling The Guardian Her book - which recounts a bruising year of being held captive by bipolar disorder, feeling alternately suicidal then high as a helium balloon, and enduring a hyperventilating, crushing, terrifying insanity - is an education in the history, mythology and poetics of madness, in all its wildness and glaring neon New Statesman

Eleanor Morgan has written and interviewed extensively for the Guardian, the Observer, The Times, the Independent, GQ, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and the Believer. She worked as Senior Editor at VICE UK, where she helped to manage the output of an ever-expanding editorial team at one of the fastest-moving media organizations in the world, and has become one of the sharpest, best connected young voices in today's media landscape.