Catherine M. Pittman

Rewire Your Anxious Brain separates two pathways, and the distinction is the whole book: anxiety generated in the amygdala, which does not use language and cannot be reasoned with, and anxiety generated in the cortex, which can.

Pittman is a neuropsychologist and professor, and the practical consequence is that talking yourself out of a panic response fails because you are addressing the wrong structure, while exposure works on it directly.

The neuroscience is simplified but not distorted, and the exercises are recognisably standard cognitive behavioural practice with an explanation attached.