Penny, The Review Group's reviewer Penny for Your ThoughtsThe Review Group
Series ✦ Penny’s Take 🎧 Audiobook

Anxiety: A Catholic Guide to Freedom from Worry and Fear

Art Bennett, Laraine Bennett & Lianna Bennett Haidar · 2025
🎙 Narrated by Emily Christine
75/100
👍 Worth It

This is a genuinely rare integration of licensed clinical expertise — EMDR, CBT, evidence-based therapeutic tools — with authentic Catholic theological grounding in Scripture and saint narratives; the three-author credential set (licensed therapist, philosopher, clinical psychologist) is unusual and the combination works. The saint narratives do something practically valuable: they normalize mental health struggles within a faith context rather than treating them as spiritual failure. Emily Christine's calm, empathetic narration is well-suited to the pastoral and therapeutic material, and this is one case where an audio version offers real support for anxious listeners.

✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.

▶ Listen to a sample

🎙 Narration: good Christine's calm, empathetic delivery is specifically well-suited to pastoral mental health material — an audio version that works as well as print for the intended use.

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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
Faith & family safety85
Substance / usefulness75
Craft & writing76
Originality71
Evidence & accuracy74
Hype vs delivers73
Age-fit78
👁 Human-eye gut-check76
Penny’s verdict75
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