Inflammatory bowel disease carries some of the highest rates of anxiety and depression of any chronic illness, yet the psychological side of care is still routinely undertreated.
The three books here cover that gap from different angles: a research-based overview of the biopsychosocial evidence, a clinician’s treatment manual, and the patient-facing workbook built to accompany it.
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Psychological Aspects of Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Biopsychosocial Approach
Edited by Simon R. Knowles & Antonina A. Mikocka-Walus, Routledge, 2014
This edited volume brings together researchers and clinicians working at the intersection of psychology and gastroenterology. They open with the basic question of what IBD is and whether psyche has anything to do with it, then moving through stress and distress in IBD, the brain-gut axis, and the role of gut microbiota in psychological processes. Later chapters work through the psychosocial challenges specific to different life stages and the current evidence base for psychosocial interventions, closing with recommendations for where the field needs to go next.
This is background reading, not a treatment manual. It builds the evidence base rather than handing you a protocol to use with a client.
CBT for Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Treatment Manual
Melissa G. Hunt, Routledge, 2024
This manual gives cognitive behavioral therapists the IBD-specific knowledge they need before starting treatment. Hunt covers what IBD actually is, how it’s diagnosed, and how it’s medically treated, followed by the psychiatric comorbidities that commonly accompany it. The core of the book is an eight-session CBT protocol built specifically around the catastrophic thoughts and maladaptive avoidance behaviors IBD patients tend to develop. It’s designed to be used flexibly rather than followed as a fixed script, with sample treatment protocols included to show the approach in action.
This is the direct clinical counterpart to Hunt’s own patient-facing book below. It’s the manual a therapist works from, rather than what’s handed to the client.
Coping with Crohn’s and Colitis: A Patient and Clinician’s Guide to CBT for IBD
Melissa G. Hunt, Routledge, 2021
Hunt wrote this as the patient-side companion to her own clinician treatment manual above, giving both sides of the same eight-session CBT approach a dedicated text. The book opens with the basics of Crohn’s and colitis and the stress-gut connection. From there, it teaches concrete skills: relaxation training and physical activity, the cognitive model of stress management applied specifically to GI symptoms, behavioral experiments, eliminating avoidance, and diet and nutrition choices.
Later chapters address the anxiety that surrounds medical decisions directly, including fear around drugs, surgery, and the possibility of needing an ostomy. Hunt also pushes readers toward specific behavioral experiments aimed at reducing the shame and stigma that often surrounds GI illness.
This is the book to hand directly to a patient, or to work through alongside them session by session, rather than a reference written for the clinician alone.