>> from our studios in new york, this is "charlie rose." >> the behavior treatment program we have here is based on extension. extinction is a process by which people can get over their fears.

>> 40 million people suffer from an anxiety disorder. it affects everyone from charles darwin and emily dickinson to barbra streisand. anxiety is masked by its tendency to be misunderstood. scott stossel has struggled with it for most of his life. this book tells his personal story. and offers a perspective. it is called "my age of anxiety." i am pleased to have scott stossel. >> thank you for having me. >> here is what david's says about you. he said scott was getting attention for his excerpt about surviving anxiety in "the atlantic." --

does that describe you? >> in some ways it does. my colleagues, i have endeavored with great intensity to try and hide my anxiety. i thought it was shameful or admitting it would compromise my professional standing. one of the things i wrestled with, talking in the book, i wanted to explore the nature of anxiety and look at all of the possible causes that might have led to my own.

trying on different theories. i'm in fact coming out as anxious after having hidden it for many years. it is a signature of many people who suffer from certain kinds of any disorders. there is a gap between the outwardly projected and often to the individual suffer, a false feeling, and the inward feeling of terror, anxiety, dread, incompetence. one of the characteristics in the book talks about how a symptom, a cause of anxiety, for those of us who suffer with it, the act of trying to conceal your anxiety from your friends, family, colleagues, actually is a symptom. it is a cause. >> is this cathartic for you?

>> we will see. it is interesting. i always thought i was good at concealing the anxiety. i didn't really know to what degree i had succeeded. when it started circulating around the office, i had a series of people lining up to say i had no idea, and can i give you a hug? it was nice but also uncomfortable. it may me realize i had done a better job concealing it. wexler conclusion did you come for you in terms of how you became, and how you be game -- and how you live with anxiety? >> i have a series of chapters where i try on theories for why

this might be the case. for instance, fundamentally anxiety is a normal human emotion. it is part of the human condition. when it functions appropriately, it is to keep us alive. it is the flight or fight response. if you're being chased by a tiger or confronted by a member of the enemy tribe, it is in your interest to have that. adrenaline, cortisol. but those of us who suffer from anxiety disorders, when you are in situations that are not appropriate, or disproportionate to the threat, it can feel like this horrific hijacking. shaking, sweating, distress. tingling in your fingers. in terms of what actually causes it, i spent a chapter looking at the traditional freudian idea,

that it is all about your mother. also talk about the work of john bowlby. he had a lot of compelling evidence that one's early experience with your caregiver, the nature of that relationship goes a long way to determining how secure you will feel as an adult. i read this chapter. areas evidence from world war ii victims separated on their parents. he did this thing called -- he would watch kids. he developed this typology of attachment styles. people with insecure attachment styles were likely to develop anxiety. rats whose mothers engaged in a sufficient amount of licking and grooming actually reduced the reactivity of their hpa access, and calm them down. i finished this chapter.

i had an overprotective mother. i thought this is proof my mother cause my anxiety. in the next chapter, i look at genetic research piling up. for hundreds of studies looking at various candidate genes that contribute to this aspect of anxiety or depression. my own view is that one's predisposition to heaven anxious temperament is woven into your dna. that is not determined. overlaid can be how you experience trauma or your upbringing. but the culture is you live in. the culture we inhabit is unique to anxiety producing. my own view, which is shared by psychologist at harvard, it is

largely woven into the genes. >> that would be my theory based on the whole range of connections to the brain. molecular contribution to a lot of the brain. >> they are looking at studies. for many years they would try to study what makes people ill. maybe it is more constructive to look at what our people who are resistant or resell you against these things, what makes them. i was fascinated. there are these studies that show army rangers and navy seals go through these tests. you are subjected to all but torture. see deprivation, all of that. this one researcher can determine in advance who will pass and who will not by taking blood.

if you are high in neuropeptide y, you are almost immune to developing poster manic stress disorder. you're more likely to thrive in the situations. that said, the army has tested it, you can learn resilience. >> it's interesting. i'm on chapter one. you quote sigmund freud. the most various important questions comverge a riddle whose solution is bound to throw a flood of light on our mental existence. this is what you start with. i thought, wow. waiting for my wife to come down the aisle to marry me, i started

to fail horribly ill. not just a big queasiness, but not as you did and shaking. most of all, sweaty. the church was hot. many people were for perspiring. not like i am. in wedding photos, you can see me standing tensely at the altar, a grim smile on my face. i watch my fianc? come down the aisle on the arm of her father. by the time she joins me in the front of the church, sweat is running into my eyes and dripping down my collar. that is anxiety. a great moment in your life. nothing to worry about. >> there shouldn't have anything to worry about. this is what happens. you get hijacked. i was not present in the moment. i've been excited about the

wedding. thrilled marrying my wife. here she comes, and by the time she gets to the altar i'm not only sweating profusely, my best men is handing me handkerchiefs, i have begun to shape. she is trying to hold me up. i can see the nature of anxious thinking. this canopy of thoughts. i'm sweating, nausea's, afraid i'm going to fall. i am looking at them. they're looking at me with growing alarm. i think, they think i'm going to pass out. this is going to prove i'm not worthy of marrying my wife. the minister can see that i have this flop sweat on me. we are halfway to the ceremony. he mouths to me, are you equate? i was not at all ok. i would have been mortified if we called up the proceedings. i muscled through it. my wife was physically holding

me up. i survived. i am consumed for the next three days of this despair. the most epic moments in your life. i was not present or able to focus. this is a signature of anxiety. instead of focusing on the task at hand, you turn inward. >> how many years ago? >> that was 14 years ago. >> 14 years later, how are you different? >> as we were saying, in some fundamental way i am not different. my genome, i talk about my great-grandfather, who was dean of harvard college in the 1940's.

to all outward appearances, he was an extremely effective administrator and professor. in his 40's or 50's he had mental breakdowns seized by anxiety. institutionalized multiple times. obviously, i am not him. but, you can see when you look at families, once there are two embers of the family with anxiety disorders, you see it. at some fundamental level i'm exactly the same way. a high reactive temperament. a high reactive physiology. but, having spent years in therapy, nearly 10 years researching and writing this book, i have a better

understanding of only of the nero mechanics of what it is that is causing these unpleasant emotions, and some perspective. i was flying across the rockies, reading a book about narrow science anxieties. these babblings of nearer transmitters. we hit turbulence, and at that point any perspective i had is fight or flight overrides. >> had it affect you? >> in that moment? it was terrifying. i sit there popping dramamine, paging the flight attendant to bring me another scotch. that is not an adaptive way of dealing. it is a ruling and tiring to be worried about ease things all

the time. one of the other things, i looked into the history. it was striking. i had some sense before it began to research. not a complete understanding of what degree the most famous researchers into human psychology, seldom motivated by their own anxiety. freud had this anxiety of trains. william james suffered from panic attacks. that led him to research this. charles darwin embarked on his journey on the beagle. by the time he got back, many

thought he was afflicted by acute anxiety. it is unclear. it enabled him to be focused on working on this book. not just these famous people. you read back in the can to see the hippocrates or galen or george john, the most prominent british physician of the 1700's. they are contending with dozens if not hundreds of patients. this is woven into the human condition. maybe not a source for shame. today, a stigma attached to mental illness has diminished. if not gone. particularly for men. there was a striking quote i came across. posted on gun sights during world war ii. if you are a man him a you will have self-respect not to allow yourself to display anxiety or show fear. this is a basic societal norm. to some degree i agree with that. at some time, we now know about the narrow science of this.

it is not so different from diabetes. he don't judge someone as a moral failure for suffering for diabetes or parkinson's disease. >> which has genetic and environmental influences. as does anxiety. how many people have come up to you because they have read this book, to say me too. >> at this point, over a thousand. it ranges from friends and colleagues of mine. one of my colleagues said she shared her history, and said everyone is going to come up and

share your secret crazy. plenty of random people. i thought there might be some of that affect. i didn't realize. i have facebook and e-mails and twitter. saying thank you. either i had no idea that what i was feeling was something other people suffered in read that you have put into words what i have been feeling my entire life. or, my son heard you, and said right down these phobias. this is what i've been suffering. including some celebrities. they have said they suffered from public speaking phobias or various others. i will say. a supermodel in the 1980's. >> i have interviewed her.

>> she was on sports illustrated. a couple weeks ago, i was looking on twitter. i saw she had followed me on twitter. she e-mailed and said if only you had written this book 30 years earlier. this is helpful. if you bring to me 30 years earlier he would've cured me of my anxiety forever. we are actually twins emotionally. even being a supermodel is no protection against anxiety. >> where is the hope? >> the hope is in, for me, what i was trying to do with this book, i thought i would have this dramatic arc, that i would try every therapy under the sun. i will come out the other end cured.

what a dramatic arc that would be. yet, i undertook the book. year two, i am anxious. year three, i'm still anxious. that is not an arc. that is a flat line. there are ways i can come to terms with this. by coming out with it, not have it be a mark of shame. also serving to recognize there are things that present with anxiety that are adaptive. anxiety itself is adaptive. there are these harvard

psychologists who developed this theory when they looked at animals and humans and said if you look at a bell curve, and anxiety runs from here to here, and performance runs here to hear, if you're too anxious you will not perform effectively. if you are over here, you are not sufficiently anxious, your adrenaline is not pumping. you're not engage. you will also not perform. you need the goldilocks level. it is learning to try and manage the anxiety. to have the upper and lower anxiety. there is so much head of the national institute of mental health. anxiety is one of the levels where the most exciting cutting- edge research is. tying brain to mind, tying molecule to mind. the history of psychopharmacology. the drugs originally developed as rocket fuel, penicillin preservers, no one knew how they work. we are developing a better understanding of mechanisms by which those work. furthermore, the combination of genetic research is starting to determine if you suffer from anxiety, they could look at my genome and say this drug is going to be more effective for you. one hopes that there will be

better effective treatment. >> i don't suffer from anxiety. i suffer from other problems, but not that. it is interesting in times of stress, i seem to be calm her. i don't know why that is. >> i begin by saying i have the tendency to falter in crucial situations. that is true. the literature shows that people who are on the anxious side of the spectrum tend to break down, showing that one third will break down even before you get to the front. one third is completely immune

to any breakdowns. people being surprised my coming out, i am internally flapped. it is exhausting to deal with these irrational phobia and anxiety. when confronted with a real problem, i am calm her. there are interesting studies during the blitz, patients diagnosed as neurotic actually became less neurotic and felt better during the blitz. maybe because they had something real to be afraid of. maybe because they felt less a shame because everyone was as scared as they were. there may be something to that.

>> there are moments of crisis where you feel a sense of not anxiety, but your body is more alert. >> the flight or flight -- the fight or flight response. hormones and neurotransmitters. your blood flowing through your muscles. you can think more clearly. your pupils widen. for people, i talk about people who are particularly gifted at thriving under stress. you were doing a segment about the ball. peyton manning or tom brady or russell wilson, these are people who are get -- you are gifted. there is one gene that has two variants. the warrior and warrior -- worrier. the worrier gene keeps you away from danger. >> thank you for coming.

back in a moment. stay with us.♪

>> the world wide web was conceived as somewhat academic saying some years ago. it's years of realization and development has seemed to be the work of the moment. coming into being as an optional michael event, a virtual world of a companion planet. >> e. l. doctorow is here. one of our greatest living authors. he writes about the reach of american possibility. last year he was awarded the american academy of arts and letters gold medal for fiction. his novel is called "andrew's brain." "the new york times" says -- -- as if he wished it wasn't so. he has no choice so.

responding to the history of one such times is the sworn duty of a character in a novel. he has placed a remarkable amount of people both real and imagined in their history. >> do you agree with that? >> not entirely. >> i don't want to be ungracious. the label is not one i welcome. >> what is wrong with that? >> all novels are set in the past if you think about it. even hg wells is very victorian. some novels have a wider focus

than include public figures and major historical events. somehow a focus on family, personal relationships. they are all about the past. also, my novels are set in different parts of the country. down south, carolina. i feel you might as well, a geographical novelist. i just like the word novelist. >> ok. responding to the history of one's time. i'm looking for the word historical novelist. >> maybe i over anticipated. >> what you do say is that the book judges the reader somehow. likes yes. this is not formulaic fiction. after you do this kind of work for a while, you want --

>> writing novels? >> what you want to do is find new ways to do it. that is equivalent to writers doing that for a long time. james joyce was a beautiful writer. realistic sense of action. he did "ulysses," and ended up with "finnegan's wake." >> they seem to have done all right. >> virginia woolf decided she wanted write a novel without a plot. to forgo that device. she did a couple of times. "mrs. dollaway." formally fiction finally isn't

satisfactory. the way this book has turned out, i do break a few rules. that pleases me. >> who is andrew? >> andrew came to me as a figure standing in the snow, holding an infant in his arms. in front of a door. snow coming down on his yankee ball cap. that is the image that came to me. it was some urgency to it. i found myself writing that. i had to figure out what was going on. >> he is a neurosciences? >> a cognitive scientist. he suffers from a fact that all his life he has been an

inadvertent agent of disaster. an earlier incident, he administered medicine, the wrong medicine. as a child, he was responsible for the car crash that killed the driver. he has this trial of awful things. he imagines he is unable to feel anything. it is a self-delusion. he is very feeling. >> you make no distinction between real and imagined. >> that is correct. that is one of the roles i have broken. you do not know what he is

imagining or whether he is reporting on what actually happened. there is the convention of the unreliable narrator. this really takes it to an extreme. in that way, the book does test the reader. it judges the reader. i just think that fiction can be too comfortable. it is the most conservative of the arts. what has happened historically in music, like in the rites of spring, and art, the impressionist began. the cubist's, abstract expressionism. there were these enormous changes. >> revolutionary and evolutionary. >> fiction hasn't moved that much. we have gone through postmodern writing. that is rather timid in terms of finding a new way.

>> re: responsible for that? >> i came along later than the postmodernist. >> but you were a novelist. one of our great living novelist. >> i appreciate that. >> re: responsible for the quality of novels? >> for the ones i have written. >> and have been experimental enough? have you tried to break the mold? >> it is a matter of personal dissatisfaction. you always want to talk what you have done in the past. that is the prime motivation. once something is done, you can't do anything about it anymore. >> for you in search to have a conversation about neuroscience and philosophers of mind, and show their conflict? >> i come with the philosophers

in mind. it's a fascinating subject. an area of philosophical concern. it is the subject that is mysterious. what has happened historically, the material conception of thinking has -- there is no soul. the soul is a fiction. it is just the brain. the problem that creates is to figure out how the brain creates feeling, thought, wishing, longing.

all these states of mind we think of consciousness. how does it happen? nobody knows. >> there is a huge story about in the new york times. >> it is wonderful work. if they can do things like figure out what to do about parkinson's, or alzheimer's, that is terrific. >> that is what the motivation is. >> i understand. it is noble. it is necessary. supposing we do figure out how the brain works, if that happens, then we can build a computer that has consciousness. this sounds like movie stuff. there are serious people in this field who believe that the

radically that is possible. if that ever happens, all the stories we have been living by our finish. the bible. all the mythological senses we have of ourselves are gone. finished. that could be as disastrous as an asteroid hitting the planet. >> i have dealt with this scientifically at this table. talking about consciousness. talking about artificial intelligence. >> i am giving you andrew's read on that. >> he worries about what happens. >> he is a bit of a hysterical. i suppose you could call it

that. it is a very intricate book. andrew, his first wife, bringing the baby up. >> the opening scene. >> his ex-wife isn't opera singer who has performed. at one point, he calls andrew a pretender because boris was terrified, pretending to be the rifles are. he has some sort of post traumatic stress disorder. that opera, boris begs forgiveness. now, when andrew gets to the white house, which he does. >> a george bush character? >> i am sorry you said that. the point is, if someone reads this book 50 years from now, it will not matter who the model for this character is. it will just be a portrait of moral inadequacy attached power. >> you were awarded the national book award lifetime achievement

medal for achievement. that opera, boris begs forgiveness. now, when andrew gets to the white house, which he does. >> a george bush character? >> i am sorry you said that. the point is, if someone reads this book 50 years from now, it will not matter who the model for this character is. it will just be a portrait of

moral inadequacy attached power. >> you were awarded the national book award lifetime achievement medal for achievement. as well as the gold-medal for the american letters. you have a lot of awards. does that mean a lot? >> it is gratifying. you do not think about them very much. if you get an award from your peers, that is nice. that's a great honor. >> john updike was on the show. he was almost paralyzed by thinking of this great number of contemporary writers who know things i can't. >> he told me that. i had told him that it was a well-deserved reward. it was just an award. he expressed these sentiments to me. he was a fantastic writer.

a great body of work he created. he had these doubts about himself. that is almost a necessary part of the process. if you are too confident, too cocky about what they are doing, you're going to go down. if your anxiety remains undaunted, you will be ok. >> doesn't get more difficult? >> it takes longer as you get older. more thoughtful, maybe. >> the new yorker once said about you, he is the world's literary historian. do you feel like that? >> no.

it is nice to say that. i see these books as self- contained. it is possible to string them out in chronological order and cover 150 years. >> -- the waterworks, city of god, the march, creationist, all the time in the world, and now andrew's brain. >> it makes me realize, thinking about cognition, for several books city of god was published in 2000. it is in there. it is in the march. someone, a soldier gets a spike in his head as the result of an explosion. he cannot remember anything anymore. he keeps saying it is all now. he forgets he said that.

what did i say? >> can you pinpoint a moment when this began questioning the idea can you pinpoint the idea this began? >> you carry them around with you. every once in a while, one comes up to the floor. i've membered a man who had this terrible history. he had inadvertently murdered his child feeding it the wrong medicine. he was a good man. he turned out he had this whole trail of disaster. i wondered about that. how someone who is not evil, and

nonviolence, and not nasty, and not mean, generally negative, but disposed kindly to the world, how could he have this awful record in his life? that is the thought that got me started on this book. >> how long ago? >> that was before i wrote the first line. >> thank you. thank you for coming. a pleasure to have you. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪ it is 9:00 on a saturday the crowd shuffles in. an old man sitting next to me, making love to his tonic and ♪in.

>> this is your piano. >> this i have had with me for years. it is easy to maintain. the guys know how to work with that and get sound out of it. >> if you're going to get a piano, it is a good place to go. when you touch the keys, i once talked to a chess player, and he could feel the pieces. do these keys, once you put your hands on them, -- >> a touch technique is important. the feel of the piano is

important. they used to make them with ivory keys. there was a reason for that. the sweat when you play, the ivory absorbs moisture. you don't get slippery. now, they are made out of synthetic material. it can get slippery. this is good. >> play me some things like and watch the process.♪

♪ ♪ >> that was not a billy joel composition. >> i wish it was. >> piano man? >> it is pretty simple. the melody is doing the work.♪

which is why the sheet music isn't that interesting. it is just an accompaniment. >> to you read music? >> no. >> it is a foreign language? >> you lose it. looking at music to me is like looking at cuneiform. i don't know what i am looking at. i never learned how to sight read. it is a good tool to have. >> how about "my life." >> it's all octaves.♪

it is only two notes. >> you favor your right hand. >> i am a rightie. people tend to favor one hand over the other. it is weird. i bat left-handed. >> new york state of mind?♪

>> if i had in the sound of my voice 100,000 of the most intense fans, what would they want to hear you play? >> probably "piano man." in the u.k., "uptown girl." that was princess diana's theme song. i don't do it other places. it shreds my throat. in england we do it all the time.♪ uptown girl now she's looking for a downtown man♪

trying to hit those same notes at this age is not the same. >> river of dreams? >> in the middle of the night♪ i must be searching for something something so hard to find in the middle of the night♪ one of those songs i couldn't shake.

i am not a gospel singer. i can write this. go way. it would not let me go. >> "innocent man." >> i was thinking of benny king. ♪ oh when the night has come stand by me♪ i wanted to write a song like ♪hat. some people stay far away from the door if there's a chance of it opening up they hope it just passes up♪

>> for so many people, to do what you do, to sit at a piano, but to put yourself in the head of the great ones. >> i like the good stuff. no matter what it is. soul, pop, broadway, jazz. if it is good, i like it. >> thank you for this. >> thank you.♪

>> live from pier three in san francisco, welcome to the late edition of bloomberg west, where we cover the media and technology companies that are reshaping our world. i'm emily chang. let's get straight to the lead microsoft's long search for a successor to steve ballmer is about to come to an end. the board is preparing to name satya nadella as ceo. he has been running microsoft's enterprise and cloud business and has been an employee at microsoft since 1992.