Anxiety Disorder Therapy
There is a common belief that when it comes to treating anxiety disorders, therapy is the most effective method. Why exactly? Because where medication basically treats the symptoms of a problem, anxiety disorder therapy can expose the underlying roots of your fears and teach you how to conquer those fears, control your anxiety levels and manage those worrisome thoughts.
There are two main types of therapies that are said to be beneficial for this disorder. The first is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and the second is exposure therapy. These types of therapies give you a way to combat anxiety by giving you the tools and teaching you how to use them.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy uses both psychological techniques and behaviour changing. Research has shown that an estimated 50 per cent of people who have been treated using CBT will achieve a higher level of functioning after treatment. CBT aims at helping people more aware of how their thoughts affect their emotional state of being. Individuals are encouraged to observe their thoughts that are lined to feeling bad in some way, like unreasonably anxious, angry or sad. The next process is to analyse the thoughts behind those feelings and decide whether they are helpful or realistic. If this is not the case, the person is encouraged to change their conclusions and thought processes to that they better reflect reality. The individual begins to think about things in a light that is more supportive and helpful to them in coping with stress and achieving what they want out of life.
This kind of therapy incorporates a range of behavioural strategies from breathing control techniques to relaxation exercises. Behaviour can reinforce thinking, and thinking can therefore make it easier to do things are difficult and provoke anxiety. CBT differs from traditional psychotherapy by concentrating on the now and making changes for the future. There is little emphasis on understanding the past, so people are better off trying other forms of therapy if they have a great need to understand past influences in their lives.
Exposure therapy on the other hand, exposes you to the situations and objects that you fear. By repeated exposures, an individual’s anxiety will gradually diminish as they feel an increased sense of control over their environment. This can be achieved in two ways. Your therapist can either ask you to imagine the situation that you fear or you may actually confront it in real life. This kind of therapy can be used by itself or in conjunction with cognitive behaviour therapy.
Using anxiety therapy is not a quick fix to your problem. It takes both time and commitment to achieve results. There will be work you will do with your therapist and work you will do by yourself. This is about facing the fears that you have, instead of avoiding them, so it might initially seem to get worse before you get any better. Basically you’ll reap the benefits of this therapy if you stick with it.
