I prefer therapeutic approaches that minimize the use of pathological labeling. While anxiety is clearly a diagnosable disorder that can be related to biochemical imbalances, it can also be an indication that something else is out of balance in a person’s life. In my therapeutic work spanning over thirty years, I have found the interpersonal exploration of these imbalances and diversions helpful in changing and alleviating the experience of anxiety.
Treatment | Facts | Forms of Anxiety | Guiding Principles | Resources
TREATMENT OF ANXIETY
Anxiety is often a fierce presence. Perhaps a better way to describe the situation is that anxiety can be the manifestation of a fierce need that has been ignored, resulting in an uncomfortable agitation that haunts your daily activities and relationships. Anxiety is, after all, an experience of fear.
The term Anxiety Disorders is the medically-accepted name for the conditions that comprise a broad range of problems; from a discomfort that leaves a person feeling uneasy most of the time to overwhelming disturbances of fear and panic that literally dominate a person’s thoughts and behaviors. Below is additional information about these conditions.
FACTS ABOUT ANXIETY DISORDERS (AD)
- Anxiety Disorders are the most common forms of mental illness
- More than 20 million American adults are affected by AD
- Children and adolescents are affected by AD
- Problems with anxiety display the relationship between emotional and physiological states.
FORMS OF ANXIETY
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Constant, exaggerated worrisome thoughts and tension about everyday routine life events and activities, lasting at least six months. Almost always anticipating the worst even though there is little reason to expect it; accompanied by physical symptoms, such as fatigue, trembling, muscle tension, headache, or nausea.
Phobias (Social or Specific)
Social phobia - an overwhelming and disabling fear of scrutiny, embarrassment, or humiliation in social situations, which leads to avoidance of many potentially pleasurable and meaningful activities.
Specific phobia - extreme, disabling, and irrational fear of something that poses little or no actual danger; the fear leads to avoidance of objects or situations and can cause people to limit their lives unnecessarily.
Repeated, unwanted thoughts or compulsive behaviors that seem impossible to stop or control.
Panic Disorder
Repeated episodes of intense fear that strike often and without warning. Physical symptoms include chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, abdominal distress, feelings of unreality, and fear of dying.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
(Acute and Chronic)
Persistent symptoms that occur after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event such as rape or other criminal assault, war, child abuse, natural or human-caused disasters, or crashes. Nightmares, flashbacks, numbing of emotions, depression, and feeling angry, irritable or distracted and being easily startled are common. Family members of victims can also develop this disorder.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Repeated, unwanted thoughts or compulsive behaviors that seem impossible to stop or control.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES IN MY WORK WITH ANXIETY
I often work in conjunction with a psychiatrist or other physician to provide pharmacological treatment. My approach with anxiety is very active, and typically is under the broad umbrella of "cognitive-behavioral" treatment. I have found that clients typically feel significant improvement in comfort levels by the end of the first session. This increased comfort allows for more thorough investigation of the issues that have been supporting the presence and emergence of the anxiety. Below are some beliefs that direct me in assisting clients with anxiety.
- Anxiety can be a wake-up call to feel and do something different.
- A client must be provided ways to stay comfortable enough in order to stay focused on the message.
- There must be a place in your life and the therapeutic setting for the distress to be constructively recognized.
- The therapist’s task is to assist the client in honoring this distress, find its meaning and the needed change.
- A therapist must have ways to stay comfortable as a client experiences this discomfort.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
- National Institute of Mental Health: Anxiety Disorders
- Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General
- National Institutes of Mental Health—Facts About Anxiety Disorder
- Children and Adolescents With Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety Disorders Association of America - Merck Manual: Anxiety Disorders
- University of Texas at Austin—Department of Psychology Anxiety Lab
- Center For Stress and Anxiety Disorders—
University at Albany-State University of New York - The Anxiety Network Anxiety-Panic.com
I do not necessarily support the ideas or products represented in these resource links, nor are they listed in any order of preferences. Please feel free to call with specific questions about your needs.
updated on 2011-09-05