Anxiety Therapy Guide

A Guide To Anxiety Therapy

A normal reaction to fear, anxiety is sometimes blown out of proportion to the existing circumstances and can have an adverse impact on daily life. Often anxiety disorders are accompanied by depression. These are serious medical illnesses that require treatment with anxiety therapy, medication or both.

A person that is suffering with an anxiety disorder experiences intense feelings of worry and fear usually triggered or associated with a specific event or situation. They may experience heart palpitations, trembling, nausea, dry mouth, dizziness and even diarrhea, these are some of the more common symptoms of anxiety disorder.

Anxiety Treatment

There are effective anxiety treatments available for patients suffering with anxiety disorders. Patients may be treated with medication or psychotherapy or both, the choice will depend on the specific disorder and also the patient’s preference.

A careful diagnostic examination will be completed before treatment begins to identify the type of anxiety disorder and to determine the best type of anxiety therapy to be used. The examination will also determine if there are any other conditions such as substance abuse or depression that are present that also need to be treated.

Using traditional anxiety psychotherapy, the patient talks out the problem with the therapist.  This therapy can be quite beneficial.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive behavorial therapy has proven to be a very effective anxiety therapy for many patients. That’s because the patient is exposed to what they fear and the beliefs that have supported those fears are targeted and modified. The patient, with the support of the therapist, confronts the very type of situation that tends to set off the attacks. For example, if the patient is suffering from social anxiety where normal social settings can set off an anxiety attack, the patient will be put in social situations with the therapist at his side. With each successive exposure the anxious feelings gradually become less and less.

Some of the effective cognitive anxiety therapy techniques include stopping automatic negative thinking, slowing down, helpful and rational self-statements, moving up the self-statements, getting more focused and addressing anger, setbacks, perfectionism, and frustrations.

Relaxation Techniques

Practicing de-stressing and relaxation techniques can be very helpful in dealing with anxiety and anxiety attacks. When the brain is relaxed and quiet, the anxiety therapy techniques are more effective, and results are better. Using emotional anxiety therapy, the focus is on calmness and peace, and as the mind becomes more and more peaceful and calm, the fears and anxieties are crowded out easily. The focus of such techniques is never on fears and anxieties, but on healing, inner peace and healthiness.

Psychotherapy And Medication

Anxiety therapy, and in particular CBT, is very effective when used in conjunction with medications that can be helpful in treating anxiety disorders. These medications include sertraline, Prozac, Luvox, Paxil, Celexa, Effexor, imipramine, Elavor, Anafranil, Tofranil, Anafranil, Xanaxm Valium, BuSpar and certain cardiac drugs.

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