If anxiety is something that you are suffering with, you are no doubt going to want to find help as soon as possible. Anxiety can not only cause enough trouble on its own, but it can also cause the development of other serious conditions. In fact, the majority of people suffering from anxiety also suffer from depression, and this is why you would want to get anxiety cognitive therapy if you know that you have an anxiety problem.

What it is

Anxiety is a very common condition, one that already affects millions of people around the globe. When you have anxiety you basically feel as though you have no control over your emotions and get incredibly stressed out.

There are actually a few different types of anxiety that a person can suffer from, and generalized anxiety disorder is the most common by far. This is an ongoing worry or fear that is not related to any particular event or situation, so the person is really not even sure why they are suffering from anxiety at all.

This is not only the most common form of anxiety, but definitely the most confusing, and makes it hard for the doctor to find the root cause of. They may suggest that you try anxiety depression therapy along with whatever other treatments you try.

Anxiety Cognitive Therapy

Anxiety cognitive therapy is a type of treatment for anxiety, one that does not have to involve the use of any medication. That is why this is often the first recommendation by doctors, so you can see if the anxiety cognitive therapy is enough. If not, you can always start on a medication at least at the beginning to get your anxiety under control.

One of the biggest problems with anxiety medication, and reasons why the anxiety cognitive therapy is so loved, is because medications are easy to become dependent on. This means that once you do finally feel ready to get off, you may have even more troubles with your anxiety than you did to start off with.

Therefore, if you decide to go another route other than trying the anxiety cognitive therapy, you are going to want to make sure that you are very careful with what you are doing and make sure that you are always working closely with your doctor. After all, they are the professional here and the one with experience, and so they will know what is going to be best for you.

Anxiety cognitive therapy is a great option, and one that you should definitely get more information on if you are suffering from anxiety.

Anxiety group therapy refers to the practice of treating patients suffering from anxiety disorders in small groups, typically 6 to 15 people, rather than on a one to one basis with a therapist. It has several advantages and disadvantages over seeing a therapist.

Advantages of Anxiety Group Therapy

Anxiety group therapy can create a level of comfort for the patient in being around like minded people who have suffered similar anxiety disorders to them. It can make them realize that they are not alone, that there are others in the same situation as them. This can be a life-affirming realization, especially when the anxiety disorder is related to perceptions of an outsider status, the belief that one is a “freak” or different from, and therefore inferior to, the majority of society.

Anxiety group therapy also has the advantage that the experience of fellow patients can help to offer solutions to the patient’s problem that a therapist might not have come up with on his or her own. When learning coping skills, such as those learned through cognitive anxiety therapy, the patient’s peers in the group can offer insights based on shared experience of a situation which causes anxiety.

A third advantage of anxiety group therapy over individual treatment is that the social setting can bring a withdrawn patient out of his or her shell, as the comfort of being in a group setting reduces anxiety and opens up the patient to talking about goals, aspirations and possible solutions to the problems that cause the anxiety disorder.

Disadvantages of Anxiety Group Therapy

Anxiety group therapy also has some pronounced disadvantages over individualized treatment. The “one size fits all” approach necessitated by the group setting can limit the ability of a therapist to tailor solutions to a patient’s individual needs. The group setting can also lead to a feeling of being lost in the crowd, as there isn’t always the time to deal with each patient’s problems in the depth to which he or she might require.

For these reasons, group anxiety therapy programs are usually run in conjunction with individual sessions with a therapist. Each patient is pulled out of the group for a set time each day in order to have one to one counseling with a therapist or licensed counselor. There, such subjects as the patient’s medications and problems that cannot be adequately handled in a group setting are discussed. The combination of group and individual therapy thus ensures that all the patient’s needs are met.

Anxiety usually takes a concrete form. People worry about their jobs, their families, their health. But there is another form of anxiety, known as existential anxiety (sometimes referred to by the German word angst, as it was German-speaking psychotherapists who first identified it as a distinct class of anxiety). Existential anxiety relates to more abstract concepts, such as mortality and the quest for meaning in life. In this article, we will look at three types of psychotherapy related to anxiety disorders and describe how they treat existential anxiety.

Existential Anxiety Psychotherapy #1: Multi-Modal Therapy

Multi-modal therapy is a type of psychotherapy developed by the South African psychologist Arnold Lazarus in response to what he viewed as a disturbingly high relapse rate among anxiety disorder sufferers being treated with traditional Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) methods. Multimodal therapy is based around the acronym BASIC ID, which stands for Behavior, Affect, Sensation, Imagery, Cognition, Interpersonal (relationships), and Drugs, though the latter aspect includes all biological factors related to brain chemistry. It advocates eclecticism in treating patients, drawing treatments from a variety of different traditions and approaches.

Multimodal therapy takes great pains to tailor itself to the needs of the individual client, meaning that it is unsuitable for use in an anxiety group therapy setting. It can sometimes include treatments from outside what as traditionally thought of as anxiety psychotherapy, such as diet and exercise regimes where an unhealthy lifestyle is thought to be a contributing factor in the patient’s psychological disorders.

Existential Anxiety Psychotherapy #2: Logotherapy

Logotherapy was the work of Viennese neurologist Victor Frankl. It is sometimes referred to as the “third Viennese school”, following the schools of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. Where Freud focused on the “will to pleasure” and Adler on the “will to power”, Frankl concentrated on what he termed the “will to meaning”. His thesis was based on the notion that humankind has an ingrained desire to see order in the cosmos, and that psychological disorders are based upon the perception of cosmic disorder.

Frankl was a Holocaust survivor, and his thought was strongly influenced by his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. In the prologue of his book Man’s Search for Meaning, he described how his suffering drew him to the conclusion that life has meaning even in the most appalling circumstances, and how his work came to reflect that.

In Logotherapy, treatment for anxiety is based around Socratic dialogue and self-observation. The treatment does not seek to attain a painless existence, rather it sees suffering as an opportunity to find meaning. Meaning can be found through achieving a quest, through experiencing love in any of its myriad forms, or simply coming to terms with suffering and accepting it as an inevitable part of life.

Existential Anxiety Psychotherapy #3: Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy

Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) was developed by Albert Ellis. It draws from the work of Asian and Classical philosophers is based on the assumption that the human psyche contains both rational and irrational components which are often in conflict with each other. Anxiety is often caused by irrational thoughts that lead to self-destructive behaviors. REBT seeks to educate the patient and empower them to lead happier, more fulfilling lives by replacing irrational thoughts with rational ones.

When anxiety gets severe enough to substantially limit one or more major life activities, it could be time to seek anxiety therapy. There are several types of anxiety therapy available. This is a survey of some of them.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a term that refers to various types of anxiety psychotherapy based on the principle that thoughts, rather than external factors, are the cause of anxiety. It achieves results faster than other types of therapy, as it runs for a finite period of time, unlike, for example, psychotherapy which can last indefinitely.

CBT seeks to alter problem behaviors and beliefs that can cause anxiety and other mood disorders. For example, arachnophobia might be caused by the mistaken belief that spiders are dangerous, so CBT might work to convince an arachnophobic patient that they are in no danger from a spider, though presumably without discouraging the patient from taking reasonable precautions against a genuinely dangerous spider, such as a black widow.

When applied to anxiety therapy, CBT seeks to relieve persistent panic attacks by addressing fears related to the factors that trigger the attacks, and to relax the patient. Examples of techniques used might be breathing exercises, rational statements about the triggers for panic attacks, and meditation.

The Role of Medications in Anxiety Therapy

In cases where panic attacks are severe, medications may be prescribed. These fall into several categories:-

Since anxiety disorders and clinical depression are usually linked, antidepressants have been found to be helpful in certain cases. When treating the depression associated with the anxiety disorder, the anxiety itself can be lessened.

Beta blockers are traditionally used to treat heart disorders and high blood pressure (hypertension). They can sometimes be useful in treating the physical symptoms of panic attacks, such as rapid heartbeat, sweating and trembling.

There are specialist anti-anxiety medicines too, developed specifically for the purposes of anxiety therapy. BuSpar is a recently developed medication used to treat Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). It typically takes around two weeks to achieve its full effect, so it is used in chronic cases where it is needed daily. Benzodiazepines are used on an ad hoc basis where the patient suffers from occasional anxiety attacks. They provide rapid relief and have few side effects, but are only useful for short periods of time.

With all medications, consult your doctor to determine the right medication and dosage for your needs. Never stop taking your medications without first getting approval from your doctor to do so, even if you are feeling better, as symptoms may reoccur.

We all get anxious from time to time. Life rarely follows a smooth path, and the bumps we encounter along the road can often lead to anxiety. But where do you draw the boundary between ordinary, healthy apprehension and an anxiety disorder requiring anxiety therapy?

Physical Symptoms of Anxiety

Anxiety responses are a hangover from our caveman days, the fight or flight reaction that helped to keep our ancestors safe from saber-toothed tigers and rival tribes. The heartbeat increases, the muscles tense and we start to sweat. Of course, in our modern, post-industrial society, the threat is more likely to come from our supervisor asking us to explain the drop in last month’s sales figures, so the response is inappropriate, since we are unable to either run away or to pick up a big rock and brain our supervisor with it, much as we might like to. So our heart continues to beat, our palms continue to sweat and our blood pressure continues to rise, leading not to the elimination of the threat, but to the destruction of our kidneys.

Emotional Symptoms of Anxiety

The symptoms of anxiety can be mental as well as physical. They can include obsessively dwelling on the cause of the anxiety, emotional numbness and withdrawal from the world, and sometimes dependence on alcohol, drugs or other addictions. These addictions need not be chemical in nature; they can be anything from video games to loveless sexual encounters. Some people develop rituals and superstitions as a coping strategy.

So, When Does Anxiety Become a Problem?

As a general rule, you should seek treatment when anxiety becomes so severe and persistent that it starts to interfere with daily living on an ongoing basis. Being unable to sleep soundly because you are nervous about a job interview the following day is not an anxiety disorder. Being unable to get out of bed for days on end for reasons that you can’t quite identify is.

Several personality tests exist to help doctors identify the nature and severity of the disorder. Once diagnosed, the disorder may be treated with medications, therapy, or a combination of the two. Common medications used are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), beta blockers and antidepressants. Types of therapy used include relaxation therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and psychotherapy.

Your doctor should be able to find the right combination of medications and therapy. Sometimes this might take a while and several different options may need to be tried before the right one is found. This is perfectly normal. It’s nothing to be anxious about.