Anxiety Treatment Options
What is the key to overcoming anxiety?
If you’re looking for a treatment for anxiety disorder, there are mainly three available options: psychotherapy, pharmacological treatments and complimentary treatments.
These modes of treatment are not mutually exclusive… in fact, for a fast and steady recovery, it’s usually best to explore all available options. Before investigating further, there’s something very important that you should realize though.
Even the best therapist in the world won’t cure you by himself. Drugs won’t cure you by themselves. There’s no magic answer, really. The key to overcoming anxiety is within you… and once this key is found, using it is up to you entirely. It doesn’t mean you’re alone, though:
A good therapist can help you find this key (or set of keys). And certain pharmacological treatments may facilitate the work of your therapist, while simultaneously easing your recovery process. Using the right complimentary techniques to your treatment can certainly make things easier for you.
Anxiety treatment: what are the most common options?
If you suspect you may be afflicted with anxiety disorder, it will be wise consulting with a psychologist for a proper diagnosis. In the meanwhile, this article will provide you with details on the most common treatment options for this sickness.
1 Psychological treatments for anxiety disorder.
1.1 CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). When you consult with a psychologist for help with your anxiety troubles, this is usually the first line of treatment. CBT is one of the most common forms of psychotherapy, and it’s usually the most effective in helping patients come to terms with anxiety disorder.
There are actually various types of cognitive behavioral therapy, but all these techniques have a similar focus. This kind of treatment (CBT) works by teaching you how to sever the chain reactions between thinking and behavior, which sometimes lead to uncontrollable feelings of anxiety.
Broadly speaking, the goal of CBT applied to anxiety treatment is usually to help you become aware of causal relationships between your troubled thoughts and emotions, in a way that you actually learn how to adjust your perceptions of reality by changing how you react to it.
1.2 Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. This approach, which in some ways is akin to psychoanalysis, is also widely used in the treatment of anxiety disorders. It hinges on the investigation of unconscious sources of psychic tension that could be undermining your thoughts and emotions, and even causing or reinforcing your states of anxiety.
This treatment relies heavily on the relationship between yourself and your therapist, who will usually resort to a diverse collage of techniques in order to help oversee your recovery. As such, psychodynamic psychotherapy will usually entail different components, depending on the preferences of the therapists as well as their perception of the patient.
1.3 Systemic therapy. This option is quickly gaining notoriety as a successful therapy for managing anxiety disorder. Here, the focus is not investigating unconscious responses or possible sources of childhood trauma, as with CBT or psychodynamics. Systemic therapy works by looking at your present life as an intricate system of relationships.
This kind of approach aims to identify actual problems in your relationship patterns, within various levels: family, friendships and even work. By locating likely sources of tension that you can focus on releasing, it will often be possible to vanquish your anxiety merely by changing some aspects of the way you relate with others.
1.4 Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is initially developed to treat trauma-related disorders caused by exposure to rape or military combat experiences. But now, it is used to address phobias and other mental problems as well. Primarily, it is based on the theory that anxiety symptoms surface when traumatic experiences are inadequately stored in the brain and poorly processed by psychological coping mechanisms. It believes that when these distressing memories are properly and fully processed the cognitive distortions, emotional distress and physiological symptoms that arise will be dramatically reduced or eliminated.
1.5 Somatic Experiencing
Somatic experiencing is a form of psychotherapy introduced by Dr. Peter Levine who studied and likened the recovery of animals in the wild from life-threatening situations with that of the trauma experienced by humans. This method attempts to release the sensations of physical tension that are immediately created and frozen for years after the body experiences trauma. It believes that this freezing occurs when the survival responses of the autonomic nervous system are heightened but not fully set off after the traumatic event has passed. Hence, this approach tries to resolve the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma-related health conditions by helping patients become aware of their bodies and the sensations that are perceived through them.
2- Pharmacological treatments for anxiety disorder. Most modern psychologists agree that therapy shouldn’t ideally imply pharmacological treatment. More often than not, your therapist will only arrange a pharmacological treatment in specific situations. Usually, this option is reserved for the most difficult cases, since anxiety medications can pose significant health risks and a host of unwanted side effects.
If you’ve been prescribed pharmacological products to aid your recovery, it’s always a wise idea to do some research about the medication you’re taking. Being informed is simple enough in this day and age, and it’s usually a good idea.
The following chart lists the most common medications used in the treatment of anxiety disorder.
3 – Complimentary techniques
The following treatment options are often recommended by psychologists as a complement to psychotherapy. You should think of these strategies as your personal anxiety management toolkit: a set of tools that you can learn to use, which may be helpful in moments when your inner turmoil seems to be getting out of hand.
3.1 – Relaxation techniques. It’s really annoying when people tell you to just relax and let go of anxiety, right? Truth be told, they are partly right – except they don’t know it’s impossible for an anxiety sufferer to “just” relax. However, there are techniques you can rely on to induce relaxation with relative ease, such as deep breathing exercises and meditation.
It’s not by chance that therapists applying CBT usually encourage their patients to practice such techniques as “homework” of sorts. Relaxation techniques can be most useful, especially when anxiety starts creeping into your thoughts for no apparent reason.
Either by yourself or with the guidance of your therapist, you should learn as many of these techniques as you can, in order to find out which ones work best for you. Relaxation techniques can play an important role in your recovery, especially if you actively integrate them in your daily routine.
3.2 – Physical Exercise. Research evidence clearly suggests that regularly engaging in physical exercise will not only promote your physical health but also your psychological health. In fact, it’s not by chance the overwhelming majority of anxiety sufferers are people with a highly sedentary lifestyle.
Lack of physical exercise has been demonstrated to be one of the main contributing factors to the surge of anxiety disorder in this modern age. Getting physically active won’t magically fix your anxiety problems, but it may decisively contribute to your recovery.
3.3 – Nutritional supplements, such as Magnesium. Recent research has suggested that patients suffering from anxiety often present a nutritional imbalance, meaning that using nutritional supplements may contribute directly towards balancing your anxiety levels.
Conversely, research has also demonstrated that some substances – most notably caffeine and refined sugars – actually add to the anxiety of patients. In short, by avoiding certain foods and improving your nutrition, you can significantly improve your rate of recovery.
3.4 – Alternative medicines, such as herbal teas (Kava Kava, St. John’s Wort and Chamomile). These kind of herbs are increasingly popular with psychologists as well as self-medicating patients because they can effect a positive relaxation with little to none side effects. The effectiveness of the herbal remedies is disputed by some researchers, but there’s a general consensus in that they are unlikely to cause harm.
What anxiety treatment options work best?
Truthfully, there is no treatment option that can singly address the problem of anxiety disorders. Anxiety is a complex and multifaceted condition that can only be treated effectively through a combination of the different treatment options listed above. A study of 101 patients suffering from Generalized Anxiety Disorder proved this conclusion. Each patient of this clinical research was assigned to one of five groups. Each group was treated over 10 weeks with one of the following treatment options:
- Test Group 1) Diazepam
- Test Group 2) Placebo (control group)
- Test Group 3) Cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT)
- Test Group 4) Diazepam + CBT
- Test Group 5) Placebo + CBT
The findings of this research are outlined in the following chart.
Each block in this chart corresponds to one of the five test groups on examination. Each hue of green, yellow, and red signifies improvement, no change, or worsening condition, respectively. The results clearly display how the combination of treatment options Diazepam and CBT significantly help patients relieve their anxiety. On the contrary, patients who were treated with Diazepam solely, felt worse after the treatment.
Anxiety disorders can be devastating and debilitating. Untreated and unmanaged anxiety may contribute to loss of educational and employment opportunities and may lead to difficulties in family and social relationships. Nonetheless, management of symptoms or complete recovery is possible with the appropriate combination of the modes of treatment listed in this article.
References:
1. Clark, David M. 2006. Effective Psychological Treatments for Anxiety Disorders: A Report for the Department of Health in support of the submission to the Comprehensive Spending Review
2. Power, KG et al. (1990) Controlled comparison of pharmacological and psychological treatment of generalized anxiety disorder in primary care
