Learn More About Anxiety and Find Helpful Resources
I specialize in counseling for anxiety and related concerns using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT is well researched and is considered the gold standard for the treatment of anxiety disorders. Visit the links below to read more about anxiety disorders and the recommendation of CBT for treatment.
American Psychological Association on Anxiety
National Institute for Mental Health on Anxiety
What is Anxiety?
My oversimplified answer to this is that anxiety is our brain’s natural alarm system working far too well. Some anxiety is good for keeping us alert, focused, and aware of threats. It becomes a problem when our brain is warning us about threats that are either not real, not probably, or uncontrollable. Anxiety becomes an even greater problem when we develop actions to avoid feeling our anxiety. Suddenly we find ourselves performing very real behaviors to keep us safe from often irrational fears. Because our brain can come up with constant “what ifs” to be anxious about, we get into a vicious cycle of creating avoiding behaviors to an ever growing number of anxieties.
The Anxiety Disorders include:
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder – Persistent and excessive worry about a number of things.
- Panic Disorder – Spontaneous panic attacks or fear of recurring attacks. Often without apparent trigger.
- Social Anxiety Disorder – Excessive worry related to public situations, crowds, judgment of others, or social performance.
- Specific Phobias – Excessive worry related to a specific event, setting, thought, or other thing.
Closely related disorders include:
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – Worry associated with intrusive thoughts. Often includes a ritual behavior in response to thoughts.
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – Fear/worry following traumatic event which often includes re-experiencing, re-arousal, and avoidance behavior.
How Does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Help?
CBT is about learning to take our life off of auto-pilot and more accurately experience, understand, and respond to our emotions. The skills learned through CBT allow you to notice your emotion as it occurs, feel your impulse to act, and then challenge that impulse with more helpful or accurate thoughts. Learning how to label emotions, notice impulses, and evaluate them gives you freedom to make new choices about your response to anxiety.
Counseling for anxiety using CBT includes learning these skills and them putting them to use by challenging your anxiety. The most effective therapy for anxiety involves intentionally approaching the triggers that cause anxiety with new skills and a new mindset so that the brain re-learns it does not have to signal a threat to that situation. The opposite (avoiding triggers) actually serves to validate the brain in sending those threat signals.
Medication For Anxiety
I do not prescribe medication for any mental health concern. This is outside the scope of my practice. I also neither advocate for nor against medication. Sometimes our biology responds well to medication and sometimes it does not. I will let you and your prescribing doctor determine that. The general consensus seems to be that Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors are most effective for the treatment of anxiety disorders. SSRI is a category including a number of different medications and you should speak with a doctor to discuss which might be most beneficial for you.
I’ve included an article describing the different medication options available for anxiety
Other Treatment Options
You will often hear about relaxation skills, exercise, yoga, and other alternative treatments used in counseling for anxiety. I hold the belief that almost all of these could be helpful for some people. They won’t all be helpful for all people. I certainly advocate for having a varied toolbox for responding to your anxiety, however, and encourage most of my clients to use relaxation skills are some point (breathing or grounding).
I don’t often teach these skills early in treatment because they can also be used in attempts to avoid anxiety and paradoxically increase its intensity. What happens when you get anxious and attempt your deep breathing skills but nothing happens? This is why it’s important to develop a new attitude about anxiety and learn the cognitive skills for responding to it.
Relaxation skills are useful in addition to CBT skills, but they are not always great replacement for those skills. Just like a skilled artist does not always follow the “rules” of their art, they must learn how to paint by the rules before they know when to break them.
Resources
Blog Posts
Assessement
Videos
Stopping the Noise in Your Head – A humorous video series about a woman and her relationship with anxiety from Dr. Reid Wilson, an expert in treating anxiety and OCD.
How The Amygdala Learns – Dr. Wilson on how the amygdala creates anxiety and why we need to experience anxiety in order to teach it stop producing so much anxiety.
Webpages
http://theocdstories.com/ – website for resources about OCD as well as personal stories from OCD sufferers. Also a podcast where OCD sufferers and OCD treatment experts discuss OCD. Many of these resources are useful for other anxiety concerns as well.
https://adaa.org – Anxiety and Depression Association of America
https://www.treatmyocd.com/ – Website and App for OCD self-help treatment
Books
Stopping the Noise in Your Head – Dr. Reid Wilson. I highly recommend this book for understanding how to relate to anxiety
Don’t Panic – Dr. Wilson on panic attacks
OCD Self Help Workbook – This self-help book includes detailed descriptions of the CBT approach to anxiety treatment as well as practical skills for implementing this approach.
Getting Help
If you would like to begin personalized one on one treatment for you anxiety, use the button below to request an appointment. You may also contact by phone at 423.491.5822.