Effective Anxiety Treatment

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Anxiety Treatments

To heal from our anxiety issues, the first thing in order is set this straight: Anxiety is a normal and inevitable part of being a human being.

Indeed, being able to feel anxiety is pivotal to our survival. When facing a genuine threat or danger, the stress response, which is our built-in "fight or flight" response, is a most appropriate action to protect ourselves.

Problems happen when the perceived threats that we frequently encounter in our modern lives leave us in a state of persistent arousal with little chances of being released. The stress can build up to a tipping point where it turns into chronic problems.

Counseling and Psychotherapy Services for the North Shore and Chicagoland

Modern life puts us
on persistent stress

These problems might be manifested as:

muscle aches and pains;
sleep problems;
not being able to enjoy the present moment;
restlessness,
difficulty concentrating,
chronic fatigue;
irritability;
emotionally absent in relationships

The Control Paradox

Anxiety responses only become disordered when we try to "take control" over our autonomic nervous systems.

We human-beings are notorious for being preoccupied with control. Often, our first instinct, when confronted with an unwelcome experience, is to try to control that experience. In most cases, this control strategy works well. But when it comes to controlling our anxiety, it seems to have the paradoxical effect.

The more we try to control or get rid of your anxiety, the more the anxiety tightens its grip on us. The more we try to decrease our anxiety, the harder it becomes to cut it down. A similar phenomenon happens when we try to control our thoughts. The more we want to avoid thinking about something, the more that something preoccupies us.

This is known as the "control paradox."

How Anxiety Becomes Disordered

Generally, people try to take control of their anxiety with some of the following mechanisms:

Experiential avoidance:

Experiential avoidance perpetuates our anxiety

Experiential avoidance is the most problematic control behavior for most people who struggle with anxiety.

Anxious people might avoid driving, going out, traveling, social interaction, dirt and germs, or avoiding performance through procrastination.

Avoiding the experiences that we fear, however, actually perpetuates our anxiety.

In life, we can only gain problem solving skills through addressing our feared circumstance. But the use of experiential avoidance deprives us of any experiences that might help us develop mastery over our fear.
As a result, we never get a chance to develop our skills of problem-solving, self management, and wholesome communication.
Catastrophizing:

We either overestimate the probability that things will go wrong, or we anticipate catastrophic events. This way, there will be no surprises. We are always in the "ready" mode to cope. This puts us on a constant vigilance and tension.

As the results of the control mechanism, the normal anxiety reactions become anxiety disorders.

Treating Anxiety Disorders

Fortunately, anxiety disorders are highly treatable with counseling and therapy. Of course, you can choose medication to reduce anxiety in the short-term. To eliminate the chance of relapse, though, receiving psychotherapy will be a better option.

Embracing what it is!

The key to anxiety treatment is to reverse the vicious cycle created by experiential avoidance. This is best achieved through the combination of:

Trauma therapy:
If the anxiety is rooted in past trauma, it can be eliminated by EMDR treatment;
Exposure therapy:
a part of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT);
Mindfulness practice:
a part of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).

EMDR

It is well known that untreated trauma during childhood can derail your life and make you more susceptible to anxiety, depression, alcohol use, and anxiety sensitivity, later on.

This is because traumatic memories are encapsulated in neural networks with impaired encoding, making them unavailable for your brain to process them or resolve them.

EMDR treatment helps you work through these distressing past and get you back on the right track because EMDR can help you gain access to these encapsulated neural networks, so that your brain can reprocess them with more adaptive information process.

As the brain is integrated throughout, your somatic arousal and emotional intensity associated with distressing memories will be successfully reduced.

Exposure Therapy

Research shows that exposure therapy is the most critical part of successful treatment for anxiety problem.

Exposure therapy involves:

cognitive restructuring;
relaxation skills training;
gradual exposure to the situation that causes the anxiety.

Exposure therapy does not involve going into your most-feared situation with little help or with no techniques under your belt.

It also doesn’t mean having to face your worst fears in order to overcome them.

The power of exposure therapy is in intentionally and consciously "creating" anxiety that is within your tolerance level. The anxiety level is upped gradually, so it is always tolerable for you.

You will have cognitive restructuring techniques and relaxation skills under your belt before you embark exposure therapy.

Since exposure is something you "choose" to do, you are choosing to willingly and intentionally experience the anxiety, you have complete control.

Exposure therapy is closely associated with acceptance and commitment therapy as well as mindfulness training.

By being helped and supported to slowly expose yourself to what you have been avoiding, you develop self-efficacy in facing your anxiety and increase your problem-solving skills. You learn that you can let go of your struggle to control the anxiety, you can focus more clearly on the present and what matters most in your life.

Mindfulness Practice

By practicing mindfulness, you will learn to:

Learn to focus our
attention and awareness!

focus your attention and awareness;
observe your own emotions without reacting to them;
accept what is, instead of struggling with it;
observe your own thought process;
detach from your own thought contents;
tolerate your own negative emotions;
make conscious choices that resonate with your value system.

Anxiety is treatable. Don't allow your anxiety to take your life quality away from you any longer!

Help is available. Take action now to develop your self-efficacy and reclaim your inner peace and equanimity.

Dr. Mei-whei Chen, Licensed Clinical Psychologist
737 N Michigan Ave, Ste 2130, Chicago, Illinois 60611
847-915-0331
Website: www.inner-awakening-counseling.com
Email: Mei@inner-awakening-counseling.com