Overcome Severe Anxiety

Self-medicating to cope with anxiety is inadvisable. Using alcohol and other drugs to numb the pain will only make matters worse. Under medication, the dysfunctional cognitive processes that create the anxiety continue to roll along unimpeded. Drinking, smoking and taking pills to cope amounts to numbing your hand with nova cane so you can hold it over a slow burning flame.

According to scientific research, internet based, therapist-delivered cognitive behavior therapy is an effective treatment for anxiety. The more frequent the therapy, the more immediately the client responds. When I treat clients with severe anxiety, I recommend "front loading": start off with a minimum of two to three 80 minute sessions a week for the first three weeks.

By the fourth week it's common to decrease the frequency and duration of sessions: one to two times weekly for the next month for 50 minutes. From here, clients more easily maintain improvements.

By the third month, they have learned and implemented the skills necessary to cope with and to prevent the onset of future anxiety. They have managed to:

Integrate psychotherapeutic interventions fromCBT and EMDR in adaptive cognitive processes outside of session.

• Develop guided relaxation and visualization techniques to help decrease levels of physical discomfort
• Increase daily social and work related activities.
• Understand and no longer need any possible "secondary gain" associated with the anxiety, i.e., subconscious benefits.
• Identify positive alternative views of reality that counter the validity of anxiety producing perspectives.
• Identify an anxiety reduction method that has been effective in the past and increase the frequency of its use.

Despite it's proven effectiveness in treating severe anxiety, CBT can be difficult to access. Although CBT software programs are available online, the research indicates that working with a therapist, real-time using a web cam is the best way to go.

Most important to remember about anxiety: no matter how severe it is, it can be healed. You CAN overcome your anxiety. I encourage you to browse this site for more in-depth information on how to make psychotherapy work for you.