Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health condition among adults. While highly treatable, anxiety disorders remain significantly under- and misdiagnosed.

Psychotherapy can be highly effective in reducing anxiety symptoms and improving overall mental health both in the short term and throughout an individual’s life. Psychotherapists offer tailored interventions to address the root causes of anxiety, provide effective coping strategies to manage stress and offer a supportive environment where individuals can express concerns and work on current challenges to improve their overall mental health.

Understanding Anxiety and its Impact on Mental Health

Anxiety is a natural response to stress and a normal part of emotional regulation. Stress is any environmental change that challenges an individual’s emotional equilibrium, including physical stress, financial issues, work-related problems, or major life changes.

While excessive stress can be detrimental and lead to distress, minor, short-term stress (known as eustress) provides motivation and energy to engage in new experiences and overcome challenges. In addressing anxiety, the goal is not to remove stress altogether but to promote eustress while developing strategies to minimize or alleviate distress.

This is well demonstrated in the situation of test anxiety. When the test taker has no level of stress, they may be complacent and inattentive to details, thereby reducing their accuracy and performance. If they are too anxious, their thinking may become disorganized, they may have difficulty concentrating, and their attention may wander to stress provoking thoughts. This, too, may reduce their accuracy and performance. On the other hand, the test taker who has just enough anxiety to improve alertness and motivation, but not too little or too much anxiety, will perform the best on any particular test.

Understanding Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorders are a group of mental health conditions characterized by excessive fear, dread, and stress that are disproportionate to one’s environment. Often, anxiety occurs due to a specific trigger, but not always, and some individuals experience chronic or excessive anxiety without clear causes.

The causes of anxiety disorders are not fully understood, but research indicates they result from a combination of environment, genetics, and brain chemistry. They most likely arise out of a combination of early life experiences and genetic predisposition, with both influencing onset.

While anxiety disorders are one of the most prevalent mental health conditions, affecting nearly 30% of adults at some point in their lives, it is also one of the most treatable mental health conditions.

Psychotherapy is highly effective at addressing the root causes of anxiety and providing strategies to manage stress throughout one’s life. Medication is another treatment option that can be discussed with your healthcare provider to help manage symptoms and is most effective when combined with psychotherapy.

Common Symptoms of Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorders are characterized by consistent and excessive worry out of proportion to one’s environment. This worry can cause distress and lead to avoidance behavior or coping to manage symptoms. Symptoms are both physical and psychological.

• Physical symptoms include restlessness, dizziness, heart palpitations, and stomach pain.
• Psychological symptoms include feelings of dread, irritability, and difficulty concentrating.

These symptoms provide a method for individuals to avoid confronting or addressing potentially stressful events, but they are also hugely distressing and prevent individuals from fully engaging in life. In some cases, anxiety attacks can be a trigger for further anxiety, creating a negative feedback loop that exacerbates symptoms and can be impossible to escape from.

A central goal of psychotherapy is to address stress-inducing triggers, understand why they arise, and provide effective coping strategies to better manage one’s response to anxiety, including reframing negative thought patterns and beliefs that contribute to excessive stress.

How Psychotherapy Addresses Anxiety

Psychotherapy, or talk therapy, is considered the most effective treatment for anxiety disorders, offering a structured approach to understanding and managing the underlying causes and symptoms of anxiety. Key components of psychotherapy include:

• Psychoeducation: Education about both the psychological and physical effects of anxiety and how triggers manifest as specific avoidance behaviors or panic attacks.
• Learning Coping Skills: Teaching effective coping strategies such as deep breathing, cognitive restructuring, and positive self-talk to manage stress long-term.
• Addressing Underlying Issues: Exploring and resolving underlying psychological issues contributing to anxiety, such as adverse early life experiences among peer groups at school.
• Supportive Environment: Providing an empathetic and supportive setting where individuals can discuss current challenges and work on strategies to manage them.

One of the primary goals of psychotherapy is to equip individuals with practical coping strategies that can be applied in everyday situations. For example, learning deep breathing exercises and how to use them during stressful situations provides individuals with a means to regulate both psychological and physical processes through the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for “fight or flight” responses and is primarily unconscious but can be consciously regulated by controlling the breath.

Another common strategy is learning grounding techniques such as the “5-4-3-2-1” exercise. This exercise involves focusing on the environment by identifying five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Grounding techniques redirect awareness from the stressful event to one’s immediate environment, promoting a sense of calm and control.

Types of Therapy for Anxiety

Psychotherapy is a highly adaptable treatment method, and there are many evidence-based practices for treating anxiety. One of the reasons psychotherapy is effective is that it’s highly adaptable and tailored to individuals’ unique needs. Rather than engaging in a one-size-fits-all treatment plan, therapists work with individuals’ unique strengths and current challenges to provide the most appropriate support.

Overall, cognitive behavioral therapy is considered the most effective form of psychotherapy for managing anxiety disorders and has the most significant amount of research backing its efficacy. Other effective options include psychodynamic therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

CBT is a widely recognized and effective treatment for anxiety, focusing on the connection between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. CBT primarily involves identifying and challenging negative thoughts and cognitive distortions (biased beliefs) with more positive and realistic ones. For anxiety, it provides a direct way to change the underlying thoughts and beliefs that contribute to feelings of anxiety and panic attacks.

Unlike psychodynamic therapy, the focus of CBT is primarily on the present and on practical strategies to address current challenges and triggers of stress. In the case of specific phobias, CBT may involve exposure therapy combined with relaxation techniques if it’s a comfortable option for the individual participating in psychotherapy.

Psychodynamic Therapy

Psychodynamic therapy explores the unconscious mind to uncover the root causes of anxiety, often exploring past experiences, unresolved conflicts, and emotional trauma. The approach is more focused on past experiences and the influence of repressed emotions on an individual’s mental health. This therapy can be particularly effective for individuals who experience adverse events during childhood that contribute to current anxiety symptoms.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

ACT offers a unique approach to managing anxiety by encouraging individuals to accept their anxious thoughts and feelings rather than trying to get rid of them. Instead of reacting, struggling against, or downplaying anxiety, ACT teaches mindfulness techniques to accept anxiety without judgment and develop the capacity to let go of attachment to these thoughts and the influence they have on one’s physical and mental health.

Begin Your Journey to Better Mental Health with Start My Wellness

Psychotherapy can be a powerful tool in managing and overcoming anxiety. Through psychoeducation, learning effective coping strategies, exploring underlying issues, and offering a supportive environment, psychotherapy provides an evidence-based and supportive environment to work through anxiety issues and develop strategies to support mental health throughout one’s lifetime.

At Start My Wellness, we are committed to helping you navigate the journey toward better mental health. Our team of compassionate therapists is experienced in helping individuals manage anxiety both in the short term and throughout their lives. We understand the complexities of anxiety and are ready to empower you with the tailored support necessary to manage it effectively.

If you’re ready to take the first step toward managing your anxiety, we’re here to help. Contact us at (248)-514-4955 and meet our therapists to begin your journey to better mental health.

Sources

1. Start My Wellness: Anxiety vs. Stress – What Am I Feeling?
2. American Psychiatric Association: What are Anxiety Disorders?
3. National Health Service: Treatment – Generalised Anxiety Disorder in Adults
4. Start My Wellness: Types of Therapy for Anxiety Disorders
5. Start My Wellness: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy