You have a fear of spiders, or of flying, or of crowds. Are you just sitting there suffering? It’s time to try Exposure Therapy!
Exposure therapy is a type of Behavioral Therapy used to help the patient confront a feared situation, object, thought, or memory and dispel its power to produce fear and anxiety. It involves reliving a traumatic experience in a controlled, therapeutic environment.
The Anxiety Disorders can paralyze the sufferer with ever-mounting avoidance behaviors. While successful for the moment, avoidance just sets aside the fear and anxiety triggered by a situation. They are sure to come back, stronger than ever.
Exposure therapy has been shown to be effective with many of the Anxiety Disorders, including Social Phobia (SAD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), panic attacks and Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia, Adult Separation Anxiety Disorder (ASAD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and specific phobias.
This is the second of a two-part series of articles on Exposure Therapy. It focuses on tips to make your Exposure Therapy successful. Today’s installment has these headings:
- Exposure Therapy: Better in real life or in imagination?
- Tips for successful Exposure Therapy experiences
Yesterday’s Part 1 describes Exposure Therapy and what goes into a typical Exposure Therapy plan:
- Exposure Therapy is based on habituation
- Exposure Therapy counteracts Anxiety Disorders’ avoidance
- Exposure Therapy is a part of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- Characteristics of a typical Exposure Therapy plan
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Adult Separation Anxiety Disorder,
Agoraphobia,
Anxiety,
Anxiety Disorder,
Exposure Therapy,
GAD - General Anxiety Disorder,
Panic Attacks,
Panic Disorder,
PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
SAD - Social Phobia,
Specific Phobias
The neighbor’s dog barks night and day. If you have gotten used to it, you have used one of the root principles of Exposure Therapy.
Exposure therapy is a type of Behavioral Therapy used to help the patient confront a feared situation, object, thought, or memory and dispel its power over them. It involves reliving a traumatic experience in a controlled, therapeutic environment.
In a way, Exposure Therapy is related to the old maxim “face your fears,” but instead of jumping into a terror-inducing situation with both feet, therapy usually advocates a carefully planned, gradual approach to alleviating fears.
Exposure therapy has been shown to be effective with many of the Anxiety Disorders, including Social Phobia (SAD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), panic attacks and Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia, Adult Separation Anxiety Disorder (ASAD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and specific phobias.
This two-part series of articles describes what Exposure Therapy is, and offers tips to make your Exposure Therapy successful. Today’s installment has these headings:
- Exposure Therapy is based on habituation
- Exposure Therapy counteracts Anxiety Disorders’ avoidance
- Exposure Therapy is a part of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- Characteristics of a typical Exposure Therapy plan
Tomorrow’s part of the article will continue the discussion under these headings:
- Exposure Therapy: Better in real life or in imagination?
- Tips for successful Exposure Therapy experiences
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Adult Separation Anxiety Disorder,
Agoraphobia,
Anxiety,
Anxiety Disorder,
Exposure Therapy,
GAD - General Anxiety Disorder,
Panic Attacks,
Panic Disorder,
PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
SAD - Social Phobia,
Specific Phobias
Anxiety Disorders cause severe distress and disrupt the lives of individuals suffering from them.
The frequency and intensity of anxiety involved in these Disorders is often debilitating. Fortunately, with proper and effective treatment, people suffering from Anxiety Disorders can lead normal, productive, and happy lives.
Many people think of treatment for Anxiety Disorders as being solely medication. While drugs can be effective, their remedy is temporary; they work only as long as you take them. And some medications for Anxiety Disorders are habit-forming and cannot be taken for more than a few months at a time.
But there is an equally effective treatment for Anxiety Disorders that will teach you how to manage and control them for the rest of your life: psychotherapy. Although psychotherapy requires more time to work than a pill, it is the best use of your time you will ever experience.
This article discusses the role of psychotherapy in the treatment of Anxiety Disorders under the following headings:
- Avoidance is at the core of Anxiety Disorders
- Why is it important to seek treatment for Anxiety Disorders?
- Are there effective treatments available for Anxiety Disorders?
- How can a qualified therapist help someone suffering from an Anxiety Disorder?
- How long does psychological treatment take?
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Agoraphobia,
Anxiety Disorder,
GAD - General Anxiety Disorder,
Medical Health Professionals,
Medications,
Panic Attack,
Panic Disorder,
Social Anxiety Disorder,
Therapy
Anxiety Disorders in older adults is a huge problem that has been ignored, causing a great deal of unnecessary suffering.
Research on older adults’ Anxiety Disorders lags behind that of other mental conditions, such as depression and Alzheimer’s. Until a few years ago, Anxiety Disorders were believed to decline with age. But now experts are beginning to recognize that Anxiety is as common in the old as in the young, although how and when it appears is distinctly different in older adults.
Sadly, because of the lack of information on Anxiety Disorders in older adults, especially in how to diagnose them, many go undiagnosed and untreated. James Maddux and Barbara Winstead state: 1
[I]n comparison to other diagnoses (e.g. depression) less is known about the etiology [causes], including clinical characteristics, course, treatment, and prognosis of anxiety disorders in late life. … Because anxiety disorders are difficult to diagnose in older adults, they are often undiagnosed.
Yet, late-life Anxiety Disorders are what Keri-Leigh Cassidy and Neil Rector call a “sleeping geriatric giant.” Anxiety Disorders are twice as prevalent as dementia among older adults, and 4 to 8 times more prevalent than major depressive disorders, causing significant impact on the quality of life, morbidity, and mortality of older adults.2
The annual U.S. health care costs due to late-life Anxiety Disorders in 1990 was estimated to be $42.3 billion. The numbers are surely higher now, and likely to go higher yet as the Baby Boomer generation grows older.3
This post is the first in a two-part series on the Anxiety Disorders in older adults. Tomorrow’s post addresses the diagnosis and treatment of Anxiety Disorders, and gives some tips on how to tell if your parent or loved one is suffering from them. This post covers the following topics:
- How prevalent are Anxiety Disorders in older adults?
- What are the most common Anxiety Disorders in older adults?
- Anxiety Disorders in older adults are strongly linked with depression
- What are the risk factors for Anxiety Disorders in older adults?
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Agoraphobia,
Anxiety Disorder,
Elderly,
Elders,
GAD - General Anxiety Disorder,
OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,
Panic Disorder,
SAD - Social Phobia,
Specific Phobias
Living with Health, Wellness and Wholeness is the tag line for this blog.
But what exactly do the terms mental health, wellness and wholeness mean? When you think about it, it’s hard to pin down exact definitions for them.
And the definitions are continually changing for every individual, because mental health, mental wellness, and mental wholeness are processes, in movement, and not static. In a way, we make our own definitions of what they mean for each of us.
To me, these are more than interesting terms or concepts. They are the very underpinnings of this blog, the ultimate goal for every post written.
This is the first of a three-part series presenting the widely-recognized definitions of the terms mental health, mental wellness, and mental wholeness, along with my own definitions and how I use the terms in this blog. Today’s post, on mental health, will be followed by post on mental wellness and mental wholeness in the days to come.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Agoraphobia,
Mental Health,
Mental Wellness,
Mental Wholeness
Suicidal behavior has not been associated with the Anxiety Disorders alone until recently.
It has long been known that as many as 90 percent of suicides in the United States are associated with mental illness, especially substance abuse disorders, schizophrenia, and mood disorders such as depression. Up to 75 percent of all people with depression, schizophrenia or other mental illnesses who attempt or complete suicide also are diagnosed with one or more of the Anxiety Disorders.
As recently as 1999, the Surgeon General could only say that, ” it is likely that the rate of comorbid [simultaneous] anxiety in suicide is underestimated.” There had been no studies at the time of Anxiety Disorder alone being a risk factor for suicide.
However, since then there have been a number of studies of the risks of Anxiety Disorders alone for suicide. It has been universally found that the suicide risk in patients with Anxiety Disorders is much higher than previously thought. Bob Montgomery and Laurel Morris say,
Patients with anxiety problems, especially but not only panic problems, suffer an unexpectedly high rate of heart disease and suicide. Suicide has long been recognized as a risk associated with depression. But [when] researchers compared a group of anxious with a matched group of depressed patients and found that the suicide rates for anxious patients were equal to or slightly higher than for the depressed patients.
This post summarizes some landmark studies from the past three years that have proven Anxiety Disorders, both alone and in association with other mental illnesses, are a significant risk factor for suicidal ideation, attempts, and completions.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Agoraphobia,
Anxiety Disorder,
GAD - General Anxiety Disorder,
OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,
Panic Disorder,
SAD - Social Phobia,
Specific Phobias,
Suicide
The term “panic attack” is part of our common language. We hear it all the time.
“When I saw the electricity bill I just had a panic attack!” Or, “I had a panic attack when I woke up and saw I was two hours late for work!” Or, “When I realized I’d just eaten a raw oyster I about had a panic attack!” All these statements are inaccurate uses of the term “panic attack,” and are what are called clinomorphisms, or exaggerated use of a medical term.
Panic attacks are no laughing matter, and people who have the real ones cringe when they hear the term bandied about in everyday speech like it was nothing. They know the feeling that you are about to die, the intense fear, and the sudden onset are far more than what most people think of as a “panic attack.”
So how does it really feel to have a panic attack? Few people, aside from panic attack sufferers themselves, really know. It’s the purpose of this post to give you an insider’s view of what it actually feels like to have a panic attack.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Agoraphobia,
Clinomorphism,
Medical Health Professionals,
Panic Attacks,
Panic Disorder
by Mike Nichols on September 11, 2008 · 0 comments
The subject of this blog are the Anxiety Disorders, obviously.
But I just realized that, aside from the reference information listed on the sidebar, I have never given a succinct list of what the primary Anxiety Disorders are.
This is the first of a two-part series that describes the main Anxiety Disorders. Note that every heading has a hyperlink to the full Reference article. Today’s post will cover the following:
- General characteristics of Anxiety Disorders
- Agoraphobia
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that about 18.1 percent of the American people age 18 and older suffer from some sort of Anxiety Disorder. That’s 55 million people! According to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), the US economy loses over 42 billion dollars yearly due to undiagnosed, misdiagnosed and under-treated Anxiety Disorders. Less than one-third of those affected with Anxiety Disorder are treated, the ADAA found in a 1999 study.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Agoraphobia,
Anxiety Disorder,
GAD - General Anxiety Disorder,
OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Over and over I see the same things in the comments on the blogs and forums I visit.
People say that they want to reduce or eliminate their dependence on psychiatric drugs. Yet they are not doing anything to do so.
They complain that they are being enslaved by their reliance on the drugs to keep symptoms under control. But they do not take advantage of the single most effective, proven help that could liberate them.
Americans have been trained for over a century to rely on drugs to cure their ills, from the first marketing of aspirin in 1899 to the latest wonder-drug touted on tv. Have a headache? Take an Advil and it will go away. Depressed? You need Prozac. Bipolar disorder? Abilify for you.
Madison Avenue has helped the pharmaceutical companies imply instant and permanent relief from your problems just by popping a pill. And we have swallowed this advertising hype whole! It has made us the most drug-taking nation in the world today.
Pills have become a silver bullet for Americans seeking relief from their woes. They expect drugs to solve their problems quickly and easily, without any extra effort on their part.
No wonder there are so many bitter and disappointed people who feel enslaved by their psychiatric drugs!
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Agoraphobia,
Anxiety Disorder,
Medications,
Panic Disorder,
Therapy
I don’t make it a practice of reposting articles, but I’m doing it this time.
There is a post from July 3, 2008 entitled “8 Tips to Survive Gatherings on the Fourth” that is relevant to gatherings on Labor Day, or Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or any day that you have to go to a gathering or a party. I have updated it and present it here, hoping it will help someone.
It will be especially helpful for people with Social Phobia, Panic Disorder, and those that suffer from panic attacks.
I have to go to a wedding party soon, and you can bet that I will be using those tips myself!
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Agoraphobia,
Anxiety Disorder,
Panic Attacks,
Panic Disorder,
Parties,
SAD - Social Phobia
