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
Almost 40 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans receiving health care from VA hospitals have one or more mental disorders.
A new study, published in the July 16 online edition of the American Journal of Public Health, reported this and other shocking news about the mental health of our veterans of the Middle East wars.
The study’s principal author, Dr. Karen H. Seal, an assistant professor of medicine and psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, had even more distressing news. She said:
When the definition is expanded to include diagnoses of mental health disorders or psychosocial behavioral problems such as homelessness, or both, 43 percent of these veterans received these diagnoses.
If previous history with Vietnam-era veterans is any guide, the burden of mental illness will follow these veterans for many years to come. The research reported on in this post seems to back this idea up.
The findings of the study and its implications are detailed under the following headings:
- How the study was conducted?
- What were the findings of the study?
- The incidence of mental illness among veterans is accelerating
- It can take years for Anxiety Disorders such as PTSD to develop
- What are the implications of the study?
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
Veterans
You experience a pounding heart, sweaty palms, and dizziness. What do you think of? Are you frightened? Do you think you’re going crazy?
People who get scared when they have these symptoms — even if the cause is something as mundane as stress, exercise or caffeine — are more likely to develop a clinical case of an Anxiety Disorder, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or Panic Disorder, according to recent research. The chronic fear of these kinds of symptoms is a condition called Anxiety Sensitivity.
Those of us with Anxiety Disorders — and those of us without — can become hyper-aware of bodily sensations that lead to anxiety. When this awareness becomes morbid and takes over our lives, it can easily be labeled Anxiety Sensitivity.
Anxiety Sensitivity is a concept introduced in the 1980’s which has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers and clinicians. It is thought to be a preventable precursor to developing Anxiety Disorders, and a treatable condition for those who have already have a disorder.
This article explores Anxiety Sensitivity and its implications for you under the following headings:
- What is Anxiety Sensitivity?
- Is Anxiety Sensitivity inherited or is it learned?
- What is the relationship between Anxiety Sensitivity and Anxiety Disorders?
- Treating Anxiety Sensitivity
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Anxiety,
Anxiety Disorder,
Anxiety Sensitivity,
Panic Attack,
Panic Attacks,
Panic Disorder,
PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
A new study has found a significant link between asthma and Anxiety Disorders, particularly Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Other research has shown a positive link between Anxiety Disorders and asthma, but this is the first to focus on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and to take into account genetic, demographic, and environmental factors. The research was published in the second issue for November 2007 of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, from the American Thoracic Society.
Although the link was proven, the causes of the relationship between asthma and the Anxiety Disorders is not known. There are common risk factors with both asthma and the Anxiety Disorders, but how they operate is unknown, nor is whether the asthma comes first or the Anxiety Disorder comes first.
This post discusses this new research and its implications under the following headings:
- How was the research conducted?
- What the research discovered
- What are the Anxiety Disorders most closely associated with asthma?
- What are the reasons behind the link between asthma and Anxiety Disorders?
- Summary: More questions than answers
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Anxiety Disorder,
Asthma,
Panic Disorder,
PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
by Mike Nichols on September 24, 2008 · 6 comments
Drugs are commonly used in conjunction with therapy to reduce the effects of Anxiety Disorders.
One of the purposes of psychiatric medications is to relieve a person’s symptoms enough to allow therapy to be effective. This has been a standard approach for years.
A radical new approach to drugs and therapy has been proposed by researchers and published in the June 15, 2008, issue of Biological Psychiatry.
Instead of using drugs to relieve symptoms, they propose using certain drugs to enhance learning during therapy sessions, improving the effectiveness of behavioral therapy treatment for Anxiety Disorders.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Anxiety Disorder,
Exposure Therapy,
Medications,
OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,
Panic Disorder,
PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
Therapy
by Mike Nichols on September 23, 2008 · 5 comments
Modern psychiatry has long held that Anxiety Disorder and depression are two distinct conditions.
However, in the real world, many suffer from both. Surveys show that half of Anxiety Disorder sufferers also have symptoms of clinical depression. And 60-70 percent of people with major depression also have an Anxiety Disorder.
Evidence is growing that they are really two aspects of one disorder. Looking at them that way, some experts say, could speed the development of therapy and medications that better treat both conditions.
David Barlow, director of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University, states that:
[Anxiety Disorders and depression are] probably two sides of the same coin. The genetics seem to be the same; the neurobiology seems to overlap.
This post explores several similarities between Anxiety Disorders and depression, along with the risks of getting both disorders, the benefits of early treatment, and a summary of how the disorders are treated together.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Anxiety Disorder,
Depression,
OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,
Panic Attacks,
Panic Disorder,
PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
SAD - Social Phobia,
Specific Phobias
by Mike Nichols on September 15, 2008 · 0 comments
by Mike Nichols on September 10, 2008 · 3 comments
Stress seems to be just another component of the modern life.
It is so common that it is treated as a joke by standup comedians, in tv sitcoms and in the print media. Here’s one for you, brought to you by one of the prominent stress reduction gurus:
- Picture yourself near a stream.
- Birds are softly chirping in the crisp, cool, mountain air.
- No one knows your secret place.
- You are in total seclusion from that hectic place called “the world”.
- The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.
- The water is clear.
- You can easily make out the face of the person you’re holding under the water…
Can you relate to this joke? It’s funny because you can picture being at the breaking point, with the person causing so much stress leaving the picture permanently.
But stress is no laughing matter. It can ruin your physical and mental health. It can ruin your relationships and make your life a living hell. Following are lists of signs of stress to watch out for, along with information on how stress can affect your body and mind.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Bipolar,
Depression,
GAD - General Anxiety Disorder,
Mental Health Professionals,
OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,
Panic Attacks,
Panic Disorder,
PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
SAD - Social Phobia,
Stress
by Mike Nichols on September 2, 2008 · 1 comment
The evidence keeps building for physical causes for Anxiety Disorders.
The Met158 gene variation has been found to cause an exaggerated “startle” response among people prone to develop Anxiety Disorders.
Inborn differences may help explain why trauma gives some people bad memories and others the nightmare of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Scientists in Germany and the United States report evidence in a new study linking genes to Anxious behavior. The findings appear in the August issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, published by the American Psychological Association.
Although a great deal more research is needed, Christian Montag, co-author of the research, says that if this line of research bears fruit, one day
it might be possible to prescribe the right dose of the right drug, relative to genetic makeup, to treat anxiety disorders.
[Read the entire article...]
Tagged as:
Anxiety Disorder,
Genetics,
PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
Research
