A Different Approach to Anxiety – What Works?
“The craze for anxiety” has made anxiety treatments a billion dollar industry. Type “anxiety treatment” in Google and you’ll find all kinds of “cures” and “solutions”, from various forms of psychotherapy, non-traditional approaches such as hypnotherapy, courses, books and seminars, and of course, perhaps the most popular treatment, medication.
What really works?
In the quest for relief, many sufferers of anxiety will have tried many things with only minor benefits… and little or no understanding of the true nature of anxiety.
There is little evidence that the use of medication alone reduces the frequency and severity of symptoms. Many exhibit the same levels of fear and avoidance after treatment with drugs as before. Other methods may take years or provide only temporary relief. Could there be another solution that is far more effective?
Anxiety: Mind or Body?
The way we think of a problem will determine how we approach it and how we attempt to treat it, and conceptions of anxiety may lead to either resolution of anxiety or persistence of symptoms.
The Medical Model
Many believe anxiety is an illness requiring medical treatment. According to these ideas, the symptoms of anxiety are caused by a chemical imbalance, the brain’s hard-wiring or genetic inheritance. Yet, research does not support any of these claims.
The medicalization of anxiety symptoms has a number of consequences. By defining anxiety as an illness or medical condition, many are left feeling that there is little they can do for relief. Sufferers may find themselves feeling like victims of their symptoms and may come to identify with their condition and accepting the label (I’m just an anxious person, there’s not much I can do). These views prevent individuals from resolving their anxiety and can lead to it becoming a life-long condition.
Is medication a solution to anxiety?
The medical model proposes that the solution to anxiety is medication. This is extremely profitable for pharmaceutical companies, attractive to doctors as it is simple and straightforward to write a prescription, and perhaps highly desirable by sufferers in search of fast, rapid relief. But medication is not a solution. It does not resolve anxiety, it reduces the symptoms and provides some relief yet not without side effects.
The downside to medication as a treatment for anxiety, besides the numerous unpleasant side effects, is that it does not help the sufferer resolve any of the issues underlying the anxiety symptoms. Anxiety is not the problem, it is the symptom of a problem. Medication does not solve the causes. Also, medication doesn’t enable a person to learn new and more effective strategies for dealing with stressful life events, handle worries and challenges or acquire tools for taking charge of overwhelming emotions and planning for the future.
What is Anxiety?
Excessively negative predictions of the future
Anxiety sufferers become convinced that negative events will occur. Focusing on what you don’t want to have happen! AND what we focus on Expands. Your unconscious mind does not process negations directly. So if you focus on what you don’t want, you’ll attract more of what you don’t want.
Attention directed to threatening stimuli
Focus is upon danger and the avoidance of danger and unwanted events and circumstances.
Sufferers of anxiety may often have been told, “It’s all in your head.” Actually, it begins in the mind with our thoughts and then moves to the body. The mind produces powerful signals of danger which the body responds to by activating the autonomic nervous system (fight or flight response). The individual is then left overwhelmed by perceptions of danger, the release of adrenaline and other chemical changes and feeling helpless to do anything about it.
Anxiety can be defined as a self-reinforcing cycle of constant fear and apprehension resulting from unconscious and automatic patterns of thinking that have emotional and physiological effects. It can be corrected by releasing negative emotions at root cause using Time Line Therapy (R) as well as using a specific technique to release anxiety from your future time line. Listening to a positive hypnosis track can also help alleviate the anxiety.
Anxiety and NLP
The NLP approach to anxiety begins by viewing anxiety as a unique skill. In the NLP model, problems are seen as learned responses that demonstrate how fast the mind can learn. The implication is that the problem was learned and probably learned quickly.
Richard Bandler (co founder of NLP) states: It’s like everything else. It’s learned. There is a real difference between my view of people which is that they are such exquisite learners. I’m always amazed at how people can learn things so quickly. A lot of what they learn is not worth having learned. Think about how many futile things you’ve learned. But the fact that you can learn all those things is really impressive. (Magic In Action, 15-16)
Bandler goes on to help his client uncover how she produces the panic and helps her see that she is doing something with her mind that others may not be able to do. Then he helps her to resolve the panic completely with an NLP intervention
The Strengths of Anxiety
The NLP model views problems as skills and this means that each unique problem takes unique skills.
If you wanted to have a problem with anxiety, what skills would you need? Anxiety takes creativity, imagination and energy. To produce the symptoms of anxiety one needs to be able to vividly imagine future scenarios, and so vividly that it is as if they are real.
The NLP approach helps people view anxiety and it’s symptoms as something they do with their mind and helps them learn how they produce this result. As one learns how they produce the symptoms the mystery of “Why is this happening to me?” ends and more choices become available.
Perhaps even more importantly, Time Line Therapy(R) techniques have also been shown to release anxiety, worry, panic as well as negative emotions & limiting beliefs from the past. This technique uses both NLP & trance (hypnosis) together. Isn’t it time you got the results you want and deserve? Connect with me to book your consultation and be free of anxiety!
About Lynn:
Lynn Thier will get you there ~ with practical cutting edge methods for making positive shifts, change and performance. Owner of Results Coaching, Consulting & Training, Lynn teaches and consults on how to make change happen. Lynn offers seminars, training’s and programs. Lynn also works with individuals suffering with mental health issues such as Anxiety, Depression & Trauma. Connect today ~ www.lynnthier.com
The post A Different Approach to Anxiety – What Works? appeared first on Lynn Thier.
