RSS FeedsCognitive therapy for anxiety how does that work?
Thankyou!
I’m not sure if the first answerer has had previous bad experience with cognitive therapy or if s/he just doesn’t understand it but cognitive therapy is not a ’short term’ solution and can in fact can be used as a tool by people with anxiety disorders over their entire lives. Cognitive therapy is a good alternative to pharmaceutical interventions, which often are only short term solutions and often do not tackle the roots of anxiety, only the physiological results of it.
Cognitive therapy is beneficial to people who suffer from anxiety because it helps them to recognise the triggers and causes behind their anxiety and to work towards different ways of viewing ‘anxiety-provoking’ situations. People can therefore take an active role in tackling their anxiety. Therapy sessions would likely involve investigating the different situations that provoke anxiety including examining exactly what features of a situation the person feels anxious about and what negative occurrence they feel is likely to result from these features. Next the therapist may encourage the person to explore the rationale behind these fears and anxieties in a logical, rational manner. The sessions will also investigate other alternative outcomes (more positive outcomes) for situations that are upsetting to the person and the person will be encouraged to explore why they feel the negative occurrences are more likely to occur than the positive outcomes. The end point is that the person learns to focus on the more positive, likely, rational and logic outcome to a given situation, as opposed to the "worst case scenario", which they tend to focus on and become anxious about.
In short, with anxiety disorder, cognitive therapy helps people to alter the way they process a given situation in order to remove the irrational fears and anxieties that they attach to it. Whilst no treatment will ever work 100% successfully with everyone who receives it, cognitive therapies have been shown to be very successful in treating anxiety disorders and mild to moderate depression. However, they do involve effort and patience from the people receiving the therapy in order to have a chance of being effective.
Hope this helps!
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January 26th, 2010
It doesn’t. Cognitive therapy is a quack shortcut that gives nice but only temporary results.
References :
January 26th, 2010
I’m not sure if the first answerer has had previous bad experience with cognitive therapy or if s/he just doesn’t understand it but cognitive therapy is not a ’short term’ solution and can in fact can be used as a tool by people with anxiety disorders over their entire lives. Cognitive therapy is a good alternative to pharmaceutical interventions, which often are only short term solutions and often do not tackle the roots of anxiety, only the physiological results of it.
Cognitive therapy is beneficial to people who suffer from anxiety because it helps them to recognise the triggers and causes behind their anxiety and to work towards different ways of viewing ‘anxiety-provoking’ situations. People can therefore take an active role in tackling their anxiety. Therapy sessions would likely involve investigating the different situations that provoke anxiety including examining exactly what features of a situation the person feels anxious about and what negative occurrence they feel is likely to result from these features. Next the therapist may encourage the person to explore the rationale behind these fears and anxieties in a logical, rational manner. The sessions will also investigate other alternative outcomes (more positive outcomes) for situations that are upsetting to the person and the person will be encouraged to explore why they feel the negative occurrences are more likely to occur than the positive outcomes. The end point is that the person learns to focus on the more positive, likely, rational and logic outcome to a given situation, as opposed to the "worst case scenario", which they tend to focus on and become anxious about.
In short, with anxiety disorder, cognitive therapy helps people to alter the way they process a given situation in order to remove the irrational fears and anxieties that they attach to it. Whilst no treatment will ever work 100% successfully with everyone who receives it, cognitive therapies have been shown to be very successful in treating anxiety disorders and mild to moderate depression. However, they do involve effort and patience from the people receiving the therapy in order to have a chance of being effective.
Hope this helps!
References :
Postgraduate psychology student