Anxiety disorder therapy

Anxiety disorder therapy

There are two different forms of anxiety disorders:
– Disorders without a specific trigger, such as panic disorders and generalized anxiety disorders. One also speaks of unattached anxiety.

– Anxiety disorders with concrete, specific triggers, such as fear of loss, fear of closeness, fear of failure, phobias such as arachnophobia, etc. They are also referred to as bound fears.

As the treatment is different in each case, this section deals with the treatment of anxiety disorders of bound fears.
In order to treat an anxiety disorder, it is important to understand how it comes about, and in the following we explain the causes of an anxiety disorder. The fears that are responsible for the anxiety disorder are also called pathological fears or fears from the past, as they originated in early childhood between birth and 4 years of age.

Causes of anxiety disorder

The causes of such anxiety disorders come from the past, or from overwhelming or traumatic situations. It is precisely at this early age that a tender and open nature can often be exposed to many overwhelming situations, both internally and externally. The loss or deprivation (withdrawal) of basic needs such as love, affirmation, attachment, affection, tenderness or even unending fears of loss or existence. In these early years, such drastic situations can lead to certain fears or feelings becoming so overwhelming that they can no longer be processed, or are no longer allowed to be processed. When this happens, the stability of the psyche can no longer be maintained. In order to save physical survival, the psyche must now help out with an emergency function. This function is to split off or repress the overwhelming emotion into the subconscious. This secures the situation and also life, but the affected person has a split-off unconscious part within them. This develops a considerable dynamic and harmful, destructive effect in the subconscious, which accompanies, controls and restricts the person affected for the rest of their life. How strong these effects ultimately are always depends on how strongly this repression is charged. This is also referred to as the burden of anxiety or the strength of the tension. The effects can therefore range from weak to dysfunctional and pathogenic and therefore life-determining.
The key here is that the overwhelming emotion could not or was not allowed to be accepted/processed. The solution is therefore to reverse precisely this process, to accept and allow the unaccepted emotion.

Symptoms of anxiety disorders

Anxiety disorders can have very profound and very restrictive effects. They can go so far as to have a pathological effect, determine life and ruin relationships. They also block the content of anxiety. For example, if someone has a strong fear of criticism, criticism is blocked and, whether the person concerned wants to or not, they are usually unable to talk to them about criticism. The fear is blocked. The same applies to fear of closeness, for example. Closeness is thus blocked, i.e. it can simply no longer be experienced. This is why W. Reich already said in Freud’s time that character is defense. Because character (neurosis structures or character structures according to A. Lowen and W. Reich) comes from defense mechanisms. These are there to exclude the repressed emotion from the world of experience from the moment of splitting. It can then no longer be accessed or experienced. It is also warded off from the outside and no longer allowed to be perceived.
If this emotion nevertheless manages to penetrate the consciousness from the outside, for example, the affected person is triggered or the repressed emotion is activated, which usually leads to a short but very intense outburst of anger and hatred.

Anxiety disorder therapy

However, regardless of the age at which an emotion was split off/repressed and how strongly charged the anxiety is, it is possible to thoroughly work through an emotion again. The best-known therapy is confrontation therapy. Here, you are confronted with the fear, which in itself is a resolving process. But because you are afraid of the fear, you would rather do anything but confront the fear. No wonder this is the least popular method of all. Fortunately, there are other methods that also resolve anxiety, but without this unpopular confrontation. For example, the Anxiety Dissolve app from Freeyourbase. The app’s methods work without confrontation and also without traveling into the past! Nevertheless, all the methods in the app are doubly thorough. Firstly, in the sense that the negative cognition associated with the emotion (e.g. anxiety) is also dissolved and that all emotions and cognitions/beliefs are dissolved thoroughly, i.e. completely. Furthermore, anxiety therapy can also be carried out comfortably on your own. You can therefore choose your own pace. The only requirement is that the specific anxiety is within you and that you can recognize (name or specify) it.