Several techniques of therapy are possible to take care of anxieties:
- Behavioral and cognitive therapies
These are brief therapies (usually a few months) during which the therapist will teach the patient to "unlearn" his bad reflexes and to acquire new and better answers. It looks like a deconditioning.
We can imagine that the anxiety attack and its symptoms are a sort of conditioned reflex. In such a stressful situation, at a particular place or time, there is an inappropriate anxious response. It can be a phobia causing the anxiety attack, for example.
During the behavioral and cognitive therapy sessions, the patient will learn to tame his fears, his anxieties. If he suffers from a phobia, he goes, little by little, and through practical exercises, to imagine the phobic object, to succeed in talking about it, then to approach it. He will be able to verify, with the help of the therapist, that the danger is imaginary and that he has no risk of dying. Then, he will learn new adapted answers.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (including the 8-week MBCT program) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) are also useful for relieving chronic anxiety and learning to manage emotions.
In case of social phobia, for example, the therapist will teach him methods to feel more comfortable in society. This is the behavioral aspect of the therapy. And in the cognitive domain, the patient will learn to identify the pattern of thought that leads to these anxiety attacks. Unlike analytical therapies, he will not have to search his childhood memories to try to discover the traumatic event.
- Analytical therapies
They are longer than behavioral and cognitive therapies, but their goal is to get to the bottom of things. For this, they can be a relay to behavioral and cognitive therapies. Once the symptoms are overcome, we can try to find the origin. Analytical therapies can be done vis-à-vis, in dialogue with the therapist, or lying on the famous couch. It must be recognized that in recent years they have become more and more interested in other techniques that seem to show better and faster results, such as behavioral therapies.
- hypnosis
Hypnotherapy sessions may be necessary in order to clear the blockage and allow you to put the words, more easily, on the evils. Hypnosis techniques are very effective on anxiety. The state of great relaxation in which you will be immersed, will allow you to express your discomfort more easily. By suggestion, the therapist can help you acquire new "reflexes".
- The alternative medicines
If you suffer from transient anxiety, not too disabling, you can consider relaxation methods such as cardiac coherence, sophrology or yoga. These techniques are quite popular today. Do not hesitate, either, to document you. There are many books that deal with your case. Read them. It's a good way to domesticate and understand your troubles. You are not the only ones to experience them. And, when certain situations bother you, if it has not turned to phobia yet, do not try to avoid them. It is the repetition of avoidance that generates great fears.
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