A Fresh Approach to Treating Anxiety
Each year more than 20 million Americans, more than 5% of the population, seek treatment for an anxiety condition. There are generally a number of treatments that are available to these individuals for helping them begin coping with anxiety. Let’s discuss some of the main pluses and drawbacks of each form of anxiety treatment generally available.
The most common method treating anxiety is through medications prescribed by a mental health specialist. Generally the benzodiazepines are the most common prescribed anti-anxiety drugs, including klonopin and Valium. These medications work best on episodic anxiety attacks. Unfortunately, they are less effective in treating incessant anxiety conditions. The main disadvantage of benzodiazepines is that they are terribly addicting and have a horrible withdrawal syndrome associated with them. Once you begin to use a benzodiazepine to treat your anxiety you will have to take it everyday and failure to do so with elicit extreme withdrawal symptoms. Because of this you should take pause before continuing.
Another common method of treating anxiety is by one on one counseling with a mental health therapist. There are several advantages and disadvantages of this method as well. One unfortunate truth about therapy is that it, on its own, is probably not going to grant you a lot of relief from your symptoms. It can help with certain disturbed thinking and can be great for brainstorming but it is also expensive and time consuming. Therapy also is not likely to result in an anxiety cure.
The dirty truth about therapists is most of them, themselves, do not suffer from anxiety conditions. So while they can be great at talking theories they don’t really have first hand knowledge about what it takes to break free from an anxiety disorder. They do however undergo a lot of training in order to obtain their license. In general, the profession has a ways to go to improve itself in the treatment of anxiety.
The next treatment option is to check in to a psychiatric center for an extended stay. This type of inpatient treatment can be very helpful if your anxiety is crippling to the point that you are unable to function in life. It can be especially helpful if you are contemplating suicide or harming yourself.The first order of business at a hospital is to alleviate the risk of patient suicide. Because of this inpatient treatment centers are especially useful in suicidal cases, though less so in cases requiring more introspection.
The main therapy employed by psychiatric hospitals is called DBT or dialectical behavioral therapy. DBT teaches simple distress management techniques and mindfulness therapy. If you are a severely low functioning human being with a history of suicide attempts or self harm then DBT may be for you. At the other end of the spectrum, high functioning individuals will anxiety conditions will benefit less from this kind of therapy.
Finally, in patient treatment can be very expensive. A decent clinic runs at least $750 a day and if you do not have insurance the cost becomes prohibitive. Still if you are close to taking your life and need the immediate intervention then an inpatient psychiatric clinic may be your best bet.
These options are the most common anxiety disorder interventions. If you want to start coping with anxiety you may want to consider one of these options.
Related posts:
- Posted by Linda
- Tagged Anxiety
