Do you ever experience fear, dread, or worry without a clear reason? If so, you may struggle with anxiety. Symptoms of anxiety can feel scary when untreated, and can make functioning in life difficult. Anxiety is more than just stress or occasional worry. Anxiety can feel heavy, all-consuming, fearful, and like things will never improve. Luckily, anxiety can be treated effectively with therapy. We also understand it can be scary to start therapy. This is a valid and common feeling. But we want to assure you that therapy is always worth the effort put into it. Expert counseling helps provide patients with a space to practice evidence-based tools to help them understand their anxiety better.
What Are Anxiety Disorders?
Anxiety disorders are a type of mental health disorder marked by symptoms of excessive fear or worry that are difficult to manage. Anxiety is more than just everyday stress or concerns. Some examples of these disorders are panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and social anxiety disorder. The good news is that anxiety is treatable, and there are evidence-based treatments that can help people with these disorders live fuller lives. Addressing the symptoms early can prevent them from getting worse.
Symptoms of anxiety are:
- Consistent feelings of fear, worry, or stress
- Avoidance of anxiety-causing behaviors
- Unresolved traumas can disturb the nervous system and lead to a heightened stress response
- Difficulty functioning in daily activities
Why Professional Counseling Helps
Working with an anxiety counselor can help people struggling with their mental health manage their symptoms. Managing anxiety alone without support can be challenging, if not impossible, depending on its severity. Everyone deserves to have extra support, especially when dealing with such challenging circumstances. People may be able to manage or cope with anxiety on their own for short amounts of time, but working with a therapist for anxiety can offer long-term changes and healing. Everyone needs a little extra support sometimes. Therapists can offer a safe, nonjudgmental space for patients to discuss their behaviors and symptoms.
Ways Counseling Helps Manage Anxiety
Working with a therapist for anxiety can help patients manage, work through, and hopefully decrease anxiety symptoms. Everyone’s experience in therapy will be a bit different, but for the most part, anxiety counseling services follow a framework built to help people succeed in their recovery.
- Create Awareness:
When someone is in anxiety treatment therapy, they will usually start by working with a therapist to develop awareness around their anxiety. Therapists can help patients identify their common triggers and become aware of their thought patterns. Through talk therapy, you can learn where your anxiety stems from. Regardless of what the person in therapy is dealing with specifically, awareness is usually the first step. - Recognize Thought Patterns:
Becoming aware of thought patterns is an important part of working with a therapist for anxiety. Therapists can help patients identify cognitive distortions in their thinking. Yes, sometimes you can be anxious without even realizing it. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) teaches that cognitive distortions are common errors in thinking that can lead to negative feelings or behaviors. CBT teaches that by working through and reframing these distortions, patients will be able to improve their mental health.
- Learn Coping Skills:
Counselors can also help people struggling with anxiety develop coping skills to use when their symptoms arise. Some examples of these common coping skills are journaling, breathing exercises, meditation, mindfulness, and visualization techniques. These tools can be helpful for people to use when symptoms of anxiety come up in everyday life. It’s important to remember that coping skills alone will not heal or combat anxiety. Rather, they are supportive tools that can be used along the journey of recovering from anxiety. - Learn to Not Avoid:
It’s natural for people with anxiety to avoid situations or events that trigger stress. Anxiety treatment therapy can help people work through their avoidance behaviors and reduce them. This process can take time, but it is always worth the effort. Avoidance provides short-term relief but makes anxiety stronger in the long run. Counseling can help patients realize how their avoidance behaviors reinforce their anxiety. Patients can also learn to face the situations they fear through gradual exposure. - Practice, Practice, Practice:
Over time, anxiety counseling can help patients learn relapse prevention skills to help them prevent setbacks. Relapse is never a failure. It always teaches us how to make more informed decisions in the future. It’s important to be gentle with yourself when experiencing setbacks. Setbacks are a part of any healing journey. - Build Trust in Yourself:
One of the largest benefits of therapy is not feeling alone. Therapists have a special ability to support patients in a non-judgmental, supportive way. Through this relationship, patients can begin to trust that they always have someone in their corner to provide support. In some cases, this may be the first time some people have felt that way.
When to Seek Professional Anxiety Counseling Services
Starting anxiety treatment therapy can be frightening and vulnerable. But we want to remind you that therapy can be life-changing and equip you with the tools you need to live a fuller, happier, healthier life. In some cases, it can be difficult for people struggling with anxiety to recognize when or if they need help. Sometimes people think they aren’t struggling enough to seek professional help. But it’s important to remember that everyone deserves healing.
Anxiety can be a serious mental health concern that should be treated as soon as possible. There are a variety of treatment options available for people trying to heal from their anxiety. Working with an expert is a great way to ensure that you are dealing with these struggles in the most informed way possible.
At Progressive Way Therapy, we strive to create a safe, supportive environment where everyone is welcome. Working with a mental health therapist in our practice means that you always have an extra person on your team. We want to support you in any way we can. If you are interested in working with us, please reach out to us here whenever you feel comfortable.
