Anxiety Question & Answers - Recent questions and answers in CBT

Answered: Where can I purchase the self-help book Anxiety Protocol?

Sun, 04 Dec 2022 16:34:25 +0000

You can purchase Anxiety Protocol here: https://anxietyboss.com/the-anxiety-protocol/

Answered: Please explain how exposure therapy helps with the fear of heights

Fri, 01 Jan 2016 13:23:49 +0000

Please click here to find out how exposure therapy helps with the fear of heights (acrophobia).

Answered: How does CBT help specific phobia?

Thu, 24 Dec 2015 03:57:08 +0000

Please watch the following video on how CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) helps for specific phobia:

Answered: How can CBT be used to treat social phobia?

Tue, 22 Dec 2015 04:41:06 +0000

The following video explains how CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) can be used to treat social phobia (social anxiety disorder):

Answered: What is the best therapy for claustrophobia?

Sat, 28 Nov 2015 23:04:44 +0000

The best therapy for claustrophobia is CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). Claustrophobia is a type of anxiety classified as a specific phobia. The following video explains the development of specific phobia, and how to get help for it:

Answered: Can CBT help for hypochondria?

Thu, 15 Oct 2015 23:11:01 +0000

Yes, CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) can help for hypochondria, also known as health anxiety. CBT involves identifying triggers, which leads to irrational thoughts, which leads to anxiety, which leads to compensatory behaviors, which then maintains the negative cycle of hypochondria. In order to break this cycle, you use CBT concepts to identify how the hypochondria develops. Only when you can identify how hypochondria develops, then you can start to address the factors which perpetuates and maintains the negative cycle, and then you can start to eradicate it and have less anxiety symptoms.

So let's look at an example of how health anxiety might develop. Let's say your trigger is stomach pain that suddenly occurs. You might have thoughts about the stomach pain, such as "I might have stomach cancer," or "I might die from this," or "I can't stand uncertainty." These thoughts then lead to anxiety, where you are fearful, worried, tense, and can't relax. The anxiety then makes you overcompensate, where you engage in behaviors to decrease the anxiety, such as over-checking, over-monitoring, over-educating, going to the doctor multiple times, and getting multiple medical tests. The problem with these compensatory behaviors is that it maintains your intolerance of uncertainty, so you continue with your negative, vicious cycle of health anxiety.

To learn more about the negative cycle of health anxiety and how CBT can help, please visit the rest of AnxietyBoss.com and AnxietyProtocol.com.

Answered: Can CBT cure panic disorder?

Thu, 13 Aug 2015 11:11:22 +0000

CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy, can help to decrease your panic attacks, and eventually help to get you functioning again. CBT can treat your panic disorder, as it addresses your faulty solutions that contribute to your panic attacks. CBT doesn't really care what the cause of your panic attacks are- rather, it is focused on the here and now and is only concerned with the irrational thoughts and maladaptive behaviors you have developed as solutions to the problem, but is actually making the anxiety worse.

CBT then does not care about the cause of your anxiety- it is only concerned about the faulty solutions you used, and how to change them. In this way, CBT is not a real 'cure,' as it does not get to the cause of your anxiety. But finding the cause of your panic attacks takes time, can be expensive, and you may never really arrive at the cause due to the psyche not being available completely for analyzing.

Finding the cause, and hence the cure of your panic attacks can be found in insight-oriented depth psychotherapy, such as psychodynamic psychotherapy. But as I said, this can take a long time, is expensive, and you are not guaranteed the the cause will be found, as psychodynamic psychotherapy dwelves into your subconscious, making it conscious for analysis, which is a very difficult process.

That's why CBT is first line treatment for panic disorder, as it skips all the psychological mumbo jumbo that causes the panic attacks, and just cuts to the quick, addressing what is present now, and addresses your faulty thinking and maladaptive behaviors now, which triggers and maintains the anxiety. You can eradicate your anxiety in just a few months of CBT treatment, while psychodynamic psychotherapy can take years.

For more information on CBT, please click here.