Anxiety is the body’s natural response to stress. As defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, anxiety is “a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.” Anxiety will manifest differently in different people. The feelings of anxiety can range from mild to severe. While fleeting anxiety is unavoidable, it is atypical for an individual to experience frequent, intense, debilitating, persistent worries and/ or fears related to everyday situations, and such anxiety could be indicative of an anxiety disorder. There are different types of anxiety disorders listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) asserts: “Anxiety disorders are a group of related conditions, each having unique symptoms. However, all anxiety disorders have one thing in common: persistent, excessive fear or worry in situations that are not threatening.” Anxiety disorders are serious mental health conditions that require professional treatment.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) was developed in the 1960s by psychiatrist, Aaron Beck. CBT is a structured form of psychotherapy that “targets multiple areas of potential vulnerability (e.g., cognitive, behavioral, affective) with developmentally-guided strategies and traverses multiple intervention pathways.” Cognitive behavioral therapy relies on a goal-oriented approach to hone healthy coping mechanisms for reducing anxiety and toxic stress. In CBT, a therapist will encourage his or her client to discuss his or her troubling thoughts and/ or feelings. The steps of CBT include the following, provided by Psychology Today:
- Identify troubling situations and/ or conditions in your life.
- Become aware of your emotions, thoughts, and beliefs connected to these troubling situations and/ or conditions.
- Identify inaccurate and/ or negative thinking that may be contributing to your troubles.
- Reshape inaccurate and/ or negative thinking. To help facilitate this step, a therapist may encourage an individual to consider whether their view of the situation and/ or condition is based off an inaccurate perception of the situation or off facts.
The CBT framework aims to help people break unhealthy behavioral patterns by identifying and replacing dysfunctional patterns with positive thinking patterns. Cognitive behavioral therapy encompasses numerous strategies to help teach healthy coping mechanisms for regulating emotional challenges. CBT is based on the notion that one’s thoughts govern one’s feelings, which are directly linked to and influence one’s behaviors. It focuses on challenging and changing unhelpful cognitive distortions and behaviors, improving emotional regulation, and developing personal coping strategies to problem solve effectively. Through addressing and actively working on adapting unhelpful and inaccurate thoughts and feelings, an individual can learn to replace damaging thought processes with healthier behaviors and more positive emotions, which can help them prevent, reduce, manage, and even become more resilient towards anxiety.
Treatment In Calabasas
Calabasas is a city in California. It is a well-known suburb of Los Angeles, located west of the San Fernando Valley and north of the Santa Monica Mountains. Over the past decade, the city of Calabasas has grown in its reputation for luxury as well as for privacy which makes it a hidden gem for residential living for society’s elite, and one of the most desirable destinations in Los Angeles County. It is also home to a plethora of highly qualified mental health clinicians providing an array of therapeutic services and treatment options.
The information above is provided for the use of informational purposes only. The above content is not to be substituted for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment, as in no way is it intended as an attempt to practice medicine, give specific medical advice, including, without limitation, advice concerning the topic of mental health. As such, please do not use any material provided above to disregard professional advice or delay seeking treatment.
