How Psychotherapy Helps With Anxiety: Techniques and Approaches
Having anxiety can make it really hard for you to live your life normally because even the littlest of things can make you stressed quickly. As you stress frequently, enjoying life becomes more and more difficult. If you think that anxiety is taking over your life and not letting you even do normal activities, then psychotherapy can help you get relief.
Read on to know how psychotherapy can help you and what techniques are used.
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A Safe Space
When you get into therapy you will gain find a safe space to share your concerns, thoughts, and emotions. You will find support that you probably did not have till now. Your therapist will listen to your troubles without judging you. He/she/they will also try to understand the reasons behind your anxiety.
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CBT - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
This technique is very popular in treating anxiety. This therapy focuses on identifying the negative thoughts and behaviors that might be resulting in anxiety and stress. Then these negative thoughts are replaced with positive ones to bring change in the behaviors. You will be given homework during this therapy to help you become goal based and develop new and better habits.
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MBCT - Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
MBCT is another technique used to treat anxiety. In this therapy, mindfulness and cognitive therapy are brought together to get results. When you observe your thoughts without judging them, you stop seeing them and yourself in a negative light, which helps change your viewpoint. MBCT helps in the treatment of a variety of anxiety disorders, like generalized anxiety disorder.
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Exposure Therapy
This therapy makes you face your fears gradually, one at a time, in a controlled environment. It is mostly used in case you have phobias or panic disorder. When you start facing your fears, you start believing in yourself more and gaining confidence.
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DBT - Dialectical Behavior Therapy
If you struggle with strong emotions and feel like you need to self-harm. It is a mixture of behavioral and cognitive therapies and mindfulness. You will develop coping mechanisms to manage your emotions, which will result in better interpersonal skills.
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ACT - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
This is also a mindfulness-based technique. The goal of this method is also to observe your thoughts and feeling without judging them. If you suffer from perfectionism or have a fear of failure, then ACT can be very helpful for you as it will help you accept yourself just the way you are and decrease attachments with the feelings affecting you.
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Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic therapy is a technique in which your therapist will help you in understanding the unconscious factors that are making you anxious. For this, your therapist and you will go through your past experiences and relationships to see what might be the reason for your feeling anxiety.
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Group Therapy
Group therapy provides you with a supportive environment. During this therapy, the therapist meets a group of people suffering from anxiety together. This group shares their experiences and feeling which help them know that they are not alone.
If anxiety is very common, psychotherapy for anxiety is also available in varied ways. Don't force yourself to live with this struggle. Contact Advent Counseling and get started with your journey to a better life.