Anxiety non-medical therapy

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1];Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Vindhya BellamKonda, M.B.B.S [2]

Overview[edit | edit source]

The mainstay of therapy for anxiety is the administration of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. Mostly used Antidepressants , Benzodiazepines (some concern over dependency), buspirone, tricyclic antidepressants , SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors).

Psychotherapy[edit | edit source]

• CBT is a type of psychotherapy that can help people with anxiety disorders. It teaches a person different ways of thinking, behaving, and reacting to anxiety-producing and fearful situations. CBT can also help people learn and practice social skills, which is vital for treating social anxiety disorder.

• Two specific stand-alone components of CBT used to treat social anxiety disorder are cognitive therapy and exposure therapy. Cognitive therapy focuses on identifying, challenging, and then neutralizing unhelpful thoughts underlying anxiety disorders.
  • Exposure therapy focuses on confronting the fears underlying an anxiety disorder in order to help people engage in activities they have been avoiding. Exposure therapy is used along with relaxation exercises and/or imagery. One study, called a meta-analysis because it pulls together all of the previous studies and calculates the statistical magnitude of the combined effects, found that cognitive therapy was superior to exposure therapy for treating social anxiety disorder.
  • CBT may be conducted individually or with a group of people who have similar problems. Group therapy is particularly effective for social anxiety disorder. Often “homework” is assigned for participants to complete between sessions.^[1]

• Meditation may be better than relaxation^[2].

• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) taught in an "8-week protocol with weekly 2.5-hour long classes, a day-long retreat weekend class during the fifth or sixth week, and 45-minute daily home practice exercises" had similar benefit as escitalopram^[3].

References[edit | edit source]

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