Cognitive Therapy For Anxiety

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COGNITIVE THERAPY FOR ANXIETY According to Heller, cognitive therapy is used quite often in cases of anxiety, and is also highly successful. When a patient begins using cognitive therapy to cure their anxiety, the therapist begins by helping them identify their thoughts and fears that may be connected to their anxiety. Often individuals that have anxiety or PTSD following a rape find great success in cognitive therapy. Heller provides specific examples of how this treatment is used for this type of anxiety, "it includes, among other things, imaginal exposure to the traumatic event, cognitive restructuring and relaxation training" (Heller). This form of treatment has a long lasting effect for the individual suffering from the disorder, unlike …show more content…
A popular treatment used in this form of therapy, an exposure technique developed by Joseph Wolpe, is known as “systematic desensitization”. When using this technique in therapy the patient is first taught relaxation techniques. Next, the therapist and the patient create a hierarchy of all the patients fears that firea the anxiety attacks, arranged from least anxiety provoking to most. The therapist then instructs the patient to imagine the least provoking fear while still maintaining the relaxation technique that they had learned before. After each fear is imagined successfully without a panic attack beginning the patient is instructed to imagine the next fear, going down the hierarchy until anxiety attacks are no longer being avoided. Heller informs the audience that there is empirical evidence indicating that this treatment is exceptionally successful, especially in the case of treating anxiety flared by phobias. …show more content…
These prevention programs include many principles and practices that are used in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), such as problem solving skills and challenging pessimistic thinking. To prove that this form of prevention is successful for at risk adolescents a randomized controlled trial took place. The trial consisted of 316 at risk adolescents, ages 13-17. These teens either had symptoms of depression, had past history of depression, or had parents who suffer or had suffered from depression. Some were randomly assigned to CBT and some to usual care in their community. The teens that were assigned CBT underwent 90 minute group sessions, followed by six monthly maintenance sessions. Within 1 year after the study had begun, 21% of the CBT admitted youths experienced a depressive episode, contrasted with 33% of the usual care youths. Even in the prevention of depression, cognitive therapy has proven to be successful in treating individuals to overcome this disorder. The article states that in milder forms of depression individuals often find support in small interventions, such as psychotherapy, although for those who suffer from much more severe depression the combination of both, psychotherapy and antidepressant medication is much more effective.
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