How Anxiety Treatment Works, and When It’s Time to Consider It

Everyone gets anxious about something – the mortgage, the kids, or that worrying noise from the car’s engine. Worry of this variety comes and goes with its objects, and doesn’t need treatment to be dealt with, but some things begin to happen to worry when it takes up residence in a person permanently. It comes unbidden, lingers beyond its welcome, and begins making choices along the way – which invitations get accepted or declined, which routes taken or avoided, and which opportunities pursued or left to wither. At this point, it has ceased to be simply a worry, and has become a condition.

Knowing that and doing something about it are two very different things. Someone dealing with this might look into anxiety treatment in Mission Viejo and still come away with more questions than answers about what the process actually involves. In truth, it's much less dramatic and much more mundane than many anxious people suspect.

Here is a rundown of how this type of treatment works, from the first phone call onward.

The Tell For Worry

Anxious people looking to move from self-awareness to action should know the signs in addition to the symptoms. Persistent worry is a large part of the issue, as in most days spent with it over a period of several months. So are physical manifestations that have no other known cause – heart palpitations, tightness in the chest, inability to sleep, or recurring indigestion. But these are both subsumed by the larger issue of interference – worry interfering with life, narrowing it down to the few acceptable options set out by the anxious mind. There is nothing one needs to do in advance of a first appointment except recognize these signs for what they are. That alone is reason enough to contact a professional – they would rather see someone a year early than a decade late, which is how most people arrive.

What Anxiety Treatment Usually Involves

Most often, anxiety treatment is delivered as talk therapy, and most often within that category is skills-based talk therapy. The skills in question are learning about how the anxious parts of the mind work, talking through feared scenarios to find out if they really are as bad as they seem, and teaching some new mental habits to the part of the mind accustomed to creating alarms where there are none. Therapy sessions for anxiety treatment usually start off every week for an hour at a time, with fewer sessions required as progress is made. Anxiety medications are another possible part of the solution, when they are needed, and the decision to include them is always made jointly. Overall, anxiety treatment is practical and down-to-earth, and more likely to resemble a lesson plan than an episode of Freudian drama.

Why Waiting Usually Doesn’t Help

Anxiety has a built-in system for defeating patience, which is why avoidance is such a disastrous option for someone seeking to make anxiety better. The anxiety always insists that a certain party or meeting will feel awful. When the event is avoided – as it often is – the reward for the avoidant action is a vindicated anxious mind. At the same time, the person’s world becomes just slightly smaller. The reason is simple: avoiding what makes the anxiety flare is exactly what makes the anxiety grow.

What the First Appointment Is Like

An initial consultation is a one-hour conversation to determine what it is that one needs. It is also an opportunity to express how the anxiety makes one feel, how long it has been there for, how it interacts with one’s sleep, and what kind of interference it has with one’s life. It is completely normal not to have ready answers to any of the questions one is asked, and also completely normal to feel anxious about the whole process – all of which have been experienced by every practitioner in this field many times over. Nothing, aside from potentially a tentative recommendation, is decided at this meeting.

What If It Isn’t Just Anxiety?

Anxiety rarely comes on its own, which is the reason why a thorough first appointment will also look into other common companions, including depression, insomnia, and the development of unhealthy coping mechanisms such as substance abuse. This is nothing to be ashamed of – it is common, if anything, for a person to experience several of these alongside their anxiety, and knowing the full picture is what allows the treatment plan to actually fit the person.

How Much Time It Takes

It is less than most people expect. Skills-based anxiety treatment delivered in weekly hour-long sessions normally takes months to complete, with the possibility of seeing results before the end of the first month. Progress is rarely linear, and a stressful season could very well serve as a trigger for a setback to occur – one which is a normal part of the process. The point of anxiety treatment is never to get rid of anxiety entirely, but to turn it into a tolerable part of living.

Conclusion: When It’s Time to Get It

One hour spent speaking honestly to a stranger may be a big step to take for someone anxious, but it will not be in any way comparable to the years spent lying to oneself about the anxious thoughts and actions, avoiding the things one loves because those feelings are too scary to acknowledge. The worry list was written long ago – the first step is reading it out loud to someone who knows what to do with it.

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