Anxiety Disorders, like all Mental Health Disorders, take a serious toll on your personal and professional life. Without professional intervention and treatment, anxiety can overwhelm your emotions, enforce negative thought patterns, and prevent you from living life to the fullest. With professional treatment, however, you can overcome these challenges, heal from trauma and negativity, and regain control over your life.
Licensed Clinical Psychologists treat Anxiety Disorders with a variety of evidence-based therapy models. Learn about these different therapies and how they help patients achieve their clinical objectives with this overview.
Understanding Different Types of Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety Disorders include a wide range of Mental Health Conditions with different causes, symptoms, and treatment needs. As such, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to treating an Anxiety Disorder. Instead, Licensed Clinical Psychologists create tailored treatment plans to address the unique experiences and challenges of each patient.
This process starts by understanding what type of Anxiety Disorder you have. The different types of Anxiety Disorders include the following:
- General Anxiety Disorder
- Agoraphobia
- Panic Disorder
- Social Anxiety Disorder
- Separation Anxiety Disorder
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Though all these Mental Health Disorders revolve around feelings of fear, dread, stress, and worry, they are distinct from one another. Licensed Clinical Psychologists understand the intricacies of different types of Anxiety Disorders. With this knowledge, they help patients address, process, and heal from the challenges they face.
Goals of Anxiety Disorder Treatment
Mental Health treatment looks different for everybody. However, the general goals of treatment remain the same for everybody. Below are a few common objectives of evidence-based Anxiety Disorder treatment plans with a Licensed Clinical Psychologist.
Finding the Root of the Issue
Truly effective Mental Health treatment goes beyond simply managing symptoms. It requires you to dig deep into the thoughts and emotions driving your Anxiety Disorder. Licensed Clinical Psychologists know how to analyze your thoughts, emotions, actions, and experiences and help you identify the source of your Mental Health challenges.
Through clinical treatment, you tackle the root of your Anxiety Disorder—be it childhood trauma, attachment issues, stress, self-doubt, or other issues—and work through those challenges to achieve genuine healing. This allows you to process deep-seated emotions, uncover negative thought patterns and learned behaviors, and create lasting positive change for yourself.
Addressing Comorbid Disorders
Many people with Anxiety Disorders also experience comorbid Mental Health Conditions. Common comorbidities for Anxiety Disorders include the following:
- Depressive Disorders
- Eating Disorders
- Addiction Disorders
- Other types of Anxiety Disorders
When dealing with comorbidities, Licensed Clinical Psychologists treat each Mental Health Condition simultaneously. Addressing comorbid Mental Health Disorders individually fails to address the unique challenges they create for patients. Only by analyzing the intersection of comorbid disorders and treating all Mental Health Conditions simultaneously can Licensed Clinical Psychologists and their patients achieve their clinical objectives.
Improving Emotional Regulation
Anxiety Disorders can make you feel like you have no control over your life. Your thoughts and feelings become overwhelming, making it difficult to think clearly, regulate emotions, behave accordingly, and make clear, logical decisions. These challenges make dealing with stress and other hardships feel impossible.
When Licensed Clinical Psychologists treat Anxiety Disorders, one of the main goals is to help clients improve emotional regulation. The ability to feel negative emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them is key to managing stress, increasing resilience, and regaining control over your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Eliminate Avoidance Behaviors
It is natural to shy away from distressing thoughts and emotions. In the case of Anxiety Disorders, however, this can turn into ongoing avoidance behaviors that affect the way you interact with the world. If your determination to avoid stressful people or situations prevents you from pursuing your career, building and maintaining friendships, and leading a happy, fulfilling life, you need help from a Licensed Clinical Psychologist.
One of the goals of Anxiety Disorder treatment is to identify, address, and eliminate avoidance behaviors through distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and other key cognitive skills. With these techniques, you can confront negative experiences with confidence. This reduces the hold anxiety has over you and allows you to create a more fulfilling and positive life.
Evidence-Based Therapies for Anxiety Disorders
Every patient needs different things from their treatment plan. That is why Licensed Clinical Psychologists use a variety of evidence-based therapy models to create treatments tailored to each client’s unique needs and goals. By combining techniques and objectives from different therapies, psychologists create treatment plans that go at the client’s pace to thoroughly and effectively address the challenges they face.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is one of the most common forms of evidence-based therapy. Its goal is to create a collaborative, supportive, and non-judgmental conversation between a client and their Licensed Clinical Psychologist.
Through this conversation, psychologists identify the root cause of the patient’s Anxiety Disorder and use that information to correct negative thought patterns, reduce maladaptive behaviors, and improve mental and emotional well-being. With Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, patients see themselves and their circumstances in a clearer, more objective, and more productive manner.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, also known as DBT, revolves around the development and use of four major cognitive tools: distress tolerance, emotional regulation, mindfulness, and interpersonal effectiveness. These skills make it easier to manage stress and other negative experiences when they occur. As a result, clients lessen the impact of Anxiety Disorder symptoms and gain a sense of control over their lives.
Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic Therapy stems from the principles of psychoanalysis, which revolve around the idea that your repressed thoughts and emotions subconsciously influence your current thought patterns, feelings, and behaviors. The goal of Psychodynamic Therapy is to uncover these repressed feelings so that clients can process them and, over time, let go of them. This both addresses the root cause of Anxiety Disorders and allows clients to work through and heal from past traumas and other negative experiences. Psychodynamic Therapy guides clients through self-exploration so that they can achieve clear insight into their Mental Health. From there, they can unlearn maladaptive defense mechanisms and coping techniques and create meaningful and positive change for the future.
Find Anxiety Treatment at Blair Wellness Group
Dr. Blair has experience using evidence-based therapies to create individualized treatment plans for Anxiety Disorders. If you are looking for a Licensed Clinical Psychologist offering treatments such as Psychodynamic Therapy in Los Angeles, contact Blair Wellness Group today.
