Treatment Approaches

How an Anxiety Specialist Facilitates Recovery

An anxiety specialist employs a range of therapeutic approaches to help individuals overcome anxiety, tailoring their methods to the specific needs of each client. These specialists may utilise various techniques and frameworks, including solution-focused brief therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, neuro-linguistic programming and coaching.

  • Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT): An anxiety specialist using SFBT will shift the focus from problems to solutions. Rather than dwelling on the causes of anxiety, the therapist will help clients identify their preferred future and the steps needed to achieve it. This involves techniques such as:
    • Identifying Strengths: The therapist helps the client recognise their existing coping mechanisms and resources, which can be used to address anxiety. They might ask questions to explore exceptions to anxiety, focusing on times when the client felt more in control.
    • Future-Oriented Approach: The focus is on what the client wants instead of anxiety, setting well-defined, achievable goals. The therapist may use questions such as, “How will you celebrate your victory over anxiety?” to help clients envision a successful outcome and build hope.
    • Client as Expert: The therapist maintains the client in the expert position, respecting their knowledge of themselves and their unique experience. They may offer options for addressing anxiety, but will allow the client to choose the approach that they feel is most appropriate for them.
  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): An anxiety specialist using ACT will help clients accept their anxiety rather than trying to eliminate it. This approach focuses on psychological flexibility, which helps clients move towards their values even when experiencing anxiety. Key aspects include:
    • Mindfulness: Clients learn to observe their thoughts and feelings without judgment, creating space for these experiences. The therapist may guide them in exercises to notice their physical sensations and anxious thoughts.
    • Values Clarification: The therapist helps the client identify what is truly important to them, using these values as a guide for action. The focus shifts from managing symptoms to living a valued life, even with anxiety.
    • Defusion: Clients are taught to recognise that their thoughts are just that, thoughts, not necessarily facts or truths. The therapist will use exercises to help clients step back from their thoughts.
    • Commitment to Action: The therapist supports the client in taking actions aligned with their values, despite the presence of anxiety. This is often done using exposure techniques that are framed within the context of values.
  • Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP): An anxiety specialist using NLP will explore the structure of the client’s experience, recognising how their thoughts and feelings are created. This approach helps individuals understand their own thought patterns so they can develop new, more resourceful ones. Key aspects include:
    • Identifying Patterns: The therapist may use techniques to help the client become more aware of the specific ways that they experience anxiety. This can include the identification of ‘triggers’ that elicit an anxious response.
  • Changing Submodalities: NLP involves understanding how our senses contribute to our feelings and behaviour. The therapist may use the ‘swish’ technique or timeline therapy to alter the submodalities of negative experiences.
  • Reframing: An anxiety specialist using NLP will help people think about their problems differently, by guiding the client to change their perception and understanding of anxiety provoking events. This could include reinterpreting anxiety as a normal human ability gone awry, rather than an illness.
  • Coaching: An anxiety specialist who uses a coaching approach will often focus on empowering the client to take control of their own anxiety and make positive changes in their life. Coaching techniques include:
    • Setting Realistic Goals: The therapist helps the client set specific, achievable goals. The focus is on building success and positively thriving, rather than merely surviving.
    • Developing Coping Strategies: The therapist helps the client to learn new coping strategies and how to manage their emotional responses, as well as identify and use the mechanisms that they already have. This may involve techniques for reducing stress, or specific strategies such as breathing exercises, or mindfullness techniques.
  • Action-Oriented Approach: The therapist will encourage the client to take action, rather than getting stuck in a cycle of worry or avoidance. They focus on what the client can do now, as well as what they can do to get closer to their future goals.
  • Building Confidence: A large part of coaching involves helping people to develop self-belief and trust in their own abilities to deal with future events.

An anxiety specialist uses a variety of approaches to help clients overcome anxiety. Solution-focused brief therapy helps clients concentrate on their desired outcomes and identify existing resources. Acceptance and commitment therapy encourages clients to accept their feelings and move towards their values, and not be controlled by their anxious thoughts. Neuro-linguistic programming helps clients understand their personal experience of anxiety, and change their responses, and coaching helps empower them to achieve their goals. Each method prioritises an action-oriented approach that enables clients to take back control over their lives.

John Nolan

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