Will therapy help my anxiety?

Therapy can be really useful for a variety of mental health issues, including anxiety.  There are a variety of techniques used to help someone with their anxiety.  It is important to recognize that not one therapy technique works for every person.  Therefore, it can be helpful to explore the different types of techniques used to help someone with their anxiety to help decide which one you think would be the most helpful for you.  Anxiety is typically triggered by a situation or event that triggers an anxious thought.  When that is the case, it can be helpful to learn tools that can help overpower anxious thoughts.  If you can overpower your anxious thoughts, that can then improve the anxious response and reduce their power.  For example, if being in a social situation gives you anxiety, it can be helpful to think about what you are thinking in response to the social situation.  Therapy should hopefully help you develop thoughts to overpower those anxious thoughts. For example, in the same situation, if you think that people think you are weird, your counselor should hopefully help you think thoughts that empower you not to feel weird. 

Another piece to anxiety that therapy can help go after is the reaction one’s body has when anxious.  A counselor can help you learn to practice calming techniques that can reduce the power of the body’s reaction to anxiety.  For many of us, when the floodgates of anxiety open up, it can be really hard to think clearly and close the flood gate.  These calming techniques can help get someone’s mind off of the anxiety and stop the flood of anxiety.  This can be especially helpful if someone is having a hard time overpowering their anxious thoughts. 

As you work on anxiety in therapy, a counselor should also help you validate your anxiety.  Anxiety is a normal emotion to experience, and when we invalidate it, anxiety will continue to grow and worsen.  It can also be helpful to validate past moments that you have been anxious about and have been able to cope with it.  Anxiety does not feel good, but if you can validate your ability to cope with it, that can help reduce its power.