Maybe you have felt anxious your whole life, or maybe anxiety is a brand new experience for you with a recent panic attack; either way, you are wondering does therapy really work? How can talking to someone for an hour a week or every other week really change anything? Research again and again shows that therapy really does work! And it helps in a variety of ways.
Understanding Anxiety
The first thing therapy does is help you understand your anxiety more. What are some of the root causes of this anxiety? What are your anxiety triggers? You likely have some anxiety triggers you don’t fully recognize or understand. For example let’s say you have a fear of flying. What is the thought that is triggering the anxiety? Two people can have the same anxiety but it is being triggered for very different reasons. For example maybe your fear of flying has nothing to do with flying in an airplane and everything to do with navigating the airport or missing your flight. Or maybe the fear of an airplane has nothing to do with being in the air and everything to do with being in a tight space with 200 strangers. So the first step in therapy often includes increasing your awareness and understanding of your anxiety.
Changing your relationship with anxiety
The second thing that tends to happen is a shift in a client’s relationship to anxiety. Often times clients come in wanting to stop feeling anxious. But that is not exactly how that works, what ends up happening is they start to shift their story around anxiety. Anxiety is a part of themselves that is looking out for them and those they love. Clients begin to have some gentleness and understanding that this is not a bad part of themselves but rather a loving part that is simply over-protective. And when they start to shift this relationship the hold that anxiety used to have starts to loosen.
Gaining tools for managing anxiety
Therapy helps clients gain tools for managing anxiety. You know that advice you have probably heard a million times? Take deep breaths. Not likely the thing you want to hear when you are anxious but understanding how our breathing impacts anxiety, or managing anxiety can give us a real time tool for when anxiety starts to creep up. Therapy helps clients to learn tools as well as practical ways to practice them and use them. Deep breathing is just one example of an anxiety management tool a client may learn in therapy.
Having the language to ask for support
When clients start to understand their anxiety differently they can then explain it to those around them who love them. Therapy gives clients the language for asking for the support from those they love. (Hint: the support we want may not always be the support we need or would be most helpful. For example I have clients who for years asked for others to alter their plans because of their anxiety but in the course of therapy they realized this support was actually making their anxiety worse.)
Not in it alone
Anxiety or any other mental health struggle can be isolating and easy to think no one understands. The great thing about therapy is not having to be on the journey alone. This is your journey, we are just here to support you in it. We have helped many others on the same journey so we have some ideas of what may work but at the end of the day this about what works for YOU.
Let us know if we can support you on your journey.
Anxiety Counselor in Charlotte, NC
Theresa Leskowat MS, LCMHC is a therapist in the Dilworth/Southend area of Charlotte, NC. Theresa specializes in helping clients manage anxiety, mange perfectionism, lower stress, and process grief and loss.