Therapy can be a scary thing to take on. You are being vulnerable with essentially a stranger. You allow them into your life to know all details about you. The good, the bad and the ugly. 

But this can be a good thing if you allow it to be. As we have talked about in the past, anxiety is caused by triggers, which are caused by stress. This chain reaction of diagnosed Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is something that around 3.1% of adults deal with. And this is just those who have been diagnosed. There is still that large percent of people who haven’t been diagnosed and yet, still deal with anxiety. 

Talking with a therapist can help you get to the root of your triggers. For example: if you are struggling with anxiety one week and cannot seem to find the root of why it is so bad that week, some therapists will walk through your week step by step and help you find what has been triggering the anxiety. Once found, they can help you to find solutions or ideas of how to cope with the triggers. 

The symptoms of anxiety are the part that many people struggle with the most. There are symptoms like increased heart rate, lack of focus on everyday tasks, depression, trouble sleeping, shaking, sweating and more. 

There are many different kinds of therapy that can be used to help with anxiety symptoms. Some of which are: 

• Psychodynamic therapy
• Interpersonal therapy
• Cognitive behavioral therapy 
• Exposure therapy
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy seems to be the most popular. The reasoning behind this is because it focuses on behavior, feelings and thoughts and therefore has the ability to enhance the person’s way of life. 

CBT is a combination of cognitive and behavioral therapy. Both of these focus on changing your mind and lifestyle, allowing for a more positive outlook and different ways of thinking through processes. Focusing on more positive outlooks will allow your brain to freak out less when challenging or hard situations come up in life that trigger anxiety. 

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is another kind of therapy that is more targeted toward those with anxiety symptoms that stem from trauma.

This kind of therapy essentially has you think about the scenario that triggers the anxiety symptoms and in your mind, you work with your therapist to find a way past the negative thoughts in the case, and try to change those thoughts to something more positive or allow you to think of yourself in a different light. Meaning, if the person had a traumatic experience that was causing them anxiety attacks throughout their life, and they felt as though they deserved what happened to them, the therapist would help them to think about the situation and rewire their brain to understand that they are a good person and didn’t deserve what happened to them and help them move on from the experience. 

Each kind of therapy can help with different aspects of someone’s journey with dealing with anxiety symptoms. Whether it is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Anxiety Disorder, depression or more… therapy can help the anxiety symptoms that come from these situations in your life. 

Take the time to do research on different kinds of therapy as well as good therapists that can help you achieve the best results. Anxiety symptoms are both easy and hard to pinpoint, but therapy has helped countless people find their solutions over and over again. The idea is that if you have an anxiety attack, you can use EMDR technique to focus on the situation and help to calm yourself down, reducing the symptoms of the anxiety attack.