Treatments for anxiety

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00:00There's a range of different treatments for anxiety, so let's explore some of those, starting

00:07with counselling and psychotherapy options.

00:10So the most popular is cognitive behavioural therapy.

00:14In this, your therapist will teach you things, so they'll talk about how thoughts and feelings

00:19and behaviours are all connected, and they'll look at consequences.

00:23For example, we have a panic attack when we go to the shopping centre, so we stop going

00:28to the shopping centre, and that provides short-term gains.

00:31We don't have the panic attacks anymore, but in a long time our world gets smaller.

00:35And you'll work through various workbooks and worksheets around that, and kind of learn

00:42how anxiety works and how you could respond differently to different situations.

00:49Then there's mindfulness-based approaches, so here we will actively practice just paying

00:55attention to how we're feeling and what's going on around us.

00:58This might be in kind of formal sit-down practices or informally everyday life, but we'll try

01:05and disconnect from the idea that our thoughts and our feelings are something we have to

01:10react to immediately and are true, but kind of take a step back and just kind of notice,

01:16okay, I'm having this thought, I'm having this feeling, I feel a real urge to run away

01:21from this situation, and I'm going to notice that without necessarily acting on it.

01:27Then we have more counselling and humanistic therapy approaches, so you might hear terms

01:33like person-centred, emotion-focused, gestalt, things like this.

01:38In these kind of therapies, you're going to talk about your feelings in the sessions.

01:42So in the counselling sessions themselves, they're often quite emotionally charged because

01:47we're bringing really tough feelings into the session.

01:51Typically work well if you hate homework because there isn't much homework, but the sessions

01:55themselves tend to be quite emotive, and so rather than in CBT, you kind of go in and

02:02you do the fun talking bit, and then you go out and do the heavy homework, in more humanistic

02:08approaches like counselling is often a shorthand for humanistic psychotherapy.

02:15If you're doing that kind of thing, the counselling sessions are often pretty heavy, but then

02:19there's not as much homework.

02:22So those are your kind of talking therapy options.

02:24Then there's a range of pharmacologicals.

02:28So we're talking about drugs here, and typically to treat anxiety, we're using antidepressants,

02:35and there's a couple of types.

02:36So SSRIs and SNRIs will typically be the first thing your doctor gives you.

02:44So something like citalopram or sertraline is an SSRI, and these target specific parts

02:52of the brain, and then there's also tricyclics or TCAs, you might hear this term as well.

03:00These are typically used if the SSRIs and SNRIs haven't worked, so that's kind of a

03:05second line.

03:06They're all known as kind of antidepressants, but antidepressants tend to work on anxiety

03:13as well.

03:15Then there's stuff we can do outside of the doctor's office or the therapist's office.

03:19So there's lifestyle factors, so things like exercise, sleep, diet, really useful things

03:26to spend time on.

03:28Also the amount of socialising we do, engaging in our hobbies of interest.

03:32All of these are good, that's not to say they're a replacement for going to see a doctor or

03:37going to see a therapist, but they do have an impact on mood.

03:41They can help us feel happier, and so they're absolutely worth investing some real time

03:46in as well.

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