PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR ANXIETY DISORDERD TREATMENT
Psychotherapy has sometimes been the only treatment people have tried. It can be difficult to see the relevance of psychotherapy to anxiety disorders, but if we have a history of childhood abuse, or undergone some other trauma, psychotherapy is very important. Despite the sense of shame many of us feel over these issues, they do need to be dealt with for our long-term well-being. There are very understanding and caring therapists working in the area of childhood abuse, and the local public hospital or community centre can refer anyone who needs help to these therapists.
Even if there is no major past or present trauma, psychotherapy, in conjunction with other therapies, can be extremely beneficial.
Some of us are frightened of psychotherapy in case we find out we are ‘really bad’ people. This is one of the most common fears associated with psychotherapy, but it has no basis. We have this fear because we have never had a sense of who we are.
Take the risk. We will discover there is nothing ‘bad’ about us. Like everyone else, there will be aspects about ourselves we may not like. Only when we know these aspects can we modify and integrate them.
Psychotherapy means more than just looking at the problems and difficulties of childhood. It is not so much a process of who is to blame, as a process of understanding causes and effects. It looks at how we, as children, responded in certain situations. These responses created our defences, motivations and patterns of behaviour that we unconsciously carried into adulthood, but which may not be appropriate now. When we become aware of these responses, we are then able to change them if we want to.
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