How To Choose Psychological Treatment For Anxiety – Part9

Welcome again to my series Finding the best treatment for your worst anxiety.

At this step of the series we are still in the step of trying to map the text that present you with some approach or some program to treat your anxiety. Starting from next article we will start to tear the text and go behind it.

But before we do that there are some more keywords I would like to present you with, that are usually combined some way or another with the approaches I previously showed you. This articles therefore will tend to be a little bit more technical then the previous ones, although as usual, I will try to describe the theory not as it usually described – I will do it superficially.

Lets start then…

Biofeedback

From Wikipedia: “Biofeedback is the process of becoming aware of various physiological functions using instruments that provide information on the activity of those same systems, with a goal of being able to manipulate them at will. Processes that can be controlled include brainwaves, muscle tone, skin conductance, heart rate and pain perception. Biofeedback may be used to improve health or performance, and the physiological changes often occur in conjunction with changes to thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Eventually, these changes can be maintained without the use of extra equipment…”

I think that important note here is about “bringing to awareness” as the mean for achieving more control. While biofeedback is a tool that is use to train people to moderate their emotional or behavioral reactions y being aware to physical activity, it is fairly rational to think the equation awareness=control also in another aspect that refer to our behavior – in some cases, over awareness or wanting to have control of everything may be the source of a problem.

Mind mapping

From Wikipedia: “A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing…”

Some important aspects: It can help to organize information so you can easily remember it, therefore feel more secure to use it. It break the hierarchical representation of things, it means it break assumptions about dependencies, it means, it can be used to bring new ideas – it open some doors inside.

Brain areas and psychology

I will not ping you cite about EEG and MRI and other approaches to search brain activity. The important issue is that brain research expose a conjuncture between activity of various areas in the brain and different mental state or mental activity.

Because of its scientific nature, you will find many times a reference to researches of brain activity attached with approaches that can be categorized under the terms of cognitive psychology.

What important and should not forget is that while neurology is described by biochemical and biological terms, psychology is still described in behavioral terms. There is huge gap between these two languages and the fact that this gap still exist, means that we are far from describing our mental life using biochemical equitations. For example, many will not agree with this state, but the fact that some areas in the brain are active in mental activity evolve with recollecting, does not yet say that information is stored in the brain. Is it possible that the brain is only transformer of some “energy” or “existence” we don’t know yet, and can’t discover by conventional scientific tools?

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Form Wikipedia: “Progressive muscle relaxation (or PMR) is a technique for reducing anxiety by alternately tensing and relaxing the muscles. It was developed by American physician Edmund Jacobson in the early 1920s.[1] Jacobson argued that since muscle tension accompanies anxiety, one can reduce anxiety by learning how to relax the muscular tension. PMR entails a physical and mental component.”

One note with corresponding to something I said before few times – this is an example of working directly on the symptom, which is different of course from other techniques that work on some scheme that trigger the symptom or patterns in which the symptom is its effect.

Brainstorming

This is something that I believe many of you know from personal experience – the meaning is to raise as much as possible ideas without censorship. Sometimes in group but can also handled individually.

This can be used for example, for finding or even drawing a scheme of terms that relate with a problem we try to solve. In fact, free associations and brain storming are quite close to each other. So the question is what exactly we are doing and how do we process all those contents.

GAD

From Wikipedia: “Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is an anxiety disorder that is characterized by excessive, uncontrollable and often irrational worry about everyday things that is disproportionate to the actual source of worry. This excessive worry often interferes with daily functioning, as individuals suffering GAD typically anticipate disaster, and are overly concerned about everyday matters such as health issues, money, death, family problems, friend problems, relationship problems or work difficulties. They often exhibit a variety of physical symptoms, including fatigue, fidgeting, headaches, nausea, numbness in hands and feet, muscle tension, muscle aches, difficulty swallowing, bouts of difficulty breathing, difficulty concentrating, trembling, twitching, irritability, sweating, restlessness, insomnia, hot flashes, and rashes. These symptoms must be consistent and on-going, persisting at least 6 months, for a formal diagnosis of GAD to be introduced. Approximately 6.8 million American adults experience GAD…”

What I want you to pay attention here is the word “disorder”. Don’t take this word obviously since it reflect and very specific approach toward mental life and behavior. You may noticed that this is a very “general” definition. Let me say you what – I suffer many of the symptoms which can be related to GAD, but I was never diagnosed to have GAD. Actually, In my treatment, between me and my therapist, I was never diagnosed at all. That take me to the next word – you guess it correctly….

Disorder – The “not so obvious” word

First something from the dictionary: a lack of order; a confused or untidy state; a disruption of normal physical or mental functions.

So why am say that this word should not be taken obviously? Because this word impose a very specific judgmental opinion on our mental life. The purpose of this word has a strong relationship with the tendency to create scientific method of psychology that is parallel with the biology that stand behind the medicine science. This is not incident that mental disorders are usually described by the DSM (see next term) .

Important note about the word disorder is the pay attention the postulate that human behavior need to be assessed and diagnosed prior to deciding what the treatment should be. It means that first there is an effort to find a profile of symptoms and behaviors, and according to that, the treatment will be set. While this may sound a natural common sense, not all the approaches accept this point of view. This is directly bring to the debate – “Who have the knowledge we are searching for?” Is this the therapist or is this subject.

DSM and ICD

From Wikipedia: “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders. It is used in the United States and in varying degrees around the world, by clinicians, researchers, psychiatric drug regulation agencies, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and policy makers.

ICD-10 Chapter V: Mental and behavioral disorders, part of the International Classification of Diseases produced by the World Health Organization (WHO), is another commonly-used guide, more so in Europe and other parts of the world. The coding system used in the DSM-IV is designed to correspond with the codes used in the ICD, although not all codes may match at all times because the two publications are not revised synchronously.”

Creative Visualization

Form Wikipedia: “Creative visualization (sports visualization) refers to the practice of seeking to affect the outer world via changing one’s thoughts. Creative Visualization is the basic technique underlying positive thinking and is frequently used by athletes to enhance their performance…”

GAI – Guided affective imagery

Guided affective imagery (GAI; also known as katathym imaginative psychotherapy) is a method of psychotherapy. It is a therapeutic technique in which a facilitator uses descriptive language intended to psychologically benefit mental imagery, often involving several or all senses, in the mind of the listener. In this method, the imagination plays an important role together with discussions with the client. It was developed by German psychiatrist Hanscarl Leuner, based on his research in guided mental imagery, “catathymic influences” (the interaction of mental contents and emotional processes), dreams and daydreams.

As you can see the power of our imagination certainly play a major role of the curing process. Don’t forget that it also play a major role in the mental state we define as our problem – anxiety. Lets see another term.

Hypnosis

From Wikipedia: “Hypnosis is a mental state (state theory) or imaginative role-enactment (non-state theory) usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary instructions and suggestions.[1] Hypnotic suggestions may be delivered by a hypnotist in the presence of the subject, or may be self-administered (“self-suggestion” or “autosuggestion”). The use of hypnotism for therapeutic purposes is referred to as “hypnotherapy”.

Lets see then…

Hypnotherapy

From Wikipedia: Hypnotherapy is therapy that is undertaken with a subject in hypnosis. The word “hypnosis” (from the Greek hypnos, “sleep”) is an abbreviation of James Braid’s (1841) term “neuro-hypnotism”, meaning “sleep of the nervous system”.

A person who is hypnotized displays certain unusual characteristics and propensities, compared with a non-hypnotized subject, most notably hyper-suggestibility, which some authorities have considered a sine qua non of hypnosis.

Did I forgot some word ? Yes probably many words. Yet I hope the picture of what I am trying to show you become clearer at this point. You need to map the text that read, in order to uncover the underneath postulates. This is the difference between reading blindingly and critical reading.

You don’t required to to be expert of everything to purchase or consume. You have your own job your own occupation, you own expertise. All you have to do is to think a bout text you read in terms of network.

• The text is a suit for network of terms.

• The network of terms is derived by paradigm or speech.

• If you can hold the terms you can hold the network

• If you can hold the network you can touch the paradigm

• If you can touch the paradigm you will use it instead of being hypnotized by its forces.

• If you can use the paradigm you can cross it

And what does it to do with you anxiety? Accepting the Unacceptable

In the following article will do our first step toward crossing paradigms. Why does “Accepting the Unacceptable” is so important. Because the same thing you are doing to the text of some review for some program that offer solution for for anxiety, you will later apply on your own subjective text.

About the Author

To cross your anxiety, whatever psychological treatment you will choose, you will have to cut the bullshit first, then map the terms of your mental experience then cross the scheme that impose anxiety and all other related symptoms. And in the same way as we are doing here, you will not achieve control by knowing better but by breaking things and restructuring.

Ready to continue. In that case Call Me Loco.

Jon Abramowitz: Towards DSM-V: What disorders are anxiety disorders? Part 5/6