Cognitive Behavioral: Therapy for Anxiety Disorders, Research Paper Example

Abstract

Anxiety disorders are more common than most people think. These disorders are usually overlooked or dismissed despite being particularly responsive to treatment when diagnosed early in life. Cognitive Behavior Therapy is designed to help patients make changes in cognition and behaviors related to their anxiety. Many psychiatric disorders displayed in adulthood likely exhibit their first manifestations in childhood, if left untreated these anxiety disorders in children likely progress to adult versions. Anxiety disorders can impair a person’s ability to function and contribute to low self-esteem, poor academic or sports performance and exacerbate depression and other disorders.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety is a subjective sense of irrational fear, worry and distress. These feelings are normal even for children and it is important to determine the level of anxiety and whether it has reached pathological or unhealthy levels. Anxiety manifests itself on two levels: the physical level, characterized by perspiring, headache, nausea, etc., and the emotional level of fear or even panic. Anxiety disorders can affect a person’s thinking and impair decisions making skills, perceptions of the world around them and their ability to concentrate and learn. Severe cases can raise the victim’s blood pressure and heart rate, induce nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, ulcers, diarrhea, tingling sensations, physical weakness and shortness of breath. (Goldman, 2001)

Traditional psychotherapy is sometimes called “talk therapy.” By contrast, cognitive behavior therapy is a dynamic process therapy based on changing thinking patterns that lead to irrational behavior. Unlike traditional psychotherapy, it does not involve looking backward in time at core causes of psychological disorders. For younger patients, the Cognitive Behavior Therapy should also include changing the thoughts and behaviors of the caregivers. (Goldman, 2001)

Conventional psychological therapy often involves educating the caregiver or patient on how best to change the problematic behavior through a structured environment with appropriate consequences for the wrong behavior. This may not be sufficient for a patient who suffers from excessive levels of anxiety because his or her interpretations of daily situations can become skewed because of a faulty thought process. (English, 2005) Treatments may include a combination of the following: individual psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, family therapy, medications, and consultation with schools in the case of children. (AACAP, 2004)

A simplistic definition of Cognitive Behavior Therapy comes from Aaron Beck, often called the “father of CBT,” who says that CBT teaches people how to answer themselves when the way they are talking to themselves is dysfunctional. (Beck, 1997)

Children who have distorted cognition often experience severe anxiety as a result. Psychological interventions that identify and address the child’s distorted cognition are needed to improve the child’s ability to more realistically interpret and respond to their cognitive impressions of their daily life. These children need to change behavioral reactions to those that are more appropriate for the given situation and identify and reject faulty thoughts about themselves and their behavior. (Beck, 1997)

Cognitive Behavior Therapy includes strategies for changing faulty cognition that contribute to the patient’s distress, to learn and manage behavioral responses to foster healthy psychological adjustments. CBT can be effective in treating problems arising from disruptive or aggressive behavior, internalized disorders like anxiety and coping with physical pain. (English, 2005)

A good cognitive-behavioral program utilizes both cognitive and behavioral procedures such as in vivo exposure and cognitive restructuring to help the patient deal with anxiety. In general terms, in vivo exposure therapy involves subjecting a patient to anxiety-producing stimuli for a long enough period of time that it decreases the intensity of their emotional reaction to it. Eventually, the fearful situation loses its ability to create anxiety within the subject. In Vivo exposure refers to treatment carried out during real situations while imaginal exposure asks the patient to imagine fearful situations while employing relaxation techniques. This type of procedure is called systematic desensitization. (Ollendick, 1994)

There are variations in the practice of exposure treatment including: patient-directed exposure instructions or self-exposure; therapist-assisted exposure; group exposure; and exposure with response prevention. (Ollendick, 1994)

Once the patient’s symptoms of anxiety are identified, the therapist may work with the person to use these symptoms as cues to employ relaxation techniques such as deep-breathing exercises and conscious muscle relaxing by groups. (Ollendick, 1994)

References

Beck, A. T. (1997). “The past and future of cognitive therapy,” Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research, No. 6, Pp 276-284.

English, Taunya, (2005) “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Eases Anxiety in Children and Adolescents,” Health Behavior News Service, Washington, DC, October 18, 2005, accessed online on March 2, 2012 at: http://hbns.org/getDocument.cfm?documentID=1149

Ollendick, Thomas H., King, Nevill J., and Yule, William, (1994) “International Handbook of Phobic and Anxiety Disorders in Children and Adolescents,” Springer Publishing, NY.