Treating anxiety

 First, the therapist starts off by simply explaining what emotions a human being has. So there are good emotions, and bad emotions. Good emotions can range from happiness to awe to gratitude to a feeling of inner peace, to you name it. Good emotions are good, they feel great so we don’t need to do anything about them except enjoy them when they arise. Bad emotions, or negative emotions, fall into three categories, and three only. There is anxiety, or fear. There is sadness, and anger. 

So: fear, sadness and anger. 

 Over the years, I have found that very often, anxiety is an emotion that has the very useful function which is to mask one of the other two negative emotions. So, if we succumb to sadness, how do we prevent ourselves from going down the scary black and possibly bottomless hole of depression? Anger is even more complicated. Good people don’t get angry. Good, well brought up girls, especially; anger not being very ladylike. Men either; a little anger is ok, but not anger directed to those around us we are supposed to love and protect: spouses, parents, children… bosses and superiors at work whom we are supposed to revere and look up to. 

 In therapy, a simple approach that often dissipates anxiety in a very short amount of time is to tackle emotions such as sadness, anger (and frustration, a close cousin of anger), scrutinizing them and asking the question: « If I wasn’t feeling anxious, how would I feel? » To this question very often the patient replies: « Oh, I would feel great. I wouldn’t have a care in the world », but after spending some time on it we start to see either sadness or anger emerge. It is then that a turning point in therapy happens. The patient starts to be aware of their emotions, not just anxiety but others, too, and starts off on the road to realizing that it is we who control our emotions, and not the other way around. 

 

In the next blog post I will talk about anxiety and control, or lack of.