Anxiety disorders are the ones that generate the most consultations with a psychologist, at least in my case. One of the most common questions when people who suffer from them contact me is If anxiety has a cure.
I answer yes, although the duration of the therapy depends on factors such as how long the patient has been suffering from it, the primary cause, their involvement in the sessions and their process… The next question is “And what is it like?” one session? I think the best way to answer is with a real example.
The battle against anxiety
Let’s say the patient’s name is Gemma, and that’s how she was part of the session.
-You can’t imagine what I’ve been through these 15 days because of “your fault” – she told me excitedly and ironically.
-Because of me? – asked
-Five. I have gone by bus five times… And when she got home she did it almost running, super nervous, one day almost tachycardic…
-Let me ask you to make sure I understand it correctly… During these 15 days you have gone by bus 5 times.
-Yeah.
-You had… I have noted… 16 years without getting on one. And after all these years you have been able to go not once, not twice… but 5 times by bus.
He looked at me carefully, nodding… and his face went from anger to a shy and proud smile.
-But you can’t imagine how bad I felt afterwards!
-When you came home, for how long did you feel bad? With those symptoms that you explained to me.
-I don’t know… 15 minutes, more or less. One day, surely something more.
-Let’s reflect together on what you told me. When you arrived at my office you had anxiety attacks when you tried to take public transport, any transport, shortly after even when you took your car… and you stopped doing one thing or another. You were afraid, terrified to do it.
-Yeah.
-Let’s continue… But even not doing what you thought scared you and caused anxiety, you continued having attacks.
-Yes – she looked at me thoughtfully.
-And you have continued to have them for 16 years…
-Yes, that’s Jorge. Without knowing why, they came to me.
-You have explained to me that after those “bus trips” you returned with anxiety and that these attacks lasted approximately 15 minutes. You have not mentioned that beyond those moments you have had any more “anxiety attacks”…
-Hmmm… well no, only when I came back from the bus.
-Did it happen to you with the first of those trips?
-Yes, it happened to me with the first one and the others, but I did them, eh?
-Did that first bus trip confirm any of your fears or fears about taking the bus?
-No the truth is no. Nothing happened, everything was… I don’t know, okay, normal, I guess. The truth is that nothing that I had explained to you that I feared might happen happened.
-And during the second?
-No, neither… It was also good, normal. She made me more nervous when I got to the stop, but not much, when I got on… But then I looked out the window and breathed and… More or less fine.
-You explained to me in the first sessions that this fear of public transport or the car blocked you all day, it was a thought that was “haunted” and you couldn’t get it out of your head and you spent hours fearing doing it, even knowing that you didn’t. you would do
-It was horrible, Jorge, I spent days that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
-Has it been like this before these trips you have made?
-No. Well, yes I had a bit of a hard time, but I did it. I decided to do it.
-And you did it…
-Yeah.
-And you did it again.
-Yeah.
-Let me tell you that every time you say yes your face lights up, you tell me that you are very proud of those bus trips.
In a therapy process to overcome anxiety, it happens that when we begin to overcome it, it “rebels” and rebound effects appear. Somehow That irrational fear finds itself up against the wall and tries to regain lost control.. For this reason, the fact that after each attempt to overcome your problem there was an intense, although shorter, episode of anxiety is another part of the process; and a very important one, because the person not only begins to do what he or she had stopped doing out of fear, but because each time he or she does it, the patient becomes stronger and more capable of controlling and facing these episodes.
-Will that anxiety you felt when you came back from the bus block you again and will you stop doing it?
-No! I’m not going to stop doing it. Either her or me.
His disorder begins to understand that he is going to end up losing this battle., that dialogue and mutual understanding are better for you. Now she is too strong and will once again control almost everything in her life, almost… Because there will always be something that escapes us, that is not fulfilled, that happens without waiting… And we cannot decide if it happens or not, but Yes, how we react and what our attitude is to what we experience.
She has learned it, and now her anxiety is learning it.
