“How does counseling help anxiety?”

Patients learn to understand how their thoughts contribute to their anxiety symptoms.

Of course it does. Most often there are conflicts that once identified and worked on in therapy , the anxiety can be greatly reduced or mostly eliminated.Sometimes medication is also helpful

Anxiety is a feeling you experience when you have worry/fear about something that has not happened yet. Therapy can help you be more present focused, living in the moment also known as “mindfulness”. People with excessive anxiety and or depression often ruminate about past events (depression) or worry about the future (anxiety) and thereby never really LIVE in the moment. Therapy helps you challenge and reframe your thoughts and by doing that the intensity of your anxious feelings (anxiety) decreases. The best type of therapy for anxiety is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

Hi,

Thank you for your question. Counseling may help a person who experiences anxiety by focusing on anxiety reduction and relaxation techniques, including deep diaphragmatic breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, grounding exercises, mindfulness meditation, practicing positive mantras or positive self-talk, guided imagery and visualization, journaling or stream of consciousness writing, drawing or other forms of artistic expression, listening to music, exercise or going for a walk, petting your dog, and reaching out for support from a trusted friend or family member.

I would also recommend seeking services from a mental health professional through therapy to explore other ways of dealing with anxiety that you can try. There are many forms of therapy to treat anxiety, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), psychodynamic therapy, humanistic therapy, Interpersonal Therapy (IPT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).
I hope this has been helpful!

Best,

Jenna Torres, PsyD

Counseling can help anxiety in many ways. It’s a great tool to talk about and get to the root of the problem that causes the anxiety and even figure out things that may trigger an anxiety attack. Behavioral therapy can work to help gain skills which may allow you to help yourself during an anxiety attack.

Hello and thank you for your question,

Counselors can provide coping strategies to decrease anxiety and help to manage symptoms of anxiety. Counseling can also help to identify the core conflict that triggers anxious thoughts and feelings.

Thank you,

Patricia Harris | MA, MS, LPC

Counseling can teach you and help you practice strategies to decrease the anxiety, as well as give you education and insight on whether displaced fears are occurring, and how thinking processes can influence symptoms of anxiety and ways to debate and change such thoughts.