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 Anxiety, Panic and Phobia Treatment 
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­We are alive today because our ancestors were anxious enough to get out of the way of danger, remember their experience well ­and live to pass on anxiety to us today.  Anxiety is a good thing in that it helps us survive danger, gets us up and out of bed in the morning, and helps us be interesting and strive for positive growth.  The demands we face today in the everyday stream-of-life have the ability to increase our anxiety to an uncomfortable level.  What we know about stress and anxiety is that it is cumulative and in today’s world, stressors are everywhere. We all need skills to bring our stress and anxiety levels down to manageable levels.  

We've come a long way in our understanding of anxiety, which is universally accepted as being a basic human emotion. Dr. David Barlow, a world-leading researcher on anxiety has completed an extensive study on its origin and treatment. Barlow, at his Center for Stress and Anxiety Disorders has divided anxiety and its treatment into separate areas:

1. Generalized Anxiety
2. Panic
3. Social Phobias
4. Simple Phobias and other anxiety disorders

Each of the categories of anxiety has a specialized and separate treatment regimen. At The Psychological Center we practice Evidenced-Based Treatment that is proven to be effective in successfully treating panic, phobias, and anxieties.  The treatment is effective in both individual and group treatment and centers around developing and practicing skills in identifying and correcting our thoughts that begin the physiological response to anxiety, along with practicing behavioral changes and challenging our mistaken beliefs with small gradual guided exposures, and with skill building in methods of relaxing our minds and bodies to lower our base level of stress arousal. 

Being aroused into taking action about things we need to accomplish in our lives by a small amount of anxiety can serve us well. However, when anxiety beyond the adaptive point of arousal begins to control our thinking we become physically tense and can be at risk for many stress-related emotional and physical problems.

 Information about anxiety and panic:

 Full blown symptoms of a panic attack include pains in the chest, nausea, having difficulty breathing, rapid pulse, sweating and palpitations and imitate the symptoms of a heart attack.  A panic attack is time limited, feels horrible and is physically harmless.  Short- term treatment cures panic attacks.

 Generalized anxiety is an overall feeling of constant worrying about little or big concerns, feeling keyed up and restless, fatigue, difficulty concentrating as “worrying all the time”, muscle tension and difficulty sleeping due to worrying, sometimes sweating, nausea, diarrhea and an overall feeling of impending doom. 

Phobias are overwhelming and unreasonable fears of an object or a situation that pose little real danger.  Social Phobia is very common with the anxiety symptoms centering around social situations.  Some people have difficulty eating, drinking or speaking in social situations.  Other phobias are overwhelming fears to specific objects (such as dogs or spiders) or situations (such as heights, crowds, or open spaces).  Phobias cause intense physical and psychological distress and affect the ability to function at work or in social situations on an ongoing basis.

There are a variety of Evidenced-Based Treatments that are effective in treating the whole range of uncomfortable anxieties.  Call The Psychological Center today at 978-685-1337 so you can enjoy life to the fullest without uncomfortable anxiety symptoms.

For more information, please click here to email Janice Cotton, LCSW.