My name is Dr. Tom McDonough from Good Therapy SF, and a common question that we’re asked by our clients is, “Can anxiety be cured?” It’s a simple question with maybe a not so simple answer. But generally speaking, yes, we can absolutely help with anxiety symptoms. What we consider to be cured really depends on the person.
So let me explain a little bit further. So some anxiety disorders are more situational. And some tend to be more prevalent, so obviously it’s a little bit more situational, something as an adjustment disorder, for example, with anxiety features. That might be something that’s much more situationally based. That’s going to be much more of a short term response.
But something that’s a bit more of a long term and more complex, obsessive compulsive disorder or post traumatic stress disorder, those might be situations that might take longer to work with. And while we can definitely help people extinguish the symptoms associated with those disorders, there still are going to be more long term effects as well.
So how do we do that? One of the ways in which we work with the symptoms for some of these disorders that are more short term versus long term, we’re always going to use cognitive behavioral therapy. And cognitive behavioral therapy is just what it sounds like. It works with your cognitions and your behaviors to try to identify the unhelpful symptoms that are coming out through the disorder and then help you develop more adaptive or helpful coping strategies with your thoughts and your behaviors to find solutions that work.
In addition to cognitive behavioral therapy, we’ll also use maybe more mindfulness approaches as well, that tend to fall under dialectic behavior therapy.
And we always encourage lifestyle changes as well to have a more holistic approach here.
It’s also not unusual for some of our clients to reach out to other prescribers that are able to prescribe medication. Sometimes antidepressants or SSRIs are also used for depressive or anxiety disorders.
But it’s also important when working with anxiety disorders, in general, is making sure that we can have long term strategies that help in reducing these anxiety symptoms. Again, these long term coping mechanisms are going to fall back on the cognitive behavioral therapy skills that are taught in therapy, and then utilized over time.
In conclusion, yes, we are able to work with all anxiety disorder symptoms, and some disorders are a little bit easier to cure in the short term than others, but please be aware that there is always hope when working with anxiety. And if this is something that speaks to you or you have more questions about your particular anxiety symptoms, please feel free to reach out to us at Good Therapy SF.
Take care.
