Article by Alex Diamond
Many times the human personality with all its achievements is regarded as a defensive structure which serves to avoid or escape pain and does not reflect constructive motives which serve intellectual, esthetic, or altruistic aims.
If individuals conclude that their present abilities compare unfavorably with what they think they should be, or what others think they should be, they will experience some degree of anxiety. The severity of anxious feelings depends on how badly individuals expect they will do in a situation, how much control they will have in a particular event, and how critically they will be judged afterward.
Amongst the more common childhood behaviour problems, where environmental and circumstantial factors are conducive to positive change, and where the child’s most significant relationships are secure and healthy, anxieties tend to be acute rather than chronic and lend themselves readily to amelioration wiith general beneficial results. But when anxiety is the habitual response to certain situations or events, as in the more complex behaviour ‘disorders’, the child’s response pattern can be explosive
Though it is not intended to be an instant anxiety cure in itself, clients exhibiting a variety of anxiety-related symptoms such as smoking, use of mind-altering drugs, compulsive overeating, compulsive sex, performance anxiety, floating anxiety, and phobias have benefited from cognitive therapy.
Panic disorder is a distinct clinical entity manifesting the classical features first described by Freud in 1895, who called it anxiety neurosis (Freud, 1895). The symptoms vary little among patients. They experience overwhelming feelings of terror and a fear of dying or going mad. Acute somatic discomfort, which cart mimic a cardiac episode, includes chest pains, choking sensations, dyspnea, parasthesias, dizziness, sweating, palpitations, and hot and cold flashes.
The perception-based theory of anxiety has proved to be an effective way for clients to better understand their feelings of anxiety and how they evaluate themselves in a variety of contexts. The easily mastered, yet powerful, beginning exercises based on the theory are first steps in helping clients to recognize alternative ways of perceiving their world (which underlies their anxiety), and to gain a new sense of mastery over some contextual contingencies.
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