Staying Grounded During Uncertain Times

by therapyinsdcom | Jan 16, 2017 | Anxiety, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Ambiguity, a sense of uncertainty about what’s going on or what might happen, is part of life. We all need to be able to tolerate ambiguity, yet this isn’t always easy. This post explores dealing with the unknowns in life and how to handle it.

What in the World is Going on Right Now? 

All around the globe, people are waiting to see what will happen after the seismic shift in the U.S. Presidential election. Many of my clients have spoken about a myriad of emotions, ranging from elation to grief, but all agree it’s uncomfortable to not know what might happen.

Our discomfort for not knowing is well grounded in experimental psychology. Research has shown that when given the choice, most people would prefer to receive an electrical shock immediately rather than wait and possibly be shocked later.

Daniel Gilbert, author of the best-selling book Stumbling on Happiness writes:

“Consider an experiment by researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who gave subjects a series of 20 electric shocks. Some subjects knew they would receive an intense shock on every trial. Others knew they would receive 17 mild shocks and 3 intense shocks, but they didn’t know which of the 20 trials the intense shocks would come. The results showed that subjects who thought there was a small chance of receiving an intense shock were more afraid — they sweated more profusely, their hearts beat faster than subjects who knew for sure that they’d receive an intense shock”.

Two Ways to Handle Anxiety:

We can’t hope to eliminate ambiguity in our lives but we can manage our reactions to ambiguity in healthy ways using one of two techniques that the best cognitive behavioral therapists employ:

– The “Worst Case Scenario” 

This CBT technique helps clients analyze their fears and address them in a logical way.  Not knowing what will happen often leads to an unhealthy level of negative thinking and anxiety. People can be too quick to imagine horrible outcomes. The ‘Worst Case Scenario Technique’ is a seven-step process that individuals can use to confront and manage their fears about the outcome of an event, big or small. The technique can be summarized this way:

1. Picture one of your worries

2. Identify worries associated with that event.

3. List the worries that come from that worry.

4. Use if/then thinking to deal with each worry.

5. Acknowledge your ability to cope with the outcome.

6. Work out how you would handle a “worst case scenario” if it happens.

7. Choose a final image or phrase to use against your worries.

–  The A.C.C.E.P.T.S  Technique

If you find that your rumination is unproductive or gets in the way of doing things you enjoy, temporary distractions can be immensely useful. When there is no way to control an outcome and you find yourself emotionally flooded, it’s time to shift course to a more productive way of doing things. Consciously choosing to focus on something for a time gives your mind some rest and relief. The acronym A.C.C.E.P.T.S stands for distraction techniques individuals can use to feel better fast:

1. Activities – Do some housework or go for a walk.

2. Contributing – Do a little volunteer work

3. Comparisons – Compare your new self to your old self, or yourself to others.

4. Emotions – Do something to evoke the opposite of a negative emotion.

5. Pushing Away – Consciously push the distressing thoughts away.

6. Thoughts – Think about anything else that you can concentrate on.

7. Sensations – Do something positive to engage your senses.

Learn to use one or two of those strategies whenever ongoing ambiguity becomes a real burden. While practicing under the guidance of a therapist can be useful, the techniques themselves are easy to understand.

Quiz: How Well Do You Manage Uncertainty?

Everyone has a different level of tolerance for ambiguity. Wondering how good you are at tolerating ambiguity? There is an easy way to find out. The Tolerance for Ambiguity scale will tell you. You will respond to a set of 16 statements about your attitudes and behaviors. Whether your score is particularly high, or lower than you expected, it is interesting to know where you stand. This information might also be helpful to a therapist who you consult to help you manage anxiety.

Take the Quiz

Life is full of suspense….. Public reactions to the 2016 presidential election make it clear that uncertainty about the future can throw the best of us. We all face personal circumstances that create unhelpful worry and stress. If so, using distraction techniques or working out the worst case scenario and how you can respond constructively can be key cognitive behavioral therapy interventions that you can use to help you feel more grounded and engaged with the real world.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety

by therapyinsdcom | Aug 26, 2015 | Anxiety, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Can Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Treat Anxiety?

Anxiety is a feeling of worry, restlessness or uneasiness that typically occurs when we are faced with an imminent situation or one that we have little control over. While it is normal, and even helpful, to experience some level of anxiety from time to time, problems occur when anxiety is out of control, causes phobias or makes it difficult for you to live a productive and healthy life, hold a job or maintain important relationships.

Anxiety causes emotional strain on the individual, and it can also manifest physically in a variety of ways including causing shortness of breath, an irregular heartbeat, gastric and intestinal distress, insomnia, sweating, trembling and dizziness. In some cases, these physical conditions can only be controlled with medication, but in most cases, they can be effectively treated by managing your anxiety by enlisting a cognitive therapist.

When a cognitive behavioral therapist addresses anxiety we approach the problem from many different angles and target three areas in particular:

• Our emotions
• Our behaviors
• Our thoughts

In addition to addressing the biological and environmental components of one’s life, Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective intervention that addresses all three of these areas. It helps individuals to become aware of their negative thought patterns and self-doubt, learn how to behave proactively when faced with anxiety-inducing situations and feel empowered to utilize their most effective coping strategies as well as develop new ones.

Cognitive Components that Impact Anxiety

Cognitive behavioral therapy provides clients with opportunities to openly examine their own thoughts and uncover beliefs that may be unhelpful. Examples of this include realizing that you think you will fail at a job interview before it begins (catastrophization) or believing that a car crash is imminent anytime you get behind the wheel (fortune telling). This discovery process provides opportunities for change which through confronting one’s faulty logic. Cognitive recognition also provides clients with a clearer understanding of how beliefs influence their mental and physical state when certain situations present themselves. It can also alter ‘self-talk’ and replace it with kinder, more loving and forgiving dialogue that decreases anxiety and increases opportunities for success.

Behaviors and Anxiety

Cognitive behavioral therapy examines how individuals act when faced with a specific situation. The goal is to identify and shift maladaptive habits that people with social anxiety or other anxiety disorders tend to repeat and sabotage potential. Clients are then provided with behavioral experiments to change behavioral patterns and adopt effective coping mechanisms to use in a variety of anxiety-inducing situations.

Changing Emotions

Cognitive behavioral therapy offers opportunities for clients to consider how their thoughts and actions make them feel. By changing how you think about an anxiety-provoking situation and how you act when faced with it, you can change the way that you feel about that situation and sometimes, turn it into a situation that you can turn down the volume of your anxious feelings. This can be a powerful discovery and one that teaches clients how to actively participate in choosing how they will react and what their path will be.

Reach Goals Sooner with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

With cognitive behavioral therapy, clients often see results in as little as a few sessions. This is a major advantage because it has the potential to increase their confidence level and cause them to believe that they can overcome unhealthy anxiety. With their newfound hopefulness, many move forward in a more positive direction and achieve a sense of calm when faced with situations that previously triggered intense anxiety.

Trust and a Strong Client / Therapist Relationship

For cognitive behavioral therapy to be the most effective, it is important that the client is comfortable with the psychotherapist. This is especially true for clients who are prone to extreme anxiety when situations leave them feeling uncomfortable. The highest level of comfort often develops naturally when the therapist treats the client as an equal and an integral part of the healing process. Effective therapists include clients in developing their treatment plan and ask for feedback after every therapy session. Therapists must also realize that each client is an individual, and no one treatment plan will work for every person. This type of attitude fosters mutual respect and cooperation between the therapist and the client. It also increases feelings of hopefulness and curiosity about the potential for therapy that can reduce the number of sessions it takes to reach the client’s goals of reducing or eliminating anxiety and increase opportunities for success.

Anxiety disorders can take over your life and have a crippling effect on your ability to realize happiness but are also one of the most treatable conditions in the mental health spectrum. You can take positive steps to change how you react to stressful situations. As a licensed psychotherapist in San Diego, cognitive behavioral therapy is one solution that I most often recommend to help clients with anxiety walk the path toward happier, more productive lives. If the time is right to realize positive change in your life, contact me to schedule a consultation.