Anxiety is a big presenting problem in all its manifestations and official terms: generalized anxiety, social anxiety, obsessive symptoms, phobias, and so forth. For treatment, contact my office for an in-person session in Rockville Centre, New York. I also offers telehealth services from Rockville Centre and Union City, New Jersey.  Anxiety can indeed improve with treatment.  Probably most therapists can treat anxiety fairly well. After doing this for so long, my goal is to get my clients up to speed with some concrete results in career, income, personal efficacy, or job or academic advancement once the anxiety is managed.  Many therapists will treat anxiety adequetely, but a goal is to  little beyond that and get the person achieving some concrete goal they are interested in.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety or "angst" is an old term.  Treatmemt can be varied.  Oftentimes it remits if the person can remove certain stressors from their life, make gains in their income, status, or relationship, or, if biologically based, either through genetics, brain trauma, chronic pain, make lifestyle or physiological changes via medication.  If there is some event that is enhancing anxiety--school or job application, divorce, litigation, then managing those stressors is important.  With internet, many teens seem to know almost as much as I do about anxiety. 

The physiological components of anxiety include muscle tension, heart palpitations, sweating, shaking, tightness in the chest, “rubbery” legs, or “butterflies in the stomach.”  Anxiety can also occur secondarily in disorders like depression, bipolar disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), or traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Exposure to trauma may create or enhance anxiety. Most therapists treat trauma, and I have done hundreds of evaluations, probably thousands, for the VA and other institutions.  My tendency more recently is avoid the common habit of describing every single human problem as trauma. Unless a person has been in combat,  assaulted, or sexually abused, I tend to find other conceptualizations besides trauma.    As with other disorders, I try to help the client fix symptoms and then excel in career, academics, financial capability, position, or general sophistication in dealing with relationships and other people.  

Here are some of the individual components of anxiety:

• Startling easily
• Difficulties sleeping
• Trouble concentrating
• Trembling in the hands or legs
• Pounding heart rate
• Constant muscle tension
• Panic attacks
• Obsessive worry or rituals
• Continuous worry about something bad happening
• Feelings of numbness in the extremities
• Dissociation

Anxiety symptoms can “wax and wane” over time, shifting in severity or seeming to disappear, only to re-emerge later in stress.  

Are there different types of anxiety?

Physiologically the different types of anxiety share chracteristics. Some, however, are located in different portions of the brain. 

Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is the fear of venturing away from a safe place. After a panic attack, individuals may develop “anticipatory anxiety,” in which they fear having another attack and avoid places they associate with previous panic attacks.  The isolated quality can be exacerbated by remote work or an internet-only lifestyle.

Avoidant Personality Disorder is not really an anxiety disorder, but a personality disorder. but seems similar to social phobia, or rather a conglomeration of social phobias. Theodore Millon writes especially well about this personality disorder.

Separation Anxiety Disorder

This disorder can affect a child who fears separation from a parent, worries that close figures may leave or be injured, fears burglars or storms that may harm family members,  or is unable to concentrate at school because of worrying about a parent.

How is anxiety treated?

I (Damon LaBarbera, PhD)  have treated anxiety disorders for over three decades, using behavioral and cognitive behavioral techniques, coaching, lifestyle changes, and stress management exercises.  Generally though, my treatment has become more and more being able to strategize with the individual to handle and then master whatever interpersonal, vocational, familial, or beurocratic wangle they have gotten into. My greatest reinforcement is seeing clients improving their life situation, and I avoid working with people entrenched with defeatist, chronically invalid lifestyles.

CBT teaches you to change the flawed thoughts fueling your anxiety and transform the accompanying emotions. The effect of traumatic memories can be lessened by cognitive processing of stressful events. 

Call Damon G. LaBarbera, PhD, today or book an appointment online for expert anxiety relief.