A Traditional Medical Approach May Not Be Enough

http://anxiety-treatments.com/

For most anxiety-related conditions, the best that medicine can do is keep some of your symptoms at bay, and even that claim is questionable. The more we learn about the medications used to treat anxiety, the more we learn that these drugs often have unwanted effects that are worse than the anxiety itself.  The root cause of anxiety is rarely—if ever—addressed in a medical model. Only the symptoms are treated. That means you may never learn the source of your anxiety, and, as you may have already discovered, fear of the unknown brings on the worst kind of anxiety. 

You may be fearful your anxiety is untreatable, or that it means you are crazy, or on your way to a lifetime of hospitalization and treatment. You may be  fearful your anxiety may build into dramatically worsening conditions and phobias. You may be fearful that even though you’re learning to deal with your anxiety, you suspect that new symptoms will appear and you will be unable to control them. You may be fearful that for the most part, doctors, unless they

are psychiatrists, think you’re faking it, or that your problems are all in your head. You may be fearful because most doctors don’t have an answer when you ask if your anxiety is going to affect your family, work, and friends. You may be fearful that, over time, your anxiety is going to lead to other, more dangerous, conditions such as heart attacks, suicide, or even cancer. You may be afraid that you will never be able to overcome your anxiety, that you cannot stop its inexorable march as it seems to envelop and overtake every facet of your life. You may be afraid that there are no answers, no cure, no respite from the discomfort you feel and that no one really understands what you’re going through.

Rest assured, there are answers, and there are ways you can learn to reduce your anxiety.

               You just aren’t likely to hear them from the typical HMO or primary-care physician, who may not even recognize or diagnose your condition, much less know how to treat it, especially now that typical HMO appointments are mandated to end in fifteen minutes or less. You may not be able to obtain an answer from the average psychiatrist, either. These doctors must rush through dozens of patients a day, prescribing drugs and monitoring their effects. They simply won’t have the time, and sometimes don’t have the know-how, to  delve into the complicated and connected conditions anxiety evokes. And even those medical doctors who consider themselves experts in treating anxiety rarely venture into the uncharted territory of dealing with the source of anxiety. Most are content to focus on treating the symptoms of anxiety, not the source. They are comfortable prescribing anti-anxiety drugs, but ask these doctors how to help you remove the source of your anxiety and they will probably  draw a blank.

Copyright © Carolyn Chambers Clark,ARNP,EDD – Originally appeared in Living Well With Anxiety edition by Carolyn Chambers Clark,ARNP,EDD