Anxiety

Most commonly we think of anxiety as an experience of being worried, or nervous or a feeling of unease about something with an uncertain outcome Anxiety takes. It includes feelings of concern, apprehension fear and many more uncomfortable sensations. Many people will become anxious at one point or another. This can be usually in situations like, before a job interview, a driving test or before receiving exam results. In these situations an anxiety response can be seen as normal.

However, the distinction between anxiety disorders and normal anxiety is not always clear. Anxiety can manifest in different forms such as sleep disturbances, panic attacks, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder or excessive worry. Anxiety, though seen as a disorder of the mind may be exhibited in physical symptoms such as sweating, rapid heart rate and pulse, shortness of breath, digestive problems and so on.

Anxiety stems from different sources. Existentialists see anxiety as a part of everyday life and indeed what it means to be human, to be alive. Anxiety is then seen as a normal response to the givens of existence, the inevitability of death, freedom, our ultimate responsibility for the choices we make and our existential isolation. Anxiety about death is rarely presented in its original form during therapy. Humans can engage in various behaviours to ward off the thoughts and feelings associated with the inevitability of death. Some clinicians say that it might be more manageable to the conscious mind to engage in obsessional behaviours or experience phobias as a way of protecting the self from the ultimate fear.

The challenge in therapy then could be to differentiate whether the presenting anxiety is arising out of recent life experiences, such as a health concern, or historically a way of being. Anxiety states are usually related to, or brought to the fore by stressful life events. In these instances psychotherapy or counselling can be beneficial. I find that it my practice identifying the underlying emotions and what particular events have triggered these usually offer relief of symptoms. What is important is the focus on the extent to which the symptoms impact on a person’s day-to-day life.

The difficult emotions associated with death anxiety for some people might be accessible by dreams. Hence I find analysis of dreams an important part of psychotherapy. It is also vital to explore whether an individual had experienced early separation from their primary caregiver, as this is bound to trigger extreme anxiety in a young child. Hence later in life separations and losses can feel unbearable. Early separation can cause a child to feel panicky, hence resultant panic attacks in adult life when faced with similar circumstances.