Phobic and Anxiety Disorder Treatment Efficacy

Anxiety and Phobic Disorder Treatments

Danielle R. Chavez

South University Online

Phobic and Anxiety Disorder Treatment Efficacy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a key treatment for many suffering from phobic and anxiety disorders (Mitte, 2005). This type of therapy aims to redirect behaviors and overcome fears that prevent a patient from following through with day to day living. This type of therapy aims to retrain certain behaviors or responses in various situations that cause anxiety or phobia. In doing so the patient is taught coping mechanisms or can face the fearful situations and in doing so realize the outcomes are not as they had believed to be and created anxiety around. In facing those fearful or anxious situations a patient can therefore move forward with healthy behaviors that allow them to work through their anxious or phobic behaviors. In majority of the studies that used CBT as a treatment the effects were seemingly very positive in nearly all cases. The positive effect results of CBT remained positive in both treatment groups and control groups, showing that the treatment relatively worked throughout any situation for treating patients suffering from anxiety and phobic disorders.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is most beneficial to a patient that is proactive in their treatment, however it can cause struggles or worsen symptoms of depression and anxiety in patients that begin CBT and start to feel negative about themselves as if they are the ones who caused this life altering situation that brought on the disorder or symptoms. It is hard to move past negative thoughts and experiences if you are focusing on you as the problem, rather than the actual issue and the changes in perception to the situation and/or self-evaluation. Cognitive behavioral therapy in line with other supporting treatments can be the most beneficial in an overall treatment plan.

Pharmacotherapy

Pharmacotherapy is treatment in which medications are administered to treat the symptoms associated with anxiety and phobia disorders (Mitte, 2005). In many cases benzodiazepines are the primary medication administered. The effects of these types of medication do not prove to be more effective in the treatment of these types of disorders and do not show that they are more beneficial based on previous research and evidence than studies that used CBT as the treatment method. This method of treatment is highly used in many patients and is generally successful in treating the symptoms associated with the anxiety or phobic disorders, however it is not always the best based on the side effects and the long-term dependency that can be caused during treatment with these types of medications.