Generalized Anxiety Disorder
All of us feel anxious at times. We may worry about things that have happened, or about things that might happen. Anxiety can make us irritable, or lead to a restless night’s sleep. What separates anxiety from an anxiety disorder is the amount of disruption your worries cause in your normal life. People with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) tend to worry excessively and constantly about a variety of things, such as health, finances, and work or school performance. Furthermore, these individuals find it difficult to control their worry.
Many people with GAD feel their worry is “out of control” and that it will make them sick or even make them insane. These worries are expressed through different symptoms that severely impact one’s normal daily life. These symptoms may include:
- Low energy
- Muscle tension
- Problems concentrating
- Difficulty sleeping
Many people with GAD say that they have been “worriers” all their lives. Chronic worry can take its toll on the system, often opening the door to a host of other problems including depression, and physical complaints such as muscle tension and irritable bowel syndrome.
In addition, many people who have this problem find that they avoid others because they fear rejection, or they become overly dependent on others because of their lack of confidence. This cycle of avoidance and dependence can significantly impair one’s interpersonal relationships and cause problems at school or in the work place.
At the Tarnow Center, we treat anxiety disorders by empowering our clients to take back control of their lives. Our goals are to train the client to reduce the overall level of anxious arousal, decrease the concern about worry, and assist the patient in reducing their worry to a reasonable level. As with all our work, we approach the treatment of anxiety from multiple angles.
- Biofeedback: Biofeedback works by teaching specific anxiety management skills to the client. Biofeedback employs the use of technology to make the client more aware of the internal processes that contribute to anxiety, and in doing so, teaches the client to better control these processes.
- Neurofeedback: Neurofeedback is similar to Biofeedback in that it utilizes technology to help the client become aware of internal processes. But neurofeedback specifically trains the client to normalize dysfunctional brainwaves that lead to anxiety.
- Individual therapy: Individual work teaches the patient to distinguish between productive and unproductive worry, and helps the client to challenge the “beliefs” that contribute to anxiety.
- Group Therapy: works by placing the client in a safe and structured social environment, allowing him or her to continue doing the work amongst peers. The social component of group therapy can be invaluable in addressing the interpersonal difficulties that often accompany anxiety.