A Remedy for dealing with anxiety and depression

[BridgeTheGap]

The patient looks around frantically. She is sobbing, panicking, overwhelmed by anxiety. She says she can’t breathe; her lungs are about to collapse; her heart is about to stop. She feels like she is going to die.

Listening to this, Stanford psychiatrist David D. Burns calmly asks, “Do you think you could exercise strenuously right now?” Terri doesn’t know; she just feels so bad. “Why don’t we find out?” Burns suggests. “What’s the most strenuous exercise you could do? Jumping jacks? Running in place?"

Uncomfortable, nervous laughter breaks out among the 100 psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and family and marriage counselors watching the scene unfold on a large video screen. It’s part of Scared Stiff!—a two-day seminar on fast, drug-free treatment for anxiety and depression that Burns is giving in a nondescript hotel ballroom outside Chicago.

Some of the therapists have come because they want to hear what Burns has to say. The author of Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, one of the most successful psychotherapy books ever written, he’s had 35,000 therapy sessions with depressed and anxious patients and as many as 50,000 therapists have attended his training programs over the past 35 years. Others need continuing education credits to maintain their licenses. To Burns, their reasons don’t matter; he’s determined to help them become better therapists. Why? Because he knows their deepest insecurity as professionals: that week in, week out, many are failing to help their patients in a profound and lasting way.

Read more: http://www.utne.com/mind-and-body/dealing-with-anxiety-and-depression-zm0z14jfzwil.aspx#ixzz2og468kLn

[planetc]

1. Highly recommended longish article

This explains why drugs for many cases of depression may be the wrong approach. It seems that finding a way for patients to treat themselves may be the best method for healing them.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Excellent article! Thanks!

My sister is a therapist who practices CBT, she's been trying to get me to read Feeling Good. But it's big. I'm scared of big books. Maybe I'll give it a try, though, based on what I learned from this article.

[tanyev]

3. I had panic attacks for awhile and when one hit, I just wanted to run.

Unfortunately, they hit while doing things like sitting in a plane, driving in a bad thunderstorm, and playing piano in a performance situation.

[Warpy]

4. Not terribly practical when one is in church at a funeral

or driving the car with kids in the back seat.

I can deal with pain through jhana meditation but it takes considerable concentration over an hour or so. I don't always have that kind of time, especially when I was still working.

Chemicals come in handy, too.

[IrishAyes]

5. Lacking good sense in the first place, my behavior sometimes runs more to bold or even rash;

So it came as a terrible surprise the day I had my first panic attack. It was at a major cathedral for an extra-long Mass, and somehow I wound up smack dab in the center of hundreds of people packed into the pews. I really don't remember much about the service, because I spent the whole time trying not to stand up and scream, "You're all a bunch of sardines!"

Had a few after that, but thankfully not too many, and none at all the last 4 years. I have to thank Xanax for that, however. It seems so silly for someone like me to have even one panic attack ever. But it goes to show that it doesn't spring from general timidity. It can happen to anyone at the least expected moment. I really feel for people who wind up crippled by the worst episodes. Imagine not being able to leave your house!