Dublin Counsellor Blog
CBT for anxiety Dublin
CBT for anxiety Dublin: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) says you cannot THINK your way out of anxiety.
Often when clients come to CBT sessions they think there will be that ONE thought, phrase or insight that will stop their anxiety for good. It’s not the case.
The main component of anxiety is SPEED. When we are anxious our thoughts get faster and faster, this makes us more and more anxious.
Also, each thought is feeding on the fear of the last thought. Each thought is frightening the hell out of ourselves and making us MORE anxious.
Trying to think our way out of anxiety is like pouring petrol on the fire to put it out.
Imagining the worst
When we are anxious we look for the worst possible scenario so we can protect ourselves from it but in doing that we are actually scaring ourselves WITH the worst possible scenario.
Our imagination can scare the hell out of us far more than the reality of things. This is how horror movies work. The unknown lurking horror is far more frightening than when the killer finally appears.
And the thing we find MOST scary is ‘forever’. There is an assumption that ‘I will be anxious forever’. When something seems endless, it’s the most frightening and dispiriting experience of all.
CBT for anxiety Dublin
In CBT sessions we learn to slow ourselves down so we can actually listen to ourselves. There is a part of us that is really frightened and we have to hear ‘what exactly am I frightened of?’
This work can be blocked when we ‘hate’ our anxiety. Then we are refusing to hear why we are frightened, making us MORE anxious and fracturing our relationship with ourself.
When we are finally able to listen and hear what our anxiety is about we start to come out of it.
For a wider description of how CBT works, and to see my own availability for CBT, check out: