Understanding and easing anxiety

This programme supports treatment; it does not replace it. It describes the criteria clinicians use, but reading a description does not allow you to diagnose yourself: only a professional can do that, after an interview and after ruling out other explanations — including medical causes, described in section 27. Never change a treatment on your own initiative, and in particular never stop a benzodiazepine by yourself: abrupt withdrawal can cause severe symptoms. If you have suicidal thoughts, if you can no longer leave your home, or if you drink to get through the day, make an appointment this week rather than starting this programme alone.

1. Before you start

You check three times before leaving. You rehearse what you are going to say on the phone. You take the seat near the exit, the one you could leave from. You no longer use the motorway, or the lift, or speak up in meetings. You wake with a knot in your stomach without knowing why. And year after year you have built up a set of precautions so natural that you no longer see them — precautions that hold your life together, and that also make sure nothing changes.

This programme is made for that situation. It applies cognitive behavioural therapy, the best-evaluated psychological treatment for anxiety disorders in adults, recommended first-line by international guidelines.