Anxiety treatment in English

What it actually looks like

People arrive describing very different things, and call all of them anxiety:

• Panic. A sudden surge — heart hammering, hands tingling, the certainty that something is catastrophically wrong. It peaks within minutes and passes, and leaves behind a fear of the next one.
• Social anxiety. Not shyness. A running commentary about how you are coming across, so loud that you cannot hear the conversation you are in.
• Generalised anxiety. Worry that moves. Solve one thing and it settles on the next. Often with poor sleep and a body that never quite stands down.
• Health anxiety. A sensation, a search, a temporary relief, and then the next sensation.

Why avoiding it makes it grow

Avoidance works — immediately, and that is the trap. Every time you leave the room, cancel the dinner, or check the symptom one more time, the relief teaches your nervous system that the danger was real and that you escaped it. The world quietly shrinks.

This is why "just don't think about it" is useless advice, and why willpower alone rarely holds.

How we work with it

Anxiety is a signal, not the problem itself. Something is approaching that feels unmanageable — often a feeling rather than a situation. In ISTDP we watch closely where the anxiety goes in your body, because it tells us how close we are and when to slow down:

• Tension in the arms, hands, shoulders, a sighing breath. This is the channel we can work in. You can think clearly and feel at the same time.
• Stomach, nausea, urgency, migraine. Anxiety has moved into the smooth muscle. We regulate before we go further.
• Blankness, blurred vision, ringing ears, losing the thread. The system has tipped. Pushing here achieves nothing at all.

Reading this correctly is the whole craft. Move too fast and the session becomes an ordeal that changes nothing. Move too carefully and you spend two years having pleasant conversations.

What to expect

Most people notice something within the first handful of sessions — usually that the anxiety becomes legible rather than random. A focused course is often ten to twenty sessions. Some need fewer, and anxiety on top of long-standing trauma takes longer.

What about medication?

We are psychologists and cannot prescribe. Anti-anxiety medication and antidepressants help many people, particularly when anxiety is severe enough to block therapy from starting. That is a conversation with your GP (egen læge) or a psychiatrist, and we are happy to work alongside either. We will say so directly if we think you should have it.