Anxiety disorders are generally very treatable, but people who experience them find them hard to overcome. The reason is that, while most people have the ability to recover, anxiety literally Tricks them into using methods which make their fears worse rather than better.

This is the most natural thing in the world. People think of chronic anxiety as something that invades their lives, something they have to resist and oppose. However, the worst problems come from our efforts to resist and remove anxiety, rather than from the anxiety itself.

People don’t get fooled by this trick entirely on their own. All too often, well meaning friends, doctors, and therapists get fooled by it as well, and unwittingly suggest methods to their patients which make the situation worse.

For instance, there’s a well publicized technique called “thought stopping”, in which you snap a rubber band against your wrist when you have an anxious thought, and say “stop!” to yourself. It's hard for me to understand why professionals still suggest this idea, because it's very unlikely to be of any help. The more you tell yourself not to think something, the more you’ll think about it.

If you want a quick demonstration right now, take two minutes and don’t think about dancing elephants.

See what I mean? Don’t even think about thought stopping!

When anxiety Tricks you, you get fooled into using recovery methods which actually make your fears stronger and more persistent. The more you fight an anxiety disorder, the more it grows. It’s like putting out fires with gasoline.

Here on this site, you’ll find anxiety help that works. I’ll show you the anxiety treatment methods I’ve used in Chicago to help people overcome fears, phobias, and panic attacks for the last 20 years. You can use these therapy methods to outsmart the Anxiety Trick and achieve your own recovery from anxiety disorders.

Dave Carbonell, Ph.D.

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