Chronic Anxiety – David Carbonell

Chronic anxiety disorders all involve a “threat” that doesn’t occur. Panic attacks don’t kill, obsessive doubts about the stove don’t cause fires, social anxiety doesn’t lead to disgrace and isolation, worry doesn’t lead to insanity. The feared outcomes recede into the future the way an optical illusion recedes into the horizon.

Why are anxiety disorders so powerfully chronic? It’s because chronically anxious clients get tricked by their own efforts to avoid, distract from, and protect against the perceived dangers. When the dangers don’t come to pass, they believe they had a narrow escape from a terrible calamity, and feel more vulnerable going forward rather than less. They become increasingly afraid of more and more improbable events. What we call the “anxiety disorders” could be more accurately termed “the disorders of excessive self-protection”, because that’s how they function!

How can you help them recover? By teaching them how to disengage from the self-protective behaviors that trick them. Attend this workshop and learn how to help your anxious clients find the evidence of this in their own lives, so you can help them approach and accept, rather than avoid and resist, the experience of anxiety.

This recording will teach you to empower your anxious clients to see themselves as good, capable people who have been fooled by anxiety, rather than defective people who need protection. Discover how to motivate your clients to seek out, rather than avoid, the corrective experiences they need for recovery. Take home effective strategies from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Paradoxical Therapy, Metacognitive Therapy, and traditional CBT to help your clients rediscover the hopes and dreams they had for life before they were derailed by their struggle against anxiety. You, and your clients, will be glad you did!