Anxiety Psychotherapy - Treatment For Existential Anxiety

Anxiety is a common emotional experience - it is our response to perceived fear. People worry about their jobs, their families or their health. However, there is another type of anxiety, generally known as existential anxiety. Sometimes, this anxiety is associated with the German word "angst," simply because it was a German-speaking psychotherapist who first identified this disorder as a distinct class of anxiety. Existential anxiety has to do with the big questions of life, its meaning, and our place in it. In this article, we will look at various types of psychotherapy used to treat anxiety disorders, especially existential anxiety.

Multimodal therapy is a type of psychotherapy developed by South African psychologist Arnold Lazarus. Multimodal therapy is based around the acronym BASIC ID consisting of seven modalities:

• Behavior
• Affect - emotions
• Sensation - taste, hearing, smell, sight and touch
• Imagery - self-image and thinking in pictures
• Cognition - thinking styles, opinions, thinking in words, attitudes and beliefs
• Interpersonal - relationships
• Drugs and biology - general health, exercise, sleep, diet, medications and substances

After an initial consultation, the patient will be given a Multimodal life history inventory to be completed at home. This helps both, the therapist and the patient to identify those modalities which need to be addressed. This multimodal assessment is then used as the basis to develop an individual treatment plan to correct the assessed problems in each modality. Unfortunately, this therapy is not practicable for anxiety group therapy, because every assessment has to be done for each person individually.

Logotherapy is the work of Viennese neurologist Victor Frankl. It is occasionally referred to as the "Third Viennese School," based on the work of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. While Freud was focused on the "will to pleasure" and Adler dedicated to the "will to power", Frankl concentrated on what he described as the "will to meaning." This thesis was influenced by his believe that humankind wanted to see order in the cosmos, and that psychological disorders are based on the perception of cosmic disorder.

Frankl was a Holocaust survivor, and his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp have shaped his thoughts strongly. This is reflected in his work. The prologue of his book "Man's Search for Meaning," described the way his suffering drew him to the conclusion that life has a meaning even under the most extreme and dreadful circumstances.

Logotherapy is structured around Socratic dialogue and self-observation. This anxiety psychotherapy treatment considers suffering as an opportunity to discover meaning in life, like achieving something, experiencing love or simply accepting suffering as an inevitable part of life.

Rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) was developed by Albert Ellis. Asian and Classical philosophers believe that the human psyche contains both rational and irrational elements, which are usually in conflict with each other. Anxiety is often triggered by irrational thoughts that result in self-destructive behaviors. The anxiety psychotherapy's goal is to educate the patient and empower him or her to live a happier and more rewarding life by replacing irrational thoughts with rational ones.

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