Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
I have a HUGE fear of freeways when i get on a really busy freeway I freak out and start having major anxiety! I guess because ive never really had to use the freeway. I work 10 minutes from home so its not like I can get used to it. I have got to get over this fear cause it has stopped me from really having a social life and any job opportunities as well. Its ruining my life. I dont hang out because my friends usually want to go to the other side of town to go out. I come here cause my family and friends dont understand what I am going through. My family dosent understand cause they are used to driving the freeway. I ride the feeder pretty much everywhere and it takes forever. I really need help with this. I cannot let this fear consume my life anymore!!!!
Exposure therapy is based on the principles of respondent conditioning often termed Pavlovian extinction. The exposure therapist identifies the cognitions, emotions and physiological arousal that accompany a fear-inducing stimulus, and attempts to break the pattern of escape that strengthens the fear response, through measured exposure to progressively stronger stimuli until habituation is reached. The technique involves the creation of a program of steadily escalating steps or challenges (a hierarchy), which can be explicit ("static") or implicit ("dynamic"), that work towards a final goal representing a "non-phobic" response. The patient then voluntarily moves through the steps, with a means of terminating each step which is under voluntary control.
It is highly successul.