Why we need to change the way we talk about anxiety

The sad fact is that, over the last four to five decades, anxiety has been seen by many health practitioners as something that needs to be suppressed or removed. But the latter option is impossible since we are all hard-wired to have anxiety as a protective mechanism.

General practitioners have historically handed out SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) as the 'first line of defence' - a quick pharmacological incentive to try and curtail the symptoms, and to manage the anxiety. For many, SSRIs have been incredibly helpful. However, the transaction in this therapeutic relationship maintains that anxiety is a threat - something that needs to be overcome and defeated.

Thankfully, changes are afoot but we are a long distance from the way that medical industries and many in healthcare professions view things, such as generalised anxiety. Our relationship in the way that we view it when patients present needs to fundamentally change.

Yes, anxiety causes deep distress, is life curtailing for some and can be deeply restrictive in their lives. Yet, it is also a body system that has learnt to be hyperactive and hypervigilant in the defence of the individual, and this is the key point.

Anxiety tries to keep us safe, but life events, perceptions and fears will have ratcheted up the dial.

This is why the use of language when working with clients with anxiety is so important.

Many of the clients that I work with who have generalised anxiety, phobias and ruminations talk about the 'power dynamic' of anxiety; that it has a control over them and that they need control. Indeed, control is one of the most used words in those who have had medium and long-term anxiety symptoms. The need to control their well-being, their environment, and to reduce potential risks to them.

However, the reality is that the anxiety-creating mechanisms (that we all have) are super-sensitised in those with anxiety, and they work overtime trying to defend the individual. Therefore, visualising anxiety as something that simply seeks to defend and protect, yet is an old vestige of a set of reactions that are not now useful, can dramatically help to reduce stress and anxiety levels at points in people’s lives.

I have lived through and worked through anxiety for over 40 years now, and my relationship with it is viewed through the prism of an 'old friend' who has tried their best to protect me from things that happened early on in my childhood. It underscores the need for self-compassion, and has opened up a new way that I have seen anxiety and the benefits of reframing that relationship.

What I am stressing is that using the right language and framing of anxiety is key to reducing the fears of individuals. The two are cyclical. The more people fear anxiety, the more the anxiety is maintained. The less they see it as threatening and, for example, as an old protective sweater that is not now needed, the less that cycle of anxiety consolidation is maintained.