Gestalt in working with anxiety and anxiety

This program is a series of group classes of 40 minutes. The group effect of classes is the opportunity for group members to receive support and feedback from peers; seeing that they are not alone in their experiences is in itself therapeutic. In addition, the problems that cause anxiety in people are often similar, and by joining during individual sessions, a person who has not decided on individual work has the opportunity to complete their unfinished situations while remaining in the shadows.

Target: reducing the level of personal anxiety in primary and secondary school students who are prone to anxious reactions.

Tasks:

Creating conditions for group members to explore their personal boundaries;

Teaching group members how to focus on breathing;

Assisting group members in completing unfinished gestalts;

Training group members in effective interaction skills (active listening, I-statements).

Target group: Primary and secondary school students prone to anxious reactions.

Theoretical background

The subject of study in Gestalt psychology is the relationship between the organism and the environment. This is due to the fact that no individual is self-sufficient. It can only exist in an environment with which it forms a single field at every moment. The behavior of an individual is a function of this field; it is determined by the nature of the relationship between him and his environment. If the relationship is mutually satisfactory, then the individual’s behavior is considered normal. If the relationship is conflicting, then the individual's behavior is described as abnormal.

The functioning of a person in the environment occurs at the contact boundary between him and his environment. Psychological events that are the subject of research in psychology also arise there. The boundary here is understood as the point at which the separation of the Self from the non-Self occurs. Our thoughts, actions, behavior, emotions are a way of expressing and accepting events occurring on the border. The boundary within the Gestalt approach is a function of the organism/environment field. It allows the individual to alternate being in contact with separation from the environment. If the boundary between the organism and the environment becomes unclear or loses its permeability, this leads to a breakdown in contact, awareness and separation of oneself from another. The boundary between the organism and the environment must be maintained in a state of permeability for exchange to occur, and at the same time be strong enough to maintain autonomy.

An individual interacts with the environment through two systems: sensory and motor. The sensory system provides it with orientation, and the motor system provides manipulation. To satisfy his needs, the individual must find the necessary materials in the environment and then manipulate them in such a way that the organic balance is restored, and then the gestalt is completed. This can be represented as the following diagram.

As a result of isolating a figure from the background, the mobilization of energy increases - the excitement necessary to perform a manipulation that satisfies the needs of the individual arises. Excitement is always accompanied by increased metabolism - the oxidation of accumulated food substances, and therefore there is an urgent need for large amounts of oxygen. The body reacts to this by increasing the frequency and amplitude of breathing.

If for some reason (internal or external) the manipulation cannot be performed, then the body tries to block the resulting excitation by controlling breathing. Instead of spontaneously deepening breathing - both inhalations and exhalations - the person continues to breathe as he did before arousal. The chest then contracts to force exhalation and rid the lungs of carbon dioxide (a product of oxidation). Along with involuntary chest compressions, anxiety arises. It occurs in all cases when the body lacks oxygen.

So, anxiety, from the point of view of the Gestalt approach, - this is the experience of difficulty breathing during blocked arousal.

At the moment when an individual tries to block the resulting excitation through breathing control, the function of the contact boundary is disrupted. It loses its permeability, which prevents the satisfaction of needs and the completion of the gestalt.

If an individual often uses this method of interrupting contact with the environment, then anxiety accumulates and becomes undifferentiated. A personality trait such as anxiety develops. Within the framework of the Gestalt approach anxiety understood as an individual's tendency to react with anxiety.

Based on the foregoing, work with anxiety includes three areas:

I. Training in the skills of focusing on one’s own breathing (helps to explore how the individual stops full exhalation through various patterns of muscle tension).

II. Exploration of personal boundaries (helps restore the ability to contact the environment).

III. Translating anxiety into arousal and finding ways to satisfy the needs that caused this arousal that are safe for other body functions (helps complete unfinished gestalts).

LESSON 1

Goal: To introduce group members to the goals of group work and to each other.

Materials: forms for the exercise “My personal coat of arms” (see Appendix 1), feedback sheets (see Appendix 2).

PROGRESS OF THE CLASS

1. Exercise “Snowball”.

2. Exercise “Pairs”. In pairs, talk about yourself for a minute, and then in a circle talk about your partner in the first person.

3. Exercise “My personal coat of arms.” Participants draw their coat of arms on pre-prepared forms, then the coats of arms are hung out and participants get acquainted with them for 5 minutes.

4. The facilitator explains the goals and mode of operation of the group.

5. Sharing or written feedback.

LESSON 2

Goal: creating an atmosphere of safety in the group.

Materials: Whatman paper, markers, newspaper, feedback sheets.

PROGRESS OF THE CLASS

1. Sharing (who came with what).

2. Brainstorm Expectations/Agreements. On whatman paper, first expectations are written down with colored markers, then agreements or rules for the group’s work.

3. Exercise “All aboard.” The entire group should fit on a piece of newspaper and stand for 5 seconds without touching the floor.

Or the “Knots” exercise. Group members stand in a circle, extend their hands to the center and join hands, forming a closed chain; then they must unravel in a circle without opening their hands.

4. Sharing (emotional exchange).

5. Written feedback.

LESSON 3

Goal: learning the skills of focusing on breathing.

Materials: gymnastic mats, feedback sheets.

PROGRESS OF THE CLASS

1. Sharing (who came with what).

2. Exercise “Awareness of Breathing.” Participants are asked to lie down or sit comfortably, close their eyes and pay attention to their breathing for 5–7 minutes, alternately focusing on inhalation, exhalation, muscle sensations, and breathing patterns. (For details see: F. Perls. Gestalt therapy practice. p.156.)

4. Individual session. One of the group members is asked to analyze and comprehend the experience gained during the exercise.

5. Written feedback.

LESSON 4

Purpose: study of the contact boundary.

Materials: A3 sheets, colored pencils, feedback sheets.

PROGRESS OF THE CLASS

1. Sharing (who came with what).

2. Exercise “My World”. Participants are asked to draw on A3 sheets of paper the world that exists around them, leaving a palm-sized empty space in the center. Then they need to draw a picture of themselves and how they interact with the world in the center.

3. Sharing (emotional exchange).

5. Written feedback.

LESSON 5

Goal: creating conditions for group members to gain positive contact experience.

Materials: feedback sheets.

PROGRESS OF THE CLASS

1. Sharing (who came with what).

2. Exercise “Magic palms”. Slap each other in pairs, taking turns over the entire surface of the body for 15 minutes.

3. Sharing (emotional exchange).

4. Individual session (based on the results of the exercise).

5. Written feedback.

LESSON 6

Materials: Whatman paper, markers, handouts on the topic “I-statement”, feedback sheets.

PROGRESS OF THE CLASS

1. Sharing (who came with what).

2. Theoretical block “I-statement” (see Appendix 3).

3. “I-statement” - practical part (see Appendix 4).

4. Written feedback.

LESSON 7

Goal: training in skills of effective interaction at the border of contact.

Materials: Whatman paper, markers, handouts on the topic “Active listening”, feedback sheets.

PROGRESS OF THE CLASS

1. Sharing (who came with what).

2. Theoretical block “Active listening” (see Appendix 5).

3. “Active listening” - practical part (see Appendix 6).

4. Written feedback.

LESSON 8–14

Goal: creating conditions for group members to transform their anxiety into excitement and safely satisfy the needs that caused this excitement (creating conditions for completing unfinished gestalts).

Materials: feedback sheets.

PROGRESS OF THE CLASS

1. Sharing (who came with what).

2. Individual session. One of the group members is asked to work through a situation that is causing him anxiety or concern.

3. Sharing (emotional exchange).

4. Written feedback.

LESSON 15

Purpose: summing up, completing group work.

Materials: brushes for “hugging” or candles and foil according to the number of participants.

PROGRESS OF THE CLASS

1. Sharing (who came with what).

2. Summing up the results of group work: analysis of expectations, sharing.

3. Exercise “Hugging”. Participants are given tassels of different colors, they freely approach each other, thank them for their work, say warm farewell words and tie several threads from their tassel onto a partner’s thread. At the end of the exercise, instead of tassels, each participant gets a multi-colored necklace.

Or the “Candles” exercise. Participants light candles, approach each other in a free manner, say goodbye and drip wax onto their palm covered with foil.

ANNEX 1

My personal coat of arms

Name_______________________

APPENDIX 2

Feedback sheet

Date____________________ Name _________________

very bad 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 very good

3. What did you like about today’s lesson?

4. What didn’t you like in class today?
_________________________________________________________________

5. What was useful to you in class today?
_________________________________________________________________

6. Wishes and suggestions to the psychologist for conducting classes
_________________________________________________________________

APPLICATION 3

Self-statement theory

An “I Statement” is a safe way of expressing to another person how you feel, how you feel, and how you see your relationship going in the future. In an I-statement, the speaker expresses his feelings without offending the listener. The “I-statement” is constructed as follows:

I feel... when someone (you)... because... . So next time I want... .

1. I get angry when someone takes my things without permission because I might need them myself. So next time I want you to ask me if you can take some of my things.

2. I feel abandoned when you go out with other guys and don’t invite me with you, because I think that friends should always be together. So next time, invite me with you.

3. I was very angry when I found out that a friend spoke badly about me behind my back because it was dishonest. So the next time you don't like something about me, tell me directly.

Rules for constructing an “I-statement”

I feel...

Use words that accurately describe your feelings.

Don't exaggerate feelings.

Don't use "sacrificial" words.

When someone...

Describe behavior accurately (behavior is what is seen and heard, not what you think it is).

Don't use hurtful words.

Because (I)...

Be as specific as possible.

Focus on how it affects you.

Do not exaggerate the effect, as this may cause a defensive or skeptical reaction.

Don't use words that sound good but are not true.

Next time I'd like...

Be direct about your desires.

Be logical and correct.

APPLICATION 4

Practice “I-statements”

Practice making statements in the form of “I statements” using the following situations:

1. During recess, you and your friend play catch. Suddenly a guy passing by takes it away.

I feel ____________________________________________________

When someone ___________________________________________________

Because ____________________________________________________

So next time I want ___________________________
________________________________________________________________

2. You stood in line in the cafeteria for a long time, when suddenly two boys ran up and got in ahead of you.

_________________________________________________________________

3. You were given a new toy for your birthday. When you came home after school, you saw that your sister had thrown it into the ditch in front of the house and now it was all dirty and scratched.

I feel _____________________________________________________

When someone _____________________________________________________

Because _____________________________________________________

So next time I want ____________________________
_________________________________________________________________

4. You are sitting at your desk, and suddenly a classmate passing by calls you names.

I feel _____________________________________________________

When someone _____________________________________________________

Because _____________________________________________________

So next time I want ____________________________
_________________________________________________________________

5. You're eating lunch in the cafeteria, and suddenly someone comes and takes your cookies.

I feel _____________________________________________________

When someone _____________________________________________________

Because _____________________________________________________

So next time I want ____________________________
_________________________________________________________________

APPLICATION 5

Active listening theory

1. Brainstorm “Traits of a Good Listener.”
2. Brainstorm “Traits of a Bad Listener.”
3. Active listening technique:

Action	Goals	How to do it	Example
Support	Show interest Help the other person continue talking	Refrain from expressing agreement or disagreement Use neutral words Use calm ones intonation Use nonverbal communication	“Could you tell me more about this?”
Clarification	Clearer understanding of what is going on Get more information Help the speaker see other points of view	Ask questions	"When did it happen?"
Expression understanding the idea	Show that you are listening to what is being said to you Show how accurately you understand the main thoughts of your interlocutor	Highlight main ideas and facts Paraphrase your interlocutor	“So you want her to not let you down anymore?”
Expression understanding feelings	Show that you understand how the person is feeling Give a person the opportunity to reevaluate his feelings after he hears them from another	Highlight the speaker's main feelings Paraphrase your interlocutor	“I think this really upsets you.”
Generalization	Collect together all the main ideas, thoughts, feelings Create a basis for further conversation	Repeat main ideas and feelings	“In my opinion, the main thing that I heard was...”
Conclusion	Show respect for your interlocutor	Show respect for the other person's feelings and thoughts	“I really appreciate your desire to resolve this issue.”

APPLICATION 6

Practice active listening

1. Divide participants into pairs.

2. Ask one of the couple to talk about something important to him, and the second - deliberately not listen to him.

3. Swap their roles.

4. Discuss how they felt when they were ignored.

5. Repeat the exercise, but ask participants to listen to their interlocutors using the active listening technique.

6. Discuss how they felt when they were listened to.

7. Ask students what they learned and how it can be used in everyday life.

LIST OF REFERENCES USED

1. Perls F., Goodman P. The theory of Gestalt therapy. - M.: Institute of General Humanitarian Research, 2005.

2. Perls F. Gestalt therapy practice. - M.: Institute of General Humanitarian Research, 2005.

3. Polster I., Polster M. Integrated Gestalt Therapy: Contours of Theory and Practice. - M.: Independent company “Class”, 2004.

4. Yontef G. Awareness, dialogue and process in therapy. Methodological manual for seminars, ed. D. Khlomova. - M.: Publication of the Moscow Gestalt Institute, 2004.

5. Robin J.-M. Gestalt therapy. Methodological manual for seminars / Ed. D. Khlomova. - M.: Publication of the Moscow Gestalt Institute, 2004.

6. 21 lessons about leadership. - Kemerovo: ALE, 1996.

6. Lebedeva N., Ivanova E. Journey to Gestalt: theory and practice. - St. Petersburg: Rech, 2005.

In life, each of us encounters a feeling of anxiety. Literally from birth, we experience discomfort when encountering something we don’t know, are afraid of, or cannot influence. However, for some, this is a short-term, quickly passing and not very pronounced condition, which a person can easily and independently cope with.

But for some it is a very painful experience that poisons life. It acts as a constant background, interfering with normal life activities, or covers like a ninth wave, completely blocking the ability to rejoice, dream, feel confidence, calmness, harmony and generally do something. Therefore, it is very important to understand what kind of animal this is, when and why it comes to us, and how it can be tamed.

Understanding what is happening gives us, at a minimum, the opportunity to choose: what to do about it and how to behave.

Anxiety is often induced and reinforced by various kinds of fears.

Various factors contribute to the formation of increased anxiety: in addition to personal characteristics of a person(including his mental characteristics, physiology and personal experience), this is also family heritage,negative picture of the world And negative self-image.

Family Legacy

When talking about “legacy,” it is worth considering family history and experience of difficult crisis moments in the family’s life, as well as the inherited way of reacting and dealing with anxiety.

1) Every family has its own history, its own myths and skeletons in the closet - stories that people don’t like to talk about, but are remembered and worried about.
If in the life of the family there were missing people, those who were repressed and executed, about whom they could not get information for years and hid this fact for a long time, fearing for their lives, if accidents happened (“I went for bread, got hit by a car,” “lay down on planned operation and died”, “choked and died”), it is natural to assume that the anxiety there is higher, at least in relation to what caused the death or the worries of relatives.

Often the “heirs” are persecuted fear of something terrible(sudden death of a loved one, tragedy), which basically has fear of death. It happens that it is not customary to talk about death in a family, and children are not explained what is happening. Nevertheless, the child feels the atmosphere, tries to compare the facts available to him and conjecture what is being kept silent. Often it is in childhood that fantasies about death are lived out and a certain attitude towards it is born.

It is very traumatic for a child to be present at a suicide or death, when adults behave inappropriately, do not pay attention to the child, leaving him alone with his fantasies and fears, do not console him or explain what happened. A child may consider himself guilty, or connect some completely unrelated events into a logical chain, and in adult life they are afraid of even a hint of coincidence.

For example, in one family there were a number of deaths over a short period of time. They were afraid to injure the child and generally avoided this topic. For the girl, from the information available to her, the following sequence developed: fell ill - called a doctor - disappeared. He fell ill, called a doctor, and disappeared. Is it any wonder that when the mother fell ill and a doctor appeared in their house, the child became hysterical, the girl refused to go to school and let her mother out of sight. The drawings depicted in different forms the fear of something terrible (like the fear of death).

2) With an unwanted pregnancy (the mother’s thoughts about an abortion), expecting a child of the opposite sex, rejecting parents, when the child did not feel loved and needed, when the basic needs for safety were not met and there were many reasons to worry, latent depression is possible in adulthood due to a constant poisoned feeling of joy in a prosperous life.

3) There are families with a reduced threshold of anxiety, so-called low-differentiated families. Where it is customary to worry even about minor reasons. Whether it's the inability to get through the first time, a slight delay from work or school, an upcoming trip, or any small change in the family's life.

When terrible pictures of what happened or the future are drawn, the whole family rises to their feet, no one can either calm down themselves or calm down others; everyone's anxiety grows, unites and becomes common. This often happens in codependent relationships.

Growing up in such a family, a child adopts behavioral skills of communication and responding to certain situations and reproduces them in his adult life. For adults who come from such families, it is often characteristic unreasonable fear of the future or fear of the unexpected which may basically have fear of losing control.

How to cope with anxiety with “burdened heredity”:

1. It is often helpful to know your family history. A skeleton in a closet that has seen the light of day ceases to be a skeleton.

To do this, you can ask the older generation what they were afraid of, what influenced it, and how they dealt with their anxiety. I am sure you will recognize many situations similar to yours and will be able to find those whose example will inspire you and give you hope.

You may also suddenly discover where your anxiety comes from. And that it is not yours, but was inherited from your mother or grandmother. Who, with their “parting words” and “testaments” (“do this”, “never behave like that, otherwise it will be worse”) actually admonished you to fear what they themselves were afraid of. But what scared them is not the fact that it will scare you. Therefore, it is worth reconsidering their worries, learning to distinguish between their worries and yours, and returning to them what is not yours and does not suit you.

2. If you are tormented by a constant feeling of depression and nothing in this life makes you happy, it is better to take the Beck test, which allows you to determine whether you have depression. If your fears are confirmed, do not lose heart. It is important to seek advice from a psychiatrist, as he is competent to prescribe medication maintenance therapy. Unfortunately, you can’t do without it in case of depression. Now there are many different gentle schemes. And later, with a psychologist or psychotherapist, work through the reasons that caused this condition and find resources to cope with it.

3. If you come from a family where there is a lot of anxiety, it is worth writing out the situations where the anxiety is most severe and observing other people or families to see how you can behave differently in these circumstances. This can help you learn alternative ways to deal with anxiety and expand your behavioral skills. That is, become more adaptive.

You can also keep an “anxious” diary, in which, as soon as you feel the onset of anxiety, write down in detail your feelings, the place where you are, the events that preceded it, the duration of the sensations, possible causes, the people around you, and also evaluate by on a scale from 0 to 10, the severity of the experience. This will give an understanding of how often, how strongly and under what circumstances this condition occurs.

Negative picture of the world

There may be several reasons for the formation of a negative picture of the world. This is an insecure type of attachment in childhood (anxious, avoidant, or a combination of both), rejecting parents and a certain style of raising and treating the child, when close adults not only did not provide protection and safety, but also resorted to physical punishment and other forms of violence.

At the same time, the world is perceived as unsafe and full of challenges. There is no trust in him. This often happens because the child (especially younger ones) gets used to coping with different situations on his own, without receiving the necessary support and consolation. When there is no reliable, loving, emotionally involved adult nearby (for example, a child is often left alone for a long time, or an adult is physically nearby, but is emotionally unavailable, for example, when a mother is depressed) or an adult is nearby, but responds inadequately to the child’s needs (when the baby wants to sleep, they play with him; when his stomach hurts, he is fed, etc.)

Anxiety is also noted in those who felt unsafe in childhood and for whom their parents did not stand up. Providing protection and security is mainly a dad's function. That is why strict upbringing with a strict regime, as well as the frequent use of physical punishment for the slightest offense (especially when a father beats his daughter) has far-reaching consequences. And it’s not even about difficult relationships with the opposite sex.·

How to cope with anxiety with a negative picture of the world?

1. You need to learn to focus on positive events.

In therapy, I call this “turning the spotlight from the usual negativity to the positive.” It is important not only to limit what worries and upsets, but also to learn to see the good around.

So, it is important to reduce your viewing of news programs (according to statistics, out of 10 news stories, 7-8, if not more, are negative, you can check), limit communication with “toxic” people (those who constantly complain, criticize you, compare, devalue; after communication with whom you feel tired, irritated or empty), reduce the time of contact with what you don’t like.

In contrast, at the end of the day before going to bed, list what was good during the day, even if it was something very small and fleeting. Make it a habit.

2. It’s worth analyzing what makes you happy and what upsets you.

Divide the sheet into two parts and write at least 10 points in both columns. Find time during the day and complete at least one item from the “pleasant” column. Think about how to deal less with negative events.

3. To create and strengthen a calm inner feeling, auto-training, yoga, meditation, relaxation techniques and breathing techniques help.

4. If there was no reliable attachment with your parents (you are used to relying only on yourself) and for various reasons it is now impossible, then you can look as an adult for those who could provide you with support, acceptance, comfort and understanding. Among colleagues, girlfriends, teachers, distant relatives, acquaintances. You need to find a person whom you can trust, communication with whom is clear and comfortable. In some cases, this person may be a psychologist.

5. Become your own parent: raise your own inner parent, learn to soothe and care for your inner child on your own. To do this, ask yourself (your child): “What do you want? How can I console you? This could be a walk, chatting with friends, a book at night, a bubble bath, a movie, a game, a hobby (designing, drawing, knitting, singing, playing an instrument, jogging, cooking, etc.)

6. Learn to protect yourself. Various training in dealing with aggression and anger or playing sports (boxing, self-defense techniques, any ball games) will help here. In personal therapy, it is important to work through your relationship with your parents if there has been violence in the family or if you have experiences where you were unable to protect yourself with other people.

As we learn to protect ourselves and our boundaries, we become more confident and the world around us no longer seems so scary and anxiety-inducing.

Negative self-image

The self-image is formed through interaction with significant others. That is why those who criticize, compare, evaluate, overprotect, as well as parents with high expectations or inflated demands, doom their child to imagine himself as “bad”, “not good enough”, “can’t cope”, “loser”, “weak” who always needs help."

Which leads to internal tension, uncertainty, low self-esteem, and at the same time to a lot of fears and anxiety. They are afraid of the new, they are afraid of failure, they are afraid of not coping, they are afraid of any changes that may be born from this fear of the future or unforeseen(which is impossible to control).

Often experience constant poisoned feeling of joy in a prosperous life, because they “don’t live their own lives,” trying to meet someone else’s expectations, to do what they should, and not what they want. When everywhere you feel you are not good enough or not entitled.

How to deal with anxiety caused by negative self-image?

1. You have to create a positive image of yourself. It's not quick and easy, but it's possible. To begin with, to assess the scale of the disaster, for several days count how many times you mentally and out loud praise yourself and how many times you scold yourself. This can be ticked in two columns according to the “scolding-praising” process.

2. If you scold yourself more often than you praise yourself, then at the end of the day before going to bed, you need to remember the past day and find at least 5 reasons to praise yourself for. For those from whom their parents expected too much (“Olympic victories” and “Nobel Prizes”), it is important to learn to see even in small actions and achievements a reason for joy and pride in oneself. Often such people habitually devalue themselves and everything that is not a “honorable diploma” (and often that too) is not noticed at all. Therefore, find something that yesterday you didn’t know how to do or didn’t try, but today you learned, decided, and did. Remember, before a man learned to walk, he fell a thousand times, but that did not stop him from getting back on his feet.

3. Stop comparing yourself to others. You will never compare to a world-class opera singer if your talent lies elsewhere. But you will get hurt forever and you will have a lifelong reason to worry. You can only compare yourself with yourself yesterday.

4. In the morning, before you get up, ask yourself: “How can I please myself today?” and try to do it.

5. Poll your friends about their strengths that can help you deal with anxiety or fear. Ask them to name at least three.

6. Draw or describe in detail your anxiety or fear. Look at her from afar. Ask yourself questions: “When does it appear? What plans does he have for your life? What qualities of yours help her attack you? And which ones make it weaker?” Try to remember a situation when you dealt with anxiety or fear. What helped you then?

Special mention should be made of children with borderline parents or those suffering from alcoholism or mental illness. Thus, in schizophrenia, relationships are ambivalent and often follow the “love-hate” principle.

Such people have a lot of chaos and double messages in childhood (when words contradict each other or the meaning of the spoken phrase does not agree with the non-verbal accompaniment. For example, in an angry tone they say “of course, I love you” or “I need you so much, go away!”)

To survive, such children have to cope with frequent anxiety themselves and often become a parent to their parents. They have a lot of repressed emotions and great difficulty in building close, long-term, trusting relationships. They often have unreasonable fear of the future And inability to rejoice, even if everything in their life is good at the moment.

It often seems to them that for any joy, desire or dream realized they will have to pay with suffering. The hardest thing for them is to learn to praise themselves, allow themselves to do something for themselves and dream. The parent's inner voice sounds bright and strong. In these cases, there is a lot of work ahead and it is better to use the help of a specialist.

How to deal with anxiety?

Every family has its own ways of dealing with anxiety. Moreover, they can be both functional and dysfunctional. The latter includes smoking, alcohol and other types of addictions. When in fact a person avoids meeting himself and his feelings without solving the problem.

Conflict is also a dysfunctional way. It happens that the anxiety of one partner provokes the anxiety of the other and, merging, these two anxieties strengthen, prolong and reinforce each other. Some people immerse themselves in TV series, games, the Internet, and work just to avoid living real life and not having to deal with disturbing experiences.

Along with dysfunctional ones, there are ways that not only really help you get through uncomfortable moments, but also bring benefits. These are sports, reading, creativity, communication, art and even cleaning.

• Do what brings you joy.

• Be in touch with yourself and your feelings.

• Learn to comfort your inner child.

• Imagine yourself little, take yourself in your arms and ask: “What are you afraid of, what can I do for you?”

• Fulfill wishes from childhood (One woman with increased anxiety was greatly helped by her small child, asking her to take daily walks before bed and the opportunity “like in childhood” to climb onto a snowdrift and lie in the snow; buy a beautiful dress or a talisman toy)

• Learn to express your emotions.

• Learn to set boundaries and protect yourself.

• Know how to distinguish between your own and someone else’s anxiety (in codependent relationships they often merge and reinforce each other).

Tags: Anxiety ,

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Psychotherapist Maxim Pestov: “Existential anxiety expresses one simple idea - not a single choice turns out to be absolutely correct and final, not a single position gives perfect guarantees and preferences. In a state of this anxiety, there is a feeling that life is going to hell and not for "What to cling to in order to interrupt this inevitable fall. This cannot be canceled, since it turns out to be the ultimate given of our existence."

1. Tell (describe) the typical, characteristic content of your anxiety. If you have several anxious thoughts, then it is better to take one specific content for the exercise, and then do the same work with the remaining thoughts and anxiety contents.

2. Try to say how often and for how long you think about it during the day (how many times, what amount of time in total).

3. Choose a time and place that is not typical for your anxiety. You can see that the more consistent your position, the more effective this technique is.

4. At this important time, you need to think only about the negative content of your anxiety, about possible negative scenarios for its development. Allow them to arise in your consciousness freely, despite the fact that they will cause you anxiety and worry. Do not be tempted by the positive alternatives that your consciousness may throw at you according to the principle “Yes... but!”, continue to think only about the negative content.

It is unlikely that you will be able to scroll through all the worse and more dangerous options for more than a few minutes.

5. Having prepared for the start of the session, you need to take a good breath several times and, having begun to breathe calmly and deeply, it is advisable to address your brain with humor something like this: “Well, dear brain, today we will have something new, and I I think you want to help me occupy this time, so please give me feedback and remind me everything you can.”

6. As unexpected as it may be, you will soon see that a few minutes (5-10) will be enough for you to transform anxiety into a calmer, safer feeling or even get rid of it completely. Thus, by spending time only on the “anxious game”, you will achieve the goal - by associating with anxiety, you will localize it in a certain place and limit it to a certain time.

At the end of the session, you can turn to your consciousness again:

“Yes, dear consciousness... dear “I”... (etc.)... you did a good job today, thank you, I knew that you would not let me down in a difficult situation...”

7. It is useful to conduct an “anxious game” with a trusted person (friend, loved one), but this person should not question you or delve into your state if you want to learn how to cope with your anxious experiences yourself.

Sudden, acute stress lies in the fact that its very first impacts and manifestations are so unexpected and strong, so captivating and astonishing a person that he “does not have time to come to his senses”, feels depressed, overwhelmed, “smeared against the wall.” Almost always there is a feeling of lack of air, breathing is interrupted or restrained, the heart begins to pound and other painful conditions of the body make themselves felt menacingly.

Of course, techniques for managing chronic stress, techniques for moving from dissociation to association (and back) during sudden, acute stress are almost useless. And yet, there are some ways to master your behavior during such a powerful mental shock as stress.

Let us recall that stress is a powerful emotional and physiological reaction to unexpected uncertainty in the situation of the need to make a decision and take an action. Internal emotional and mental uncertainty is also expressed in the external picture of behavior: a person cannot remain in some place calmly (sit, stand, lie), he performs various actions without sufficiently understanding why he is doing this, he literally “does not find place for yourself." Therefore, the first step to mastering oneself in an anxious, stressful situation is to find such a place, to create a zone of mental certainty and internal stability. Therefore, many previous exercises on working out internal images of anxiety and identifying external places of anxious dissociations and associations are important tools for prevention and preparation for possible stressful conditions.

Self-control in acute situations is only possible if a person has real experience of experiencing and resolving extremely stressful situations. Unfortunately, many of us are so overwhelmed and frightened by stress that we choose not to return to it, and this means that the real experience of experiencing stress is not used later, and each acute situation is experienced by the person as if it were new.

We offer exercises that contribute to the formation of internal resistance to stress, allow you to weaken the emotional consequences of experienced stressful conditions and identify some scenarios for confronting the destructive and paralyzing power of extreme situations.

Due to the significant emotionality of these exercises, it is recommended to perform them under the guidance of an experienced trainer, psychologist, or psychotherapist.

All people periodically experience a feeling of groundless anxiety. There are times when everything is fine at work, and the family is in order, but nervousness that arises out of nowhere does not allow you to live in peace. Why is a person susceptible to such attacks? And how to cope with worry and anxiety? Let's figure it out.

Normal feeling and causeless anxiety: how to distinguish?

What does this sensation represent? Anxiety is discomfort and dissatisfaction that causes restlessness.

This feeling is not identical to fear. The difference is that with anxiety, the subject of concern is unclear. There are only vague assumptions about upcoming events. There are many situations in life that provoke exams, job changes, or moving. Such life circumstances have unclear prospects, so when they occur, this is a natural type of anxiety in which the body mobilizes and the person solves problems.

There are cases of pathological anxiety. In this situation, people experience constant causeless anxiety, which greatly complicates their lives. Pathological anxiety is different in that a person cannot cope with this feeling. It fills the entire life of an individual, all of whose actions and thoughts are aimed at suppressing this feeling. It is in this situation that it is very important to know how to cope with worry and anxiety.

Key points of the pathological condition:

1. This type of anxiety occurs for no reason when there are no reasons for concern. But a person feels: something must happen, although it is unknown what and how. In such a situation, people begin to worry about their loved ones, expect bad news, and their souls are constantly uneasy. Moreover, all this happens in a prosperous environment.
2. Thus, a person predicts in his thoughts a future in which something bad is going to happen. As a result, behavior changes, people begin to rush around, constantly wanting to call somewhere and do something.
3. In such situations, the body reacts with increased heart rate, intermittent breathing, increased sweating, and dizziness. Sleep is disturbed, a person feels constant tension, nervousness and irritability.
4. Unreasonable anxiety does not arise on its own. It can be caused by unresolved conflicts, tension, and even brain disease.

People who do not know how to cope with anxiety and worry doom themselves to develop nervous system disorders. Often such individuals exhibit one of the forms of neurosis. It is based on a feeling of anxiety, tension, fear.

Some reasons

Before you figure out how to cope with feelings of anxiety and fear, you should understand the sources of these sensations:

1. Increased anxiety may be a consequence of upbringing. For example, if in childhood a child was constantly forbidden to do something and at the same time frightened by the possible consequences of his actions, then this provoked a constant internal conflict. It was he who became the cause of anxiety. And this attitude towards reality carries over into adulthood.
2. Anxiety can be inherited. If parents or grandmothers were constantly worried about anything, the younger generation adopted the same model of behavior.
3. An incorrect perception of the world, instilled in the child in childhood, when the child was told: “You can’t”; "You can not". Given the unique model that has been created, the grown-up child feels like a failure. He attracts to himself everything bad that can happen in life. The culprit is insecurity that arose in childhood.
4. Due to excessive guardianship, the child is deprived of the opportunity to act independently. He is not responsible for anything and does not gain life experience. As a result, an infantile person grows up who is constantly afraid of making a mistake.
5. Some people feel constantly indebted to someone. This is provoked by the attitude received in childhood: if you don’t do what you need to do, then life will not be safe. Therefore, they try to keep everything under control and, realizing that this is not working, they begin to worry.

The occurrence of anxiety states is also influenced by stress, dangerous situations, and psychological trauma that continues over a long period of time.

As a result of increased anxiety, a person cannot live calmly. He is constantly in the past or future, experiencing mistakes and predicting consequences. This is why it is important to understand how to get rid of feelings of anxiety and fear.

What does anxiety lead to?

If a feeling of strong anxiety occurs constantly, it is necessary to solve this problem. You need to figure out how to cope with worry and anxiety. After all, they can have serious consequences. These sensations, if left untreated, develop into phobias and panic states.

As a result of anxiety conditions, the following may develop:

• Heart arythmy;
• changes in body temperature;
• dizziness;
• trembling in the limbs;
• attacks of suffocation.

The main thing in recovery is to stop worrying about anything and try to control your emotions.

Treatment by a specialist

Therapy for anxiety is carried out by a psychiatrist or psychologist. The specialist will identify the main cause of anxiety, which a person often cannot understand himself.

The doctor will explain in detail what triggers the feeling of anxiety and how to cope with anxiety. He will teach you how to confront problematic situations that arise in the patient’s life. All this is achieved as a result of psychotherapy sessions.

Methods of prevention and treatment

From the above it is clear that frustration does not lead to anything good. How to cope with unpleasant anxiety on your own?

You can get rid of anxiety on your own using the following methods:

• changing the way of thinking;
• physical relaxation;
• change of lifestyle.

But before considering such moments, you need to learn how to cope with a sudden feeling of anxiety. To do this, you need to find the reason, realize it, distract yourself from the problem and exhale deeply. Let's look at these methods in more detail.

Changing your mindset

Since anxiety is the result of psychological problems, the fight against it should begin with spiritual attitudes.

The first is: If you constantly arise, how to cope with such feelings? It is necessary to establish the cause of the unpleasant condition. Be sure to talk to your loved ones about this. They will listen and support, even morally, but the person will understand that he has support.

Master meditation techniques. It helps you relax. Therefore, it is worth using it regularly to clear your thoughts.

Lifestyle change

The nervous system is weakened due to the use of alcohol, medicines, drugs, and smoking. As a result, similar negative experiences may develop.

Therefore, when wondering how to get rid of feelings of anxiety and fear, start by giving up bad habits. This will help you cope with an unpleasant phenomenon, improve your health and strengthen your willpower.

Adequate sleep is essential to eliminate fatigue and tension.

There are foods that improve your mood: chocolate, bananas, nuts and blueberries.

Physical relaxation

There is another important recommendation on how to cope with causeless anxiety. It is necessary to apply physical activity. Sports, movement, walks with pets help the body relax physically and psychologically. Regular exercise is a great way to relieve anxiety. After classes, it’s good to drink an infusion of chamomile, thyme or mint.

Try to find a reason

Any excitement cannot appear out of nowhere. To understand how to cope with anxiety and worry, you need to understand what triggers it. There is always a reason for anxiety. In order to understand where it came from, it is necessary to analyze your entire life and establish the moment from which a person began to feel a feeling of anxiety. This could be troubles at work or difficulties in family life. Even negative news on TV can cause anxiety.

Voice the problem

If you cannot determine the cause of anxiety on your own, you should try to communicate with someone close to you. When talking with someone who understands and accepts a person for who he is, you can find out a lot of interesting things about yourself. It should be taken into account that the counterpart must have a positive attitude. His task is not to sympathize and share his troubles, but to give a charge of positive emotions. Usually, after talking with such a person, a person suffering from anxiety disorders calms down.

Take your mind off your problems

Another method of avoiding anxiety is to distract yourself. If a person is at home, it is worth watching a comedy, reading an interesting book, meeting with friends or taking a relaxing bath with herbs. At work, you can completely immerse yourself in your work, throwing away all anxious thoughts. Communication with colleagues helps a lot. A great solution would be to have tea during your lunch break.

Exhale deeply

If you don't know how to cope with worry and anxiety, pay attention to breathing exercises. It perfectly helps eliminate causeless worries. It is necessary to take deep breaths and exhales several times. As a result, breathing is restored and anxiety subsides.

In order not to be subject to anxiety, you should first of all learn to think positively, communicate with friends and loved ones, and not withdraw into yourself. A person who is open to the world does not worry, but acts.

Anxiety is the most frequently presented experience of a client with whom a psychologist encounters in the counseling process.

The term “anxiety” is used to describe an emotional state that is characterized by subjective feelings of uneasiness, gloomy forebodings associated with an uncertain, unknown danger. At the psychological level, anxiety can manifest itself as a feeling of helplessness, self-doubt, and powerlessness in the face of external factors (Prikhozhan A.M., 2009).

At the physiological level, anxiety manifests itself in changes in breathing, increased blood pressure, increased general excitability, specific sensations in the chest, sweating, and rapid heartbeat. External signs of anxiety are fussiness, restlessness, and tense facial expressions.

There is a distinction between situational anxiety, which characterizes the state of an individual at a given moment, and anxiety as a personality trait (anxiety) - an increased tendency to experience anxiety about real or imaginary dangers (Khanin Yu.L., 1980; Sarason I.G., 1972; Spielberger Ch. , 1966).

In the Gestalt approach, anxiety is identical to “arousal” and includes both physiological arousal and undifferentiated emotions. The founder of Gestalt therapy, F. Perls, believes: “... the formula for anxiety is very simple: anxiety is the gap between now and then” (F. Perls, 1994). At the same time, F. Perls considers anxiety and fear from the point of view of the attitude towards external and internal threats and considers anxiety as initially a purely physiological reaction (Perls F., 1995).

From the point of view of Gestalt therapy, anxiety occurs when there is an imbalance in the person-environment system. A constant state of anxiety indicates blocked feelings and desires that are not allowed to be realized.

In Gestalt therapy, anxiety, before being “remade,” must be recognized and appropriated, and not “consoled” and thereby expelled from the field of awareness. In reality, the main strategy for dealing with anxiety is to “cultivate” it in order to realize it and return it to a state of excitement (Lebedeva N.M., Ivanova E.A., 2004). Questions and suggestions can help with this: “Who is your anxiety addressed to?”, “What is your anxiety doing to you?”, “Become your anxiety and express yourself.”

In a therapeutic session, anxiety “signals” about unfinished situations. However, it is not necessarily realized and expressed by the client; it can be hidden behind stereotypical forms of behavior that contribute to the avoidance of awareness. The therapist’s task is to identify and mobilize anxiety (Nemirinsky O.V., 1998).

The appearance of anxiety in the client is a sign of a neurotic interruption of contact. Understanding anxiety as interrupted arousal suggests that it is precisely those layers of experience that cause anxiety that should be the focus of the therapeutic interaction.

From the point of view of Gestalt therapy, a person can regulate his balance with the environment in different ways when faced with obstacles to meeting his needs. The first method is a creative adaptation that allows you to find a type of contact with the outside world that will allow you to satisfy your needs, as well as maintain harmony both with the outside world and with yourself. In addition, Gestalt therapy identifies the following neurotic mechanisms, or types of resistance (breakdowns in the contact cycle), that prevent a person from achieving psychological health and maturity: fusion (confluence), introjection, projection, retroflection (Perls F., Goodman P., Hefferlin F., 1951), egotism (Goodman P., 2001), deflection (Polsters I. and M., 1997).

Confluence (fusion) is the non-distinction of the boundary between two phenomena: perception and the perceived object, two people, i.e. there is no awareness of the difference between them.

Introjection is the process of assimilating ideas or ways of behavior that are alien to the body under the influence of authorities, the process of accepting concepts on faith when merging with these authorities.

Retroflection of behavior is doing to oneself what a person originally did to other people or objects, tried or wanted to do.

The personality trait of a neurotic or his feeling, behavior, which he does not feel as his own, but attributed to something or someone in the external environment, is a projection.

Deflexion is a way for the body to avoid direct contact with the environment by constantly changing the direction of movement towards the object of its need until the energy of the initial impulse disappears.

Anxiety appears precisely where contact is avoided. Therefore, during the session, a Gestalt therapist can identify which stage of the contact cycle is associated with the experience of anxiety (Zakharova T.A., 2008). The phase of the contact cycle in which anxiety appears indicates the client's characteristic mechanism for interrupting contact.

With each type of neurotic contact, anxiety is observed, but it differs in the reason for its occurrence and appears when the client is faced with an experience blocked by defense. Types of neurotic self-regulation of the individual have differences in the manifestation of the phenomenon of anxiety. An experimental study conducted in a rehabilitation center for social medicine made it possible to identify a number of relationships between manifestations of the phenomenon of anxiety and neurotic methods of self-regulation of the individual. For most neurotic types of defenses, it was possible to identify the presence of a relationship between individual types of anxiety, presented and blocked (unconscious) experiences. A study of the dynamics of anxious experience showed that types of neurotic regulation differ in terms of strength, frequency of occurrence and duration of anxiety.

Thus, unmotivated anxiety and getting stuck in unreacted experiences are associated with the confluent type of contact. During fusion, any highlighting of the figure of need causes anxiety. Anxiety arises when meeting one's own personal boundary. The blocked experiences during confluence are joy, interest and surprise, and the energy of anxiety is discharged through the presentation of neurotic experiences of guilt, contempt, disgust and anger.

With introjection, anxiety appears when the world around begins to change. Anxiety replaces the experience of desire, and the next phase of the contact cycle does not occur—the mobilization phase. The blocked experiences during introjection are anger, guilt, disgust, and shame.

In projection, anxiety is caused by the very experience of a feeling. Difficulties arise in awareness, because the energy of anxiety is immediately discharged by aggression. The blocked experience during projection is contempt, and the energy of anxiety is discharged through anger.

With retroflection, anxiety is caused by an action addressed to another person as an object of need (for example, a demand or request). The blocked experience is interest; the energy of anxiety is discharged through shame and disgust.

With deflexion, a person is worried about direct contact with other people, receiving feedback, sharing feelings with them. Anxiety appears when approaching an object, the blocked experience is surprise, and the energy of anxiety is discharged through contempt, disgust, and anger.

The egotist experiences the loss of control as anxiety. With egotism, anxiety is caused by a weakening of voluntariness, the blocked experience is joy, and the energy of anxiety is discharged through guilt and fear.

In Gestalt therapy, situational anxiety is dealt with as required by the phase of the contact cycle, where anxiety is followed by a breakdown: resistance is frustrated, preventing the client from wasting excitement.

An alarm can be registered at any moment of the change of figure and ground in the contact cycle. Observing signs of anxiety and their reduction makes the perception of resistance clearer. This helps the therapist to navigate what is happening, to make a choice of what to work with at the moment (Lebedeva N.M., Ivanova E.A., 2004).

The strategies for working with anxiety as a Gestalt therapist are based on the understanding of the need to restore integrity to a person, that is, to help unite oneself and one’s energy.

A Gestalt therapist conducts experiments in which a subject can “connect” or enter into a relationship with his own anxiety (Bulyubash I.D., 2004). For example, the client may be asked to identify with anxiety, that is, to depict a shaking figure, to intensify the type of movement, to realize what needs and feelings are behind this movement (Petrova E., Matkov V., 2008). A person can enter into dialogue with the anxiety or the figure that symbolizes it in order to clarify the feelings and needs of the current moment. The Gestalt therapist may invite the client to describe his feelings, focusing on bodily experiences. The task is to help a person understand what is most suitable at the moment. For example, get angry at someone (experience anger) or find out who or what the client is afraid of (intensify the experience of fear). In general, all these experiments are aimed at increasing attention to yourself and your own needs at the moment.

In Gestalt therapy, anxiety is also considered as a phenomenon of the therapeutic relationship. The therapist can pay attention to the context of the actual therapeutic relationship in which anxiety arises.

As a personality characteristic, anxiety is part of self-image. Changing character traits in any case requires very long work and occurs rather involuntarily, in the context of other changes. Strategically, in Gestalt therapy it is proposed to experiment with behavior that is opposite to the main structure of defenses (Lebedeva N.M., Ivanova E.A., 2004).

Thus, the very fact of the presence of anxiety in the Gestalt approach is understood as a phenomenon indicating the presence of blocked energy, which can be returned to the body by special methods.