Anxiety is a protective response in the human body. It helps to safeguard us from coming to harm by raising an internal alarm that causes us to want to either run away or avoid the situation when confronted with something that might cause us harm or distress. It helps us to be careful.
Although anxiety is a normal and healthy human response, we may at times become overwhelmed by the thoughts and sensations associated with anxiety. If it starts to interfere with our quality of our life, or gets in the way of things that are important to us, and self-help methods have already been tried, then therapeutic intervention may be called for.
The roots of debilitating anxiety often lie in a particular life situation which, at the time, seemed unmanageable and where the response was to become overly concerned, worried or agitated. This experience may have reinforced negative beliefs about ourself, a sense of a loss of control, a loss of connection, hopelessness or an inability to self-manage. We may also have established a pattern of avoiding certain situations or places in an attempt to manage the anxiety.
Here is a quote by the American author Arthur Somers Roche: “Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained”. This suggest that unchecked worry can become overwhelming and can consume one’s mental capacity. The metaphor highlights how small concerns can grow in the mind and begin to dominate a person’s thinking, which can make it more difficult to focus on other important thoughts, or to see things clearly.
