Archive for the ‘anxiety’ Category
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
Some interesting if not bizarre research just published shows how we readily regulate our emotions by having unconscious goals. The researchers examined people’s revulsion to pooing babies and found that women who wanted children (with no previous experience of pooing babies) were able to down regulate their emotional responses to poo better than women who had no wish to have children. They were also able to up regulate other emotions surrounding the yukky bits of childhood better than a control group.
We certainly find that people who really want to achieve something like public speaking or flying, tend to move faster through our processes tan those that are doing the course for some goal beyond the fear, for example, getting promoted or going on a particular holiday. If the holiday is important for the person learning to regulate their emotions they tend to find the process easier. However if the individual is learning to regulate their emotions because of the fear of the flight but doesn’t really want to go on the trip anyway this can take longer.
Reference:
Shidlovski, D., & Hassin, R. (2011). When Pooping Babies Become More Appealing: The Effects of Nonconscious Goal Pursuit on Experienced Emotions Psychological Science DOI: 10.1177/0956797611417135
Posted in Anxiety research, Emotion, Emotional Resilience Research, Fear, Fear of flying, anxiety, emotion regulation, emotional resilience, overcome fear | No Comments »
Thursday, August 18th, 2011
A really interesting study has been completed by a Ph.D. student who has just been awarded his doctorate - congratulations, Dr. Joshua Floro of the University of California.
For some time a number of theories have suggested that smoking / nicotine addiction may reduce peoples ability to regulate their own emotions and may, contrary to popular belief, increase anxiety levels in the smoker.
Dr. Floro conducted at longitudinal study of high school children in the states who smoked and looked at the correlations between smoking and a range of psychological disorders which it have been suggested are mediated by reduced or impaired ability for the individual to regulate their own emotions. He tracked 178 male and female high school students across a four year period and categorised them as either:
- Non-smokers (the control group),
- Infrequent smokers, and
- Light to moderate smokers*
He discovered that as an individuals smoking habits increased their ability to regulate the negative emotions of anger and sadness reduced significantly. There was also a trend found with anxiety that was just under the level of statistical significance. So not only is smoking injurious to one’s physical health it also affects our mental health and depresses one’s ability to regulate emotions like anger and sadness and also appears to have an effect on the ability to regulate anxiety. We don’t know whether this effect is permanent or temporary; in that if one gives up smoking does the ability to regulate our emotions return? Joshua I think you have a lifetime of work ahead of you.
There appears to be a growing body of evidence to suggest that as far as smoking is concerned it interferes with our ability to regulate or reduce the levels of anger, sadness and anxiety felt by people. I will leave the last word to Dr. Floro:
” …these smoking-related reductions in regulation of negative emotion may put adolescents at risk for developing … disorders such as conduct (behaviour) disorders or depression.”
-
*you may ask what happened to heavy smokers group. Given that these are High School students in the age range of 13 - 18 and smoking is forbidden at school and in most states you can’t legally buy tobacco until you are 18 and 19 in some states this may go some way to answering your question.
Reference
Floro, J.N. (2011) Reduced Regulation of Negative Emotion with Escalations in Smoking Behavior during High School: A Dose-Response Effect. Doctoral Thesis. University of California, Irvine. August 2011.
Posted in Anxiety research, Emotion, anxiety, depression, emotion regulation | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
Is humour a good strategy for coping with emotional events like anxiety and fear?
Are all types of humour equally effective methods of emotion regulation?
I was a police officer for many years before my academic career, and one of the things I always found striking with emergency service workers and later when I was doing research with disaster managers around the world, was their sense and recourse to humour, particularly in stressful situations. Occupations like the military, the police, fire and medical staff are renowned for their humour. This, most clinicians and researchers will tell you, is a coping mechanism for dealing with the stress and regulating their emotions and is a vital strategy in terms of emotional resilience.
However is the use of humour really an effective method for dealing with fear and anxiety and emotion regulation?
It would appear so, however not all forms of humour is effective. An interesting study to be published later this year in the Journal Cognition & Emotion by colleagues at the Department of Psychology , Stanford University looked into the use of humour (or humor if you are American) as an emotion regulation strategy.
They found that positive or good natured humour has an automatic, what is called ‘down regulating effect’ on negative emotions. In other words, appropriate good natured positive humour, funny stories and jokes do all reduce anxiety and fear and is a viable emotion regulation strategy.
They also found that negative mean spirited humour, such as laughing at someone or disparaging jokes at another’s expense for example have no effect in helping people in coping with negative situations, in reducing anxiety and fear and cannot be considered to be effective strategies for emotion regulation.
So if you are stressed, get funny!
Reference
Samson, A.C., & Gross, J.J. (2011) Humour as emotion regulation: The differential consequences of negative versus positive humour. Cognition & Emotion (To be published August/Sept 2011)
Posted in Anxiety research, Emotion, Emotional Resilience Research, Fear, anxiety, emotion regulation, emotional resilience, humor, humour, overcome fear | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 19th, 2011
There is a fairly constant question / argument in the world of anxiety as to whether Psychotherapies or Cognitive Therapies like those we use on the Fear Course are better for dealing with the issue long term. This is also a question I am asked a lot by people. Here is an answer for SAD or Social Anxiety Disorder at least.
In a study just published* (July 2011), medical researchers from four university hospitals in Germany and the UK conducted a randomised controlled trial between the two types of therapy. They compared 254 patients who were randomly assigned to one of three groups for treatment:
- Cognitive Therapy,
- Psychotherapy
- A waiting list but no therapy as a control.
Each participant in the psychotherapy and cognitive therapy groups received 16 treatment sessions and the waiting list control only received one session with a therapist.
We measure success in terms of response rates. What we mean by that is that an individual responds positively to the treatment and by whatever measure (usually a recognised instrument or measure of anxiety), the individual experiences the symptoms reducing in a significant way or disappearing.
The response rates after 20 weeks in this study were as follows:
- Cognitive Therapy - 65.8%
- Psychotherapy - 42.1%
- A waiting list but no therapy as a control - 7.3%
After a year the response rates were:
- Cognitive Therapy - 68.4% - a slight increase
- Psychotherapy - 31.6% - a decrease.
- Those on the waiting list had by now received treatment as it is a bit unethical to withhold treatment for such a long time!
Clearly Cognitive Therapy is the best strategy for dealing with SAD or Social Anxiety Disorder and it has the best long term effect.
Reference:
Stangier, U., Schramm, E., Heidenreich, T., Berger, M., & Clark, D.M. (2011) Cognitive Therapy vs Interpersonal Psychotherapy in Social Anxiety Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2011; 68(7):692-700. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.67
Posted in Anxiety research, CBT, Fear Course News, Medical Issues, anxiety, overcome fear | No Comments »
Saturday, July 9th, 2011
Does it matter if an individual trying to overcome anxiety, fear, depression and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and similar issues, has hope that they will recover compared to those that don’t?
Researchers* in the US have found that there is a strong correlation between a patients level of hope midway through treatment and the level of success of the treatment. One of the unifying symptoms of these categories of problem is a sense of acute hopelessness. This research strongly suggests that having hope is a change mechanism for such issues. In short if an individual gains hope during the treatment process, even if they didn’t have it at the beginning, there is a strong likelihood they will overcome the problem.
However this should not be taken to mean that only people with hope can overcome such issues. Hope during treatment is according to this study, a significant factor but there is no evidence at this time that it a necessary one for recovery.
*Reference:
Gilman, R., Schumm, J. A., & Chard, K. M. (2011) Hope as a change mechanism in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, Jun 20, 2011, No Pagination Specified. doi: 10.1037/a0024252
Posted in Anxiety research, CBT, Fear Course News, anxiety, depression, overcome fear | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
For a some time now there has been a disagreement between theoretical models of emotion regulation and coping strategies and empirical evidence founded on observation.
Theories of emotion regulation / resilience and how to cope largely tend to emphasize the importance of processing and rationalising the situation. Often this means some form of cognitive reappraisal or in other words getting a different understanding or perspective on the situation such as finding and changing any biases we might have. Such theories often also tend to show that distraction and suppression techniques for dealing with things like anxiety and trauma, on their own are at best ineffective and can offer only short term relief and at worst (depending on the theory) can prevent long terms recovery or even re-traumatize the individual.
On the other hand evidence from some empirical studies suggest that distraction techniques can be effective and that suppression techniques can, especially if habituated (become a habit) help with emotion regulation and coping with traumatic events.
In a paper published in the June 2011 Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, researchers* vaidating the Perceived Ability to Cope With Trauma (PACT) scale have now found that people who can do all three, cognitive reappraisal including the ability to be more optimistic (positive affect), suppression and distraction tend to cope better with trauma and are more effective with their ability to regulate their emotions.
The researchers term this as ‘coping flexibility’. I will explore the concept of coping flexibility in my next post.
*Reference
Bonanno, G. A., Pat-Horenczyk, R., & Noll, J. (2011) Coping flexibility and trauma: The Perceived Ability to Cope With Trauma (PACT) scale. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, Vol 3(2), Jun 2011, 117-129. doi: 10.1037/a0020921
Posted in Anxiety research, Emotional Resilience Research, anxiety, emotion regulation, emotional resilience | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 8th, 2011
A fairly well accepted treatment for SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) or winter depression is 30 - 60 minutes exposure a day to bright ‘Full Spectrum’ light (10,000 LUX) during the winter months. This has been found to be an effective method of dealing with this mood disorder.
A question that researchers at the University of South Carolina were interested in was whether such treatment would also be an effective for adults with high anxiety disorder. They tested the hypothesis with 33 high-anxious adults, exposing them to 45 minutes of bright full spectrum light every day for a period of four weeks.
They tested the subjects using a range of anxiety and depression indicators including blood pressure measures. There was no significant change in the individuals.
In short there is no evidence that bright light reduces anxiety.
Reference
Youngstedt, S. D., Kline, C. E., Ginsberg, J. P., Zielinski, M. R. and Hardin, J. W., (2011) Bright light treatment for high-anxious young adults: a randomized controlled pilot study. Depression and Anxiety
Posted in Anxiety research, anxiety, depression, overcome fear | 1 Comment »
Saturday, December 11th, 2010
I get a lot of thank you mail due to the job I do. I don’t get them everyday but certainly not a week goes by without someone dropping me a lovely note about how The Fear Course has helped them. Normally these are from people who have been on the live course or the online course. However I got the following from Jamila who had only signed up for our free help guides and hasn’t even been on a course at all:
“David, thankyou for your advice. I realise my problem with interviews is actually related to a medical condition . I am seeking medical help for this. thankyou again for your advice”
And the advice? In one of the emails I send out I list a series of conditions that can be confused with anxiety and as it turns out Jamila, when she checked with her doctor, had one of the conditions I highlighted. For me this is an excellent outcome and evidence of what I was talking about in my last blog. There are medical conditions that have anxiety as a presenting symptom. Solve the medical problem and the anxiety goes. Beware of any anxiety treatment that suggests you don’t need to see a medical practitioner. They don’t know without a proper examination whether it is a medical or psychological condition.
As a matter of principle I show all my clients a list of the conditions and symptoms and if they have any suspicions I strongly suggest they see a medical practitioner. 95% of our clients do not have a medical condition and The Fear Course works it’s magic as it was intended, however for about 5% of people who pass this way this is frequently life and lifestyle saving advice. The advice is so important I include it in all my free stuff as well.
Posted in Medical Issues, Staying safe, anxiety, overcome fear | No Comments »
Friday, November 19th, 2010
I had a new client come to me a little while ago who was in ‘a bit of a state’. It transpired that she had tried an anxiety reduction programme she had got off the internet and the very first bits of advice she was given was, and I quote from the manual she was provided:
“YOU DON’T NEED TO VISIT THE DOCTOR!
STOP THIS ANXIOUS HABIT NOW!”
and
“Chances are that apart from giving you medication or passing you on to someone else such as a psychologist or psychiatrist, all the doctor did was reassure you that you are not ‘ill’ (some doctors don’t even do that!). OK so if that is all you are going to get from a doctor…why go? I mean, logically now, haven’t you had enough reassurance? You could go to the doctor a million times and get the same treatment every time…what’s the point?”
and
“Decide to come off your anti-anxiety medication” -
“the doctor cannot make you take medication”
And
“Stop researching your condition, doing so will only distract you from
the truth and the solution which can be found right here. The only
information about the physiology of anxiety you will need is
contained in this programme.”
and
“From this point on:
Don’t surf the web for information
Don’t buy books or visit libraries
Don’t ask people questions about your condition”
and
“ONLY FOLLOW THIS METHOD”
“This is very important. You MUST concentrate on this method and this one alone.”
As you can imagine I was a little surprised to see this advice. It is important that such therapies can work in conjunction with medical interventions where necessary. The blurb that goes along with this method states “you are not ill. You don’t need doctors or medication.” My only question is “how do they know without a proper medical diagnosis”? I agree most fear and anxiety related issues are psychological, but not all by any means. And some conditions, even psychological ones sometimes need a little medicinal kick start to re-balance things now and then, before a programme of psychological help. We frequently work with doctors and psychiatrists to help clients in this way and have a growing number of medical referrals.
If anyone tells you not to look for more information, not to visit a doctor and not to take prescribed medication and not to do anything apart from their programme, walk away. This is not safe advice.
This is one reason why we take our membership of the International Therapeutic Standards very seriously. They make rigorous checks to make sure the service is genuine, and that the qualifications and endorsements are real. If the service you are looking at isn’t a member, wonder why.
Posted in Buying a service, Fear, Staying safe, anxiety | 3 Comments »
Sunday, October 10th, 2010
You would think that if we remembered an event to which an emotion was attached (episodic memory) to it that every time we remembered that event the memory would evoke the same emotions. For example if we had a frightening, fearful or anxiety inducing experience like a car accident, you might expect that every time you recall the accident you would get similar emotional recall as well.
I am in the middle of a literary review for my next book and I came across this little gem of a paper which turns the assumption that emotions evoked during recall will be similar whenever we recall that particular memory. However a couple of studies conducted at University of Utah, USA by Pasupathi show that the emotion evoked during recall will differ depending on the context within which it is being recalled.
The two main factors that appear to have an effect on the emotions evoked during memory recall are the gender of the person / people listening and even more importantly the reactions of the listeners. If the listeners respond in a way that is in line with the original emotion (say fear or fright) then the individual recalling the event will experience that emotion. However if the listeners are in agreement with each other but at odds with the original emotion of the event then this will have an impact on the emotion experienced by the talker.
For example if the person recalls a frightening event and the listeners all respond with laughter, the individual recalling the memory is very likely to report humorous emotions as opposed to the previously experienced fear related emotions. The same can happen the other way around where positive emotions become negative on recall where the listeners react with horror when told the story.
This has implications for emotional resilience in that the context, particularly the reactions of others around us, is quite likely to determine the reaction of the individual to any situation particularly resilience in situations that involve elements of recall of previous or past situations.
Pasupathi, M. (2003) Emotion regulation during social remembering: Differences between emotions elicited during an event and emotions elicited when talking about it. Memory, Volume 11, Issue 2 2003 , pages 151 - 163
Tags: emotional regulation, emotional resilience, Fear, humor, humour, Memory, recall, Research
Posted in Anxiety research, Emotional Resilience Research, Fear, Memory, anxiety, emotion regulation, emotional resilience, humor, humour | No Comments »
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