Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Part 1 Basic concepts
- Part 2 The process of psychotherapy
- 10 Introduction to neuroscience applications in psychotherapy
- 11 Intake and assessment
- 12 Neural networks in therapy
- 13 Affect in therapy
- 14 Memory and change
- 15 Anxiety and change
- 16 The experience of improvement in psychotherapy
- 17 The therapist's neuroscience
- 18 Communicating with clients through neuroscience
- 19 Integrating traditional therapies
- 20 Applying neuroscience to depression intervention
- 21 Neuroscience and psychotherapy: moving forward
- Appendix: Neuroimaging and psychological therapies
- References
- Index
15 - Anxiety and change
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Part 1 Basic concepts
- Part 2 The process of psychotherapy
- 10 Introduction to neuroscience applications in psychotherapy
- 11 Intake and assessment
- 12 Neural networks in therapy
- 13 Affect in therapy
- 14 Memory and change
- 15 Anxiety and change
- 16 The experience of improvement in psychotherapy
- 17 The therapist's neuroscience
- 18 Communicating with clients through neuroscience
- 19 Integrating traditional therapies
- 20 Applying neuroscience to depression intervention
- 21 Neuroscience and psychotherapy: moving forward
- Appendix: Neuroimaging and psychological therapies
- References
- Index
Summary
The roles of anxiety in the change process warrant special consideration. The basic relationship of anxiety to the overall model of brain function and psychotherapy has been previously discussed (see Figure 6.1), so only a brief summary is presented here. Gray has posited the presence of a system that monitors the similarity between brain patterns related to current experience and brain patterns that have been associated with negative events in the past. When the system identifies similarity, the anxiety response is triggered. This involves behavioral inhibition, increased diffuse arousal, and increased attention to the environment. Anxiety itself likely blocks awareness of the source of the anxiety through diffuse brain arousal that interferes with a particular pattern standing out from other patterns and therefore gaining attention. Behaviors that reduce the similarity between current patterns and past distressing patterns likely reduce the anxiety reaction, and in this way maladaptive behaviors that avoid dealing with a problem are rewarded. These maladaptive patterns of experience and function present in therapy as anxiety that occurs for no obvious reason followed by behaviors that interfere with positive functioning.
When therapy reaches a road block whereby reasons for the anxiety and maladaptive behaviors are unclear, it becomes useful to recall that the anxiety response is part of a neural network. Previously discussed strategies for exploring neural networks can then be applied.
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- Information
- The Neuroscience of Psychological Therapies , pp. 129 - 132Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007