Behavioral Component
The Behavioral Component Of Anxiety
The behavioral intervention for anxiety is probably the simplest to understand, but may be, by far, the most difficult to implement for some anxiety problems. As such, we recommend the behavioral intervention after you have been able to get a few of the other interventions under your belt. Implementation of each of the other interventions, the Cognitive, Physiological, and Emotional will help break up the interactive, self-reinforcing nature, of the various components. This will make it easier to implement the Behavioral component. For example, if the sympathetic nervous system is more stable due to the psycho-physiological exercises, or the dietary regiment then the “fight or flight” response will be less likely to fire when approaching a feared object, or if it does, it will be less severe or won’t last as long.
For some anxiety problems the behavioral component is essential for the treatment. Particularly those problems that have a significant behavioral avoidance component with them, like phobias, implementation of the Behavioral Component is essential. The Behavioral Component is still present in other anxiety states, although it may be more
subtle. For example, in panic attacks that seem to come out of the blue, a person may not avoid situations where panics seem to occur, because there are no specific where they occur.
But, they might not do anything that tends to cause an increased heart rate for fear of a panic attack being precipitated. Avoidance of cardiovascular exercise would then be avoided and problematic. In fact cardiovascular exercise is highly recommended, but only after some of the other interventions have been established. In any case, the behavioral component can be identified by AVOIDANCE of some sort. The key to the R&R, recognize and replace, formula that we have been presenting is that the RECOGNIZE part is to realize any tendency to avoid anything, and the REPACE part is to approach the thing or situation that one has a tendency to avoid.
The behavioral component of anxiety is one of the most effective and concrete ways to effect anxiety. The subconscious is the most basic or simplistic aspect of the mind, mostly resulting from past experience. Because it is so simplistic, behaviors or what we do, have a large impact because they are also very concrete. Although behaviors may effect the subconscious profoundly they may be one of the most difficult things to change because we don’t “feel” like doing them. Again, the emotional component becomes apparent. For example, if we have a fear of escalators we won’t approach an escalator, not because we can’t put one foot in from of the other and get on an escalator, but because as we approach the escalator we experience more and more anxiety, which is uncomfortable for us. We “think” we can’t get on an escalator, but in fact we don’t want to experience any more fear. So as we approach the escalator and the anxiety builds, at any point that we decide to turn around and go home the anxiety will dissipate, and that reduction in anxiety will become a powerful reinforcer.
The reduction in anxiety will reinforce both the behavior of avoiding escalators, and our thinking that elevators must be dangerous because of the cognitive distortion of “emotional reasoning”. If I experience fear around escalators then escalators must be dangerous. The simple truth is that I am experiencing the emotion of fear because I am thinking that I’m threatened or I might get hurt. The cause of the anxiety is the fearful thought. The emotion of fear then promotes the behaviors of avoidance or escape. And, as our self-reinforcing cycle goes, if we avoid, then initially the anxiety goes down, but the anxiety is strengthened over the long haul by reinforcing avoiding and making the object we identified as the source of the anxiety more fearful.
Because we can have direct choice over our actions, we can choose to walk forward on the escalator, first experiencing fear, and then the anxiety dissipating over time. This process of dissipation of the anxiety is slower, initially, with the first exposure (unlike the dissipation of anxiety that occurs from avoiding the escalator, which is very rapid), and then becomes quicker and quicker with each succeeding exposure. This process of approaching what was once the feared object will cause the anxiety to be less and less over time, and reinforce the idea that “I am in control”. Again, the thought of “being out of control” is the cornerstone for anxiety. Approaching what was once feared circumstances helps to reverse the downward spiral set up by avoidance. We will begin to experience more and more self-confidence and security while we in those circumstances that once caused fearful reactions.
The distortion of Emotional Reasoning is presented here in the behavioral component section because it is most likely to occur in potential avoidance situations. I am experiencing fear so the thing I am experiencing fear around must be dangerous. We then want to implement our R&R, recognize and replace.
We want to RECOGNIZE the cognitive distortion of Emotional Reasoning and REPLACE it with the following, “FEELINGS ARE NOT FACTS! JUST BECAUSE I FEEL FEAR AROUND (fill in the blank) DOES NOT MEAN THAT (fill in the blank) IS DANGEROUS!”
