Psychotherapy combined with drug therapy for anxiety

What are the benefits of combining psychotherapy with drug therapy for anxiety?

Anxiety problems are very common among the general population, but unfortunately not everyone considers remedying them in an effective way and with long-term effects.

On many occasions, the priority is to "get by", putting patches on what bothers us at the moment, without thinking about the psychological wear and tear involved in feeling that way for many months or even years. For that reason, it is common that in the face of anxiety problems people go to the doctor with the idea that the professional will simply prescribe psychotropic drugs against anxiety.

In this article we will see why it is important that this treatment is not limited only to the use of drugs and also incorporates psychotherapy.and specifically cognitive-behavioral therapy.

What are the most commonly used anti-anxiety psychotropic drugs?

There is a wide variety of drugs of anxiolytic type, and here we are going to see the most used ones. However, it should be borne in mind that the most popular ones are not necessarily the most useful or effective for a particular person, and that it is always the physician supervising the particular case of each patient who has the necessary knowledge and criteria to select the drug to be used.

That said, the most frequently used anxiolytics are these:

• Diazepam, or Valium
• Alprazolam, marketed as Trankimazin or Xanax
• Bromazepam, marketed as Lexatin
• Lorazepam, also known as Orfidal
• Clonazepam, or Rivotril
• Clomipramine, or Anafranil

What are its effects?

Each type of anxiolytic psychotropic drug acts in a different way on the nervous system, since there are different ways of producing similar effects in the human body. They all cross the blood-brain barrier that separates the circulatory system from the central nervous system and interact with our neurons, triggering in them similar effects. and interact with our neurons, triggering reactions in them that as a whole usually go hand in hand with a decrease in anxiety or its associated problematic symptoms.

However, as the active ingredients of these drugs are not intelligent entities that are clear about the purpose of the treatment, they sometimes interact in an unexpected way with nerve cells or other parts of the body and give way to unwanted side effects. That is why the treatment of anxiety through psychopharmaceuticals should always be prescribed and supervised by medical doctors..

And what is cognitive-behavioral therapy?

As its name suggests, cognitive-behavioral therapy is a model of therapeutic intervention in which action is taken both on the person's observable behaviors and on his or her system of ideas and beliefs (i.e. his or her cognitive processes).

Through this type of techniques and strategies that act through the double route of the physical and the mental, the psychologists help people to develop patterns of thought and behavior that promote mental health that promote mental health and the ability to regulate one's emotions effectively.

Advantages of combining psychopharmaceuticals with cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety

These are the most important advantages of treating anxiety by means of anxiolytic psychotropic drugs and, at the same time, by means of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy.

1. Learning to know oneself better

Cognitive-behavioral therapy involves getting to know oneself better and getting to know one's own and the contextual processes that are influencing the maintenance of the problem to be treated. This is achieved both in the psychologist-patient meeting sessions and through the tasks to be performed by the latter between sessions.

Thus, by seeing in a more detailed and realistic way those aspects of daily life that were reinforcing the problem without us realizing it, we gain power of influence over our mental health and we fight more effectively the discomfort and its associated symptoms.

2. To stop depending on the schedule of consumption of drugs.

For many people who try to overcome anxiety through the use of psychotropic drugs, the fact of knowing when the effects of these drugs begin to diminish gives them extra cause for concern and fear.

For example, there are cases in which these people are more likely to experience anxiety problems just because they know that in about 20 minutes the effects of the anxiolytics they took will have practically disappeared, even though they cannot take any more pills until a certain time because of the doctor's instructions. It is to some extent understandable that this happens in those cases in which the psychopharmaceutical is seen as the only remedy for the psychological disorder that has developed.

Fortunately, if we combine pharmacological treatment with psychotherapy, the recovery of the state of health becomes "two-legged".The idea that the effects of anxiolytics will fade away does not cause so much concern.

3. Modifying habits to promote psychological well-being

Cognitive-behavioral therapy rarely addresses only the symptoms for which the person has come to the psychologist's office. As a general rule, the aim is to produce a global change in the patient's psychological well-being. Ultimately, the self-care and emotion regulation skills that patients enhance in therapy will not only be applied to that particular problem that made them feel very bad, but will be put to work in all other areas of their daily lives.

In addition, even when this is not explicitly stated, in most cases the remission of the symptoms that generated the most discomfort produces a domino effect in other areas of life. This favors the ability to be happy and feel in harmony with oneself.

4. Being able to adapt one's behavior if circumstances change

Psychotropic drugs do not react to the transformations that our environment undergoes: if we go from suffering anxiety because we do not have a job to suffering anxiety because we have a new job that we do not want to lose, probably the action of the medication will not adapt to this new circumstance. This is partly why it is common to find it necessary to change medication, starting again with another product.

On the other hand, with cognitive-behavioral therapy, these abrupt changes in daily life do not mean a break, since the transition from a series of different medications to a series of new ones does not require a new medication.The transition from one set of exercises and habits to another occurs much more smoothly, so that the patient continues to benefit from the accumulated progress he or she has made up to that point.

5. It does not involve exposure to serious side effects

Cognitive-behavioral therapy applied to anxiety problems does not present a significant risk of serious side effects in the vast majority of patients. in the vast majority of patients, something that clearly differentiates it from pharmacological treatment, in which there is always a risk to be taken into account (although the danger is mitigated by the fact of having medical supervision and being able to modify the treatment quickly following their instructions).

Are you looking for psychological assistance?

If you think you are suffering from anxiety problems and want to remedy them by going to professionals, I invite you to get in touch with me..

I am a psychologist specialized in the cognitive-behavioral model and I have been helping both individuals and companies for many years; through a process of several sessions, I can "train" you to learn how to manage your emotional states and the negative behavioral consequences of complications such as generalized anxiety, work stress, phobias, etc. In this way, you will learn to modify your habits and behavior so that the problem you are experiencing will gradually lose strength until you can overcome it in the short or medium term.

You can count on my services both in person at my office in Madrid and online through video calls; on this page are my contact details.

Bibliographical references:

• Azanza, J.R. (2006). Guía práctica de Farmacología del Sistema Nervioso Central. Madrid: Ed. Creación y diseño.
• Gould, R.A.; Otto, M.; Pollack, M.; Yap, L. (1997). Cognitive behavioral and pharmacological treatment of generalized anxiety disorder: A preliminary meta-analysis. Behavior Therapy 28(2): pp. 285 - 305.
• Pull, C.B. (200). Combined pharmacotherapy and cognitive-behavioural therapy for anxiety disorders. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 20(1): pp. 30 - 35.
• Salazar, M.; Peralta, C.; Pastor, J. (2006). Manual de Psicofarmacología. Madrid, Editorial Médica Panamericana.