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Renowned Psychiatrist Promotes Drug-free Treatment For Anxiety

(October 13, 2006) -- Psychiatrist Dr. David Burns, Stanford professor and bestselling author of Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, addressed a rapt crowd of over 200 people at Parnassus on October 6, speaking on the topic of drug-free treatment for anxiety. Using patient examples, he described innovative therapeutic techniques that seem to work faster and better than medication in alleviating panic attacks and other anxiety disorders.

The highlight of the lecture came when Burns screened a video of his innovative therapy in action. Originally recorded years ago, the video showed a woman undergoing an induced panic attack in Burn’s office. She showed some classic symptoms: rapid shallow breathing, feeling faint and a sense of intense fear and emotional distress. This woman, like many who suffer from panic attacks, feared that she was going to collapse or die from her symptoms. Her debilitating attacks had continued frequently for more than ten years without relief from other therapies ore medications.

Applying the theory of his cognitive model, Burns understood the patient’s emotional distress to spring from a false belief or thought that she might die from symptoms that had really been brought on by harmless shallow breathing. The goal of his therapy in this case was to reveal the illogic behind the patient’s fear. As she gasped for breath and expressed fear that she might die any minute, the audience watched Burns compel her to exercise in place, repeatedly asking her if she thought someone who was on the verge of dying would be able to tolerate such exertion.

After several minutes of mental resistance, the patient finally surrendered with peals of laughter and relief, realizing that she had been wrongly fearful all along. The transformation was startling, and according to Burns, long lasting. The patient has only had one more panic attack in the more than twenty years after that session.

The therapy in the video represents one among many techniques Burns advocates in the treatment of anxiety disorders. When he treats a new patient, he tries each of about 50 techniques he’s developed until one works to provide a breakthrough for a particular patient. Incidentally, the transformation on the video occurred in that patient’s fourth session.

The theory behind Burn’s therapies draw from three models of understanding anxiety: the cognitive model, the exposure model and the hidden emotions model. Of the three, the cognitive model best explains what happened in the video. This model supposes that anxiety is the result of negative or misguided thinking. If your thoughts are distorted and illogical, then it follows that you may have uncomfortable feelings because of those ingrained thoughts. What cognitive therapy boils down to then is, as Burns puts it: “Change the way you think; change the way you feel.”

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Burns certainly compelled his patient to think and feel differently after their session. Likewise the students and therapists in the Parnassus audience last week may think and feel differently after listening to Burns. When faced with new patients suffering from panic attacks or anxiety, they may think and feel differently about trying cognitive and behavioral therapy first, before turning to prescribing drugs.

By: Sarah Gore
Source: SYNAPSE

Last updated: 09/06

Renowned Psychiatrist Promotes Drug-free Treatment For Anxiety

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