The Most Viable Non-Exposure Based Treatment Program for Anxiety

Think of anxiety meds as tranquilizers, the anxiety comes right back after you take them off it. So get the skills to beat it without the meds and develop self-reliance! 

Because you want to instill a "full-acting-the-part-of-being-healthy"- the more identity you can associate with it the BETTER. This may even include acting like an actor or a favorite person you know.

However, in cases of depression where meds can and do help elevate mood, enough to help cultivate positive interest in life, it can be helpful to not go off of those, if they are already in place. Also, Re-Thinking your thoughts to correct them is encouraged in the treatment of depression and is often used in tandem with medication to heighten the gaining of the cognitive skills of refuting irrational beliefs. I think most practitioners assume that anxiety meds might be indicated as a PRN for acute/unsafe conditions that can be greatly calmed with meds. But after the "one incident", it will give no long-lasting coping skills. So... it is NOT the same for anxiety- meds, they will only dumb the person down, LIKE a tranquilizer- think TRANQUILIZER.

Remember, if you're going to Do Stuff in the "here and now" so that you can REMAIN fully present, you need to "put it all on" by doing things you like to do and "act the part of a well person".  Does that demonstrate faith? Most assuredly!  One can try to handle both, they just need to try to think less when anxiety is present and "do more".

Anecdotally, because of all the implications regarding 'the more identity, you can associate with it' aside from needing some reality checks, it 'can be' (not the same as "is") very deleterious to have a loved one keep casting you in the sick role. It is the same idea involving how a counselor can start doing that. I think it can very well be sometimes their own anxiety-based errors and limitations in thinking possibilities otherwise and sometimes true biological arousal pattern that gets calmed through labeling someone else when they are trying to refuse that. This could be a process of "Disowning" in themselves. DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY, WE DO THE SAME THING SOMETIMES OR IT IS THE NATURALLY HUMAN THING TO DO SOMETIMES (PS: Are we doing it now?). We may be doing it to ourselves by paralyzing ourselves over it too, as that is GIVING YOUR POWER AWAY to someone else- to say "they are doing that". We can't allow ourselves to do that. Live with it, just like you do with the sensations- expect little as one of the best coping mechanisms/strategies!!! But love much as the best strategy, to counter any irritation you may feel- as did not Christ say, "love casts out all fear"? BUT... for reasons, I am counting... this may be one reason I am writing ALL THIS. Please have them come to read it and "force them" to do it in all the good connotations that ("force them") come with that and throw out all the bad ones PLEASE.

Depression dwells too much on the past and is about thinking error process breakdowns, whereas Anxiety is on the opposite pole of worrying about imminent fears of/in the future with behaviorally incited errors in thinking, that come from physiological fear responses. You correct those through a program of positiveness in doing things you like and that are meaningful and wholesome. The first one is less impulsive/fear-based and therefore the solution of misperception can lay in the field of assessing/changing thought (cognitive therapy) and not endeavor (behavioral therapy). The second one is more impulsive toward fight or flight responses that hijack any thought resolutions. If it was discovered that thinking about your already ruminating thoughts to "find the answer" was found to work, you wouldn't HAVE the condition period!  But ruminating just makes it worse!!!

Some calming activities to address the physiological response is "part of the Linden Method" if you read the pdf The Linden Manual, but it is to point out that physiological responses are best calmed BY diverting and distracting.

Do It Long Enough- a few days for most: If you do it long enough, the panicked feeling will change- some by a flip of a switch, some not as drastic. I was a little of the latter. But I think full compliance WITH no ruminations will be like a switch happened. I had a lot of those "little" switches take place, enough to envision how a more radical and full one takes place IF you have FULL compliance.  It is NOT easy, BUT ironically immediate small successes CAN provide enough teasers to have you "get it".  Just try this thing, and you will FINALLY have some hope! I know... nobody understands. You will come with your first success to eventually realize HOW SUBTLE anxiety is and how humiliating it is... to realize... "My mind is Broken".  I was there! I know! I feel! I empathize!

Success Story- Switches/Reversals that Instill Hope:  I had a son on his mission. I knew he would not listen. He was headed in a week to go see the doctor to get on anxiety meds. I taught him about diverting and distracting and then promised him in the name of God and used my authority to bless him, and did this through an email, no less... that if he complied he would see a measure of success and feel it. He did what I asked... and exclaimed that it was the FIRST time he had ever felt anxiety-free his WHOLE mission. He had been on one for OVER A YEAR! That to me is so sad, that it was the FIRST time. He did report that he canceled his appointment. Now, it was not perfect, because on a mission you don't get to do all the pleasurable activities you could at home. But he did continue out his mission without meds. 

So, does this work?  YES!!!  BUT it is if YOU WORK the program.  That is the ONLY question.  See all the testimonials.

TLM has us assess our habits because these are behaviorally rooted. And behaviorally positive intended activities repeated over and over crowds-out reactive based emotional thinking based anxieties. Which habit are we creating? Which wolf do you want to feed? We are benefited from "the hands-on" approach of slowing things down, where the misperception fix can lay in the field of endeavor or Doing or Staying in the Healthy Here and Now and have it play "catch up" to an otherwise racing mind that is constantly thinking of a worst-case scenario otherwise. Slowing things down does not mean "staying in that moment where the trauma response is alive and well, but by distracting into the real world where joy, happiness, and healthy pleasure are and in doing things of interest- way better activities (as a habit) to engage yourself upon".  By distracting and diverting in that way, the brain's reactive physiology and thinking pathways associated with it, are and can be bypassed or changed/adapted to the new preoccupations of endeavor.

The Linden Method helps innoculate against future worry, by changing the worry anxiously hardwired brain to a non-anxiously engaged hardwired brain- behaviorally biologically changing the brain through implementing Diversion and Distraction activities of interest and engagement. It is the very antithesis of replacing the bad with the good and having it be the cure! Dale Carnegie from "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" incites that the best program they adopted for PTSD war returning victims was the slogan they developed called "Keep em busy, keep em busy!"  Because WHEN they did for long enough (a few days and weeks) their condition IMPROVED!

When I was a Child and Family Counselor fresh out of school, I could quite often attribute a mental diagnosis of "Adjustment Disorder" to many of those presenting with anxiety symptoms that were associated with something more immediate in their life that had taken place.  For these conditions, a readily identifiable stressor in their life was very attributable. For instance a fresh move. Well, anyone that has undergone a move KNOWS how stressful it can be and especially for a kid. I believe that many anxiety conditions might be of this order. I'm not one to necessarily apply The Linden Method as a "one size fits all" method. BUT I can't deny that if it was applied to many of these people, perhaps... instead of talking about it so much, that perhaps, just perhaps The Linden Method could yield better results. I theorize that if a clinician/patient would address and talk about what is and has been stressful about things in the WAY OF NORMALIZING, it would/could be a very powerful inoculation against it festering to becoming a major full-blown up condition of anxiety that perpetuates into the rest of their life.

So, perhaps conditions that "just happened" or can be situationally ascribed or that a certain stressful event causes the anxiety, then by unearthing it, and resolving it, things can now heal and mend.  If so, then exposure might therefore be necessary. I admit this has some appeal on the beginning outset for all anxiety disorders to try to address a perhaps fixable cause first if one can be found. After all, we only need to have had a sliver in our precious skin to understand how, it is only when you ‘get-it-out’ or resolve the source of the pain, that you can even now expect things to get better. Even “flooding” as another concept of “exposure” seems relevant in that it might take “more pain” upfront, in order to have less pain later on. Whether it is settling in our mind that we must be exposed to the very thing we are afraid of, in order to overcome that fear is used, one cannot deny that often the only way to beat fear in life, anxiety plagued or not, for that instant, is to confront it, after which much of the pain associated with it, can subside after swallowing the bitter pill, to begin with. 

OK, let's presume talk therapy has been tried and the person is just not getting better. Here is where The Linden Method comes in.  The Linden Method is equally challenging in that it also confronts the anxiety, designating its more corporeal nature of physical sensations to a "condition" one has that can be denied in the interest of "more interesting things to be up and doing" about.  We safely ignore "real sensations". It takes a lot of courage and faith to "fake it till you make it" as well.

It is when more talking-about-it "therapy" is making things worse, then is when The Linden Method could really help and is often needed. At such a time, certain things work against "this new program".  Hope is an incredibly powerful device against the fear! Indeed when fears seem resistant to cognitive interventions, a whole physiological compulsion of an anxiety state seems to respond best to a "change the tune" or "put on a different record" approach. For instance, why does laughter ease tensions better than anything else almost? It gets us "off ourselves" and onto a different perspective in a fun way! So, by changing things up, you ARE waging a much different kind of psychological warfare (see the 9 Pillars)- only this one is played against fear itself.  It is a "what animal are you going to feed?" idea. It is very much a process of losing oneself in order to find oneself.

We will come to see that this new hope introduces the very real notion that you can get better with this program on your own, that when you "don't need" anyone else to get better, it empowers one to assert themselves in powerfully succinct ways through willful and willing enjoyments. This is particularly powerful against those whose interests have been eroded in life to re-enthrone personal power, to bring about a better condition in and by and with and for themselves.

Part of this different kind of psychological warfare is to stop seeing a counselor for your condition (See Pillars 1,5, 6 & 7). If you seem to think you "need" anything, this is seen as the psychological enemy to getting better. How else can one truly "fake it till you make it"? Sorry, to all you would be "you need me" effectual people. This could include a LOT of therapists that think the patient person is unable to get better on their own. After it has been discussed and it is not helping anymore, many therapists need to check their own egos at the door OR shall we say anxieties, if the client is trying to "get better on my own" and the therapist objects in any way. YES, it can be often their own anxiety that they are addressing, in that case.  A case in point is Dale Carnegie's example used earlier of how they learned to treat returning soldiers exposed to atrocities of war who were diagnosed with PTSD- it was "Keep em busy, keep em busy"... not "Keep them talking, keep them talking". No, in fact, that WAS the problem (See Pillar 1,5, 6 & 7).  Has anyone seen The Dream Team? In the end, by going out in society, "without the close supervision of a doctor", to experience that "they can do this on their own", it WAS THEN that the "patients" became "the doctors" who in an act of reversal, subscribed and put their own doctors on meds WHICH "made them" appear and look the same as they, the patients looked and did prior. THIS is just like THAT!!!

Also, remember how we started this article, about how we can assume that we all have this condition? "BUT it can be turned on TO BE JUST LIKE an anxiety sufferer, is the WHOLE POINT.  It is BECAUSE we don't always manage emotion well in some situations or on some occasions. But then we find a way to turn that down and it subsides on its own. Anxiety suffers are the same, only they are not able to turn it off as easily or to some degree or another NOT AT ALL sometimes."

Anxiety is very subtle to deceive oneself! It is also virtually a given that almost every anxiety sufferer will have already tried to directly address it by finding the cause and processing things cognitively and verbally.  Well, once, twice, ten times is enough... and now... IF you can discern the subtle nature of anxiety, you will notice it tricking you into thinking "you've got this" when you don't! Sorry to say it, but if you really do think you have this, which applies to most of us "overthinkers", then "have at it"! But don't! This is how partial compliance takes shape when applying The Linden Method and not full compliance. Often what this will do is effectively keep a pilot light lit, as you think you can think your way out of through this "behavioral program" when it is about NOT THINKING "about it". In fact, Charles Linden wants people to read through it and be done.

So, just remember this analogy, anxiety is like working your wrench on a problem bolt on the other side of an area you can't see. But because you "think" you can feel the bolt and can put and "feel" your wrench secured on there, you then "believe" you've got this when you start turning the thing to "fix it". Only problem? When you "finally" are able to see up over the barrier letting you truly see things as they really are, you find out that the entire time your very tool, your very own wrench has a busted prong or side to it, only partially grappling it and creating some movement, but not enough... and this entire time instead of securing this bolt, you made LITTLE progress.  THIS is the nature of anxiety and these other methods for "fixing it", you find out you are and HAVE BEEN spinning your wheels only BECAUSE it is your "broken worry mind/brain" that is the broken tool.  Nay, stop thinking, feeling, and believing, and start DOING by LIVING IN THE PRESENT ONLY.  Do "that" long enough and you'll find a "fixed situation", a CURE on its way!!!

More often than not, the source of anxiety cannot be tracked to its origin, thereby negating the “Initial Pain” exposure hypothesis of “Exposure Therapy” thereby even being efficacious. Indeed, inside the Linden manual, it is this overarching and plaguing and vexing obsession for the anxiety victim to "NEED" TO RESOLVE it through stewing about it: whether it be to return to what caused it or just trying to prevent the worst-case scenarios for the future. This forms the whole basis of needing to rather: give up on that already, AS THE PROBLEM keeping it fueled!

Charles Linden addresses the pain inside anxiety with the word “sensations”, physical as they may be; increased respiratory pulse and hyper-arousal are all part of this. He addresses the pain through a process not called “exposure” but WOULD HAVE anxiety victims address the pain or sensation, not through examining the source, but in “allowing” the sensations, NOT “avoiding” them while supplanting them with a different program. Charles Linden would say “allow them" [while practicing DOING OTHER INTERESTING THINGS]… stating that they never did any harm to anyone. Nobody dies of these sensations. This is an exposure method to some extent… but let’s get clear, it is not exposure therapy, but a reality-based acknowledgment that when you do have anxiety sensations,  “one does not need to address them, but let them be, as in who cares, they can’t hurt you and have never hurt anyone- do not feed them or give them attention”.

IN OTHER WORDS: FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT!!!

With some it will be like turning a light on, the brain will no longer be an anxious one. With others, it might be more gradual, particularly as nobody stays completely 'out of their head' or it would be faster. It guarantees that with 100% adherence to the program, you will get a 100% cure!

Well, if you replace the worry with healthy activity, and if you reinforce it behaviorally at all times of day, IT FOLLOWS!!! One cognitive jaunt from Dale Carnegie's "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" book wants the anxiety sufferer to determine the ACTUAL percentage of likelihood, that that particular worst-case scenario would ever actually happen anyway? It is indeed almost NILL!!! Once it is quantified... the feared item loses its power... THEN to bring the person BACK to reality. So, minimizing and ‘getting away' from the feared item is not altogether unrealistic, thus ignoring sensations, even as the odds tally through better things in one's favor. Make "getting at it" your primary focus with cognition to solve worry, however, and you’ve done the opposite, given it “more power” than it had to begin with, in actual reality.

So to me, exposure therapy, whether through flooding or systematic desensitization, it is like the fisherman in the rocking boat trying to get bait onto the hook. Until he could get the boat steadied, he would only continue to be frustrated and getting nowhere, and in many cases... worse off. Pursuing MORE "talk therapy" for many people is like the rocking boat and IS that r-o-c-k-i-n-g boat. Ironically, DOING interesting things is steadying the boat SO the bait can be applied and the first sign of relieving anxiety is felt and the first and most very powerful juices of HOPE for the very first time get injected into all of their being, thinking, and doing.  THIS WORKS! ...is what you can come away with within a few days, not weeks or months!!!  Now, THAT is bating a hook or threading the fishing line that sets the hook and sets the stage for ALL subsequent successes and permanent brain changes to take place.

A small add-on for me is this. You can’t get happiness and its attendant interests by doing things that violate your conscience, so keep it clean, but do all those things that are pleasurable (if your married sex is one of the most effective things; or as Linden says get back to enjoying food, of course, your healthy diet) and right and good and wholesome and entertaining activities and the most important… interesting. Do this 24/7 and you will THRIVE!!! Try it and see! Remember my son, and in a matter of a few days, he was stating he’s NEVER had the anxiety leave him like this before. It is VERY often INSTANT relief. Nothing gets this many rave reviews unless something happened [https://www.thelindencentre.org/client-feedback/facebook-comments/]. Try it!!!