Each year more than 20 million Americans, more than 5% of the population, seek treatment for an anxiety condition. There are generally a number of treatments that are available to these individuals for helping them begin coping with anxiety. This article will cover some of the advantages and disadvantages of each treatment option.

The most common method treating anxiety is through medications prescribed by a mental health specialist. These medications are typically any one of the benzodiazepine class of drugs, examples of which include Xanax and Ativan. These medications work best on episodic anxiety attacks. However they are not nearly as effective in dealing with chronic anxiety. The main disadvantage of benzodiazepines is that they are terribly addicting and have a horrible withdrawal syndrome associated with them. So if you do start on a course of these medications you will have to continue to take them daily to have any effect and you will experience severe withdrawal symptoms if you stop taking them. Because of this you should take pause before continuing.

Another common method of treating anxiety is by one on one counseling with a mental health therapist. There are several advantages and disadvantages of this method as well. The first thing about therapy is that it is generally not very effective on its own at alleviating anxiety symptoms. It can help with certain disturbed thinking and can be great for brainstorming but it is also expensive and time consuming. Therapy alone never really results in freedom from the symptoms of anxiety.

The dirty truth about therapists is most of them, themselves, do not suffer from anxiety conditions. So while they can be great at talking theories they don’t really have first hand knowledge about what it takes to break free from an anxiety disorder. They are generally book trained and all subscribe to the same company line about the causes of anxiety. In general, the profession has a ways to go to improve itself in the treatment of anxiety.

The next treatment option is to check in to a psychiatric center for an extended stay. This type of inpatient treatment can be very helpful if your anxiety is crippling to the point that you are unable to function in life. It can be especially helpful if you are contemplating suicide or harming yourself.The first order of business at a hospital is to alleviate the risk of patient suicide. In this way the treatment options provided by an inpatient clinic are usually not very precise for dealing with more subtle forms of anxiety.

The main therapy employed by psychiatric hospitals is called DBT or dialectical behavioral therapy. DBT teaches simple distress management techniques and mindfulness therapy. For individuals who lack skills to succeed in life and are contemplating suicide, DBT can be extremely successful. At the other end of the spectrum, high functioning individuals will anxiety conditions will benefit less from this kind of therapy.

The last point is about the cost. A decent clinic runs at least $750 a day and if you do not have insurance the cost becomes prohibitive. Still if you are close to taking your life and need the immediate intervention then an inpatient psychiatric clinic may be your best bet.

Those are three of the main methods for treating anxiety disorders. If you want to start coping with anxiety you may want to consider one of these options.