Marcoe is an affiliate of the Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety, Inc.
Stay the Course for Real Change by Marsha Marcoe, MFT
After treating Anxiety and Panic Disorder for almost 15 years, I have discovered that those patients who stick with a cognitive talk therapy program have success, and now there is neuroscientific research that shows that cognitive talk therapy produces changes in areas of the brain. In other words, conscious mental effort induces a biological effect on the brain. I call that success, and deep second order change.Using a Full Cognitive Talk Program to Treat Anxiety and Panic Disorder
A full course of cognitive therapy to treat Anxiety disorder may require up to 15 sessions and the completion of the Attacking Anxiety tapes. I have treated patients that only want to rely on drug therapy and not do the hard work of the cognitive therapy or the behavior modification tapes. Those patients are usually not as successful at living the life they deem as abundant.First Order and Second Order Change in Anxiety and Panic Disorder
I am not against drug therapy, but I want to stress the importance of the conscious mental exercise that will give one second order change instead of first order change in treating anxiety and panic. (Paul Watzlawick, Ph.D., John Weakland, Ch.E, and Richard Fisch, M.D.) The shift of perception and understanding is deeper with second order change. First order change is change within the same system that one has created with all the myths and lies regarding anxiety disorder. The anxiety and panic disorder is still there, but you have learned a bit about the condition. Second order change is the change of the system itself. It allows new information to push out old perceptions and lies so that you can live free from anxiety and panic instead of learning to suffer with them.Changing Anxiety and Panic Disorders
Changing the disorder takes a second order change, and the conscious mental exercise is the only way I know to make that deep change.Allowing information to become part of your true perception to eliminate anxiety and panic takes a process of assimilation and accommodation. One must take in information and accommodate it to what they already know so they can exchange the system of anxiety for a new one. A patient with anxiety disorder has false information about the disorder that needs to be challenged before they can accommodate the truth about the disorder. This process takes time and hard work. The new information must be part of what we actually believe before it can produce change in anxiety and panic disorder.
Using Mental Effort to Make Changes in Anxiety and Panic Disorders
I have a dear friend who took the board exams to become a practicing attorney. She failed the exams five times. When she asked me for help to get through the exam, I discovered she had not done the conscious mental effort to understand the material she needed to know before taking the exam. She highlighted the material with color markers, punched holes in the pages to create a very organized notebook, carried the book with her on her errands, but didn’t do the hard work of making the information relate to her cases.She did not assimilate or accommodate the new information, so she could not pull up the correct information when taking the test. The information didn’t belong to her because it was not accommodated in her brain. The system was the same without the true conscious mental effort and therefore second order change didn’t take place. It is often the same with people who do not put forth the mental effort to make real change in perspective when recovering from anxiety and panic disorder.
Lucinda Bassett has given her life work to helping people assimilate new information that can be accommodated toward second order change. Having the tapes and making a therapy appointment is opening the door to health. Sticking with the program is the key to success. Resistance to change is natural but staying the course yields second order change and the abundant life.
