Can treatment make your anxiety symptoms worse?

[Michiel]

Hi everyone,

I've been seeing a psychoanalyst for about a month now. I want to fight my fears and finally get rid of them. Last week we came to a point where the recollection of my past got the better of me and made me cry ( for the first time since long...) But now my fears and anxiety is much worse than usual. Now I keep waking up night, having those horrible intrusive toughts,...

Is this as a result of the therapy? Or am I just getting worse? Did anyone else experience this?

[oldtime]

My experience is:
Psychologists - dig out the past to see how this led to you developing anxiety. They offer little advise on how to deal with it. [it makes you feel worse, but helps you understand what led to your anxiety]
CBT - this gives you the tools to discover the negative thinking that is the root cause of your anxiety and depression and teaches you how to rationalise them and replace them with more positive helpful thought. [it makes you worse initially, as you are identifying the negatives then it helps you recover as you learn to replace them with the positives]
Mindfullness - this seems to be more useful when you are recovering to prevent re-occurrance

[NoPoet]

Hi, I only just saw this thread. Therapy can definitely make you feel worse sometimes. You are confronting the very things that make you suffer. You might have some very good sessions, then one will kick up some bad feelings and you'll go into a "blip" after (where you temporarily feel worse).

On the other hand, as you start getting better at handling your negative emotions and you start to resolve some issues, and as you start to recover in general, therapy can be a positive reinforcement which helps you to keep on getting better.

EDIT: Mohc speaks the truth. I'm interested in his take on Mindfulness as this is something I still haven't really explored yet.

[Lindy]

I had CBT and psychotherapy combined treatment and I definitely got worse before I got better. All those things you didn't deal with at the time have to be sorted I think. I used to go home massively depressed and get straight into bed! Once you've dealt with it though, you can move on, and look at something else, and free up a bit of space in your brain, and be just a little bit less anxious/depressed - at least that's the way I see it!

[shauntheron]

A psychiatrist told me that all antidepressants can boost anxiety at the start.For some people it's not a problem,but I'm hyper sensitive and I need to do things slowly or I'm going in hell.A person experiences relief from panic after drinking alcohol, then finds that as it wears off, his anxiety returns more intensely than before, creating a treacherous and hard-to-break cycle.