Mastery of Your Anxiety and Worry | S.E.T. Therapy Programs at CNS Integrated Behavioral Health & Medicine
Program Description
The Mastery of Your Anxiety and Worry1 Program was developed at the Center for Stress and Anxiety Disorders and later substantially revised and updated at the Boston University Center for Anxiety. In this program, you will learn to regulate your “out of control” and unproductive worry and anxiety. Treatment will be facilitated between the therapist and patient, with the patient utilizing a program workbook on a weekly basis. The MAW Program stresses the importance of following the weekly readings and exercises in order to learn how to practice “positive emotional hygiene”.
CBT for anxiety and worry includes four modules. The first two modules are aimed at building skills towards managing anxiety once it has been elicited. Examples of this include correcting faulty thinking and fostering recognition and replacement of negatively skewed thoughts. The last two modules are targeted at not only managing ones anxiety, but taking it a step further, targeting the process of learning to identify, evaluate, and control anxiety and worry before it begins. These skills are learned through repeated imagery and in vivo exposure exercises, which teach you how to face your fears in a safe and gradual way.
Supported by Research
The Boston Center is the largest clinical research facility of its kind in the world and is well know for developing evidence-based treatment protocols for psychiatric conditions. Research supports this treatment as 70% of the people who completed this program have shown significant improvements, both in terms of their physical symptoms, their tendency to worry, and the ability to enjoy their day-to-day lives. Furthermore, research supports the long-term maintenance of the initial gains from treatment.
Is this Program Right for You?
Have you:
- Worried excessively and pervasively about several life circumstances?
- Experienced difficulty controlling the worry?
- Experienced several physical symptoms throughout the day (restlessness, tiredness, poor concentration, irritability, muscle tension, poor sleep)?
- Experienced worry and physical “nervousness,” for at least 6 months, for more days of the week than not?
- Tended to worry and be physically tense even when there are no major crises?
- Noticed that your major problems revolve around chronic and uncontrollable worry about future events?
References:
1. Barlow, D. and Craske, M. (2006). Mastery of Your Anxiety and Worry. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.