The self-management of anxiety: general principles


        THE SELF-MANAGEMENT OF ANXIETY: GENERAL PRINCIPLES
We have seen that anxiety may arise from a great number of causes. When we come to examine them and understand them, we see further that many of the causes can in fact be remedied. This of course is the first step in the self-management of anxiety. Those causes that have a basis in external reality are the easiest to remedy. For instance, a perfectionist working in a job in which he is involved with dirt and untidiness will have much less tension if he changes to a more suitable occupation, or a couple may be able to free themselves of tension if they can make sensible mutual adjustments in their sex life together.
However, it is clear that many of the causes of anxiety are with us, and there is really nothing we can do to escape them. In these circumstances the mere fact of understanding the origin of our tension helps us to bear it. We must understand it in the full sense of the word. I do not mean that we have to know the technical psychological mechanisms involved. In fact this is really little help, as is proved by the generally high level of tension in psychology students. What is required is a kind of philosophical understanding—knowing the cause, together with a calm and easy acceptance of the situation.
Some tension, of course, may be due to an unknown cause, and this tension is much more difficult to tolerate because of our innate fear of the unknown. Our fear keeps prompting us to find the cause, and when we cannot do so, we begin to feel that we must be going out of our mind.
We see then that in some cases the cause of tension can be removed; in other cases, we cannot remedy the cause, but we can still reduce its effect by a proper understanding of the situation. In the vast majority of cases, however, we are faced with tension, the cause of which we can do very little, if anything, to modify.

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