Articles

It is a great day for the mental health field.  Today’s Globe and Mail, Monday, June 11, 2012, had an exciting article on the front page of the Health & Fitness section. 

This is the heading:

$10-million gift raises profile of anxiety disorders

It goes on to say “thanks to a $10-million donation by Toronto businessman Frederick Thompson to the city’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre….their three-year waiting list is about to shrink.”

This is apparently the largest donation in Canadian history ever made for anxiety disorders.  A new centre will be named the Frederick W. Thompson Anxiety Disorders centre.  It will be the largest multidisciplinary treatment and research centre focused specifically on anxiety disorders. .  How wonderful that Frederick Thompson took the suggestion of his physician granddaughter, who is a resident of Sunnybrook. 

This is the comment I like:  “Ethically as a society, you have to question how it is that we take extensive pains to say we can’t have people waiting for hip surgery, we can’t have people waiting for cancer care, but it’s okay to wait three years when suffering a severe mental illness.”  I couldn’t agree more.

The degree to which we experience anxiety, which I define as a real or perceived threat to our emotional, physical, spiritual, or mental well being, depends on a multitude of variables.  In today’s world, much of the threat we feel is to our emotional well being.  Often that comes in the form of psychological stress to due jobs, parenting, finances, loss, separation and divorce, other relationship stress, and other general life stressors.  Any of these or a combination of these often result in a person feeling overwhelmed which increases the sensitization in our nervous systems.  When this starts to happen adrenalin and cortisol starts pumping through our bodies and physical symptoms start to manifest. 

If you are experiencing symptoms of anxiety, I would suggest seeking medical and psychological treatment as soon as possible.   Some people choose to take medication to help alleviate the symptoms of anxiety and some people don’t.  Most physicians will suggest to their patients to seek therapy in order to gain insight into the roots of the anxiety and to seek assistance in treating the anxiety.  I view anxiety mostly as an opportunity to understand what changes we need to take in our lives – mostly in the form of our personal development. 

Bibliotherapy for anxiety disorders:

Any and all books by Claire Weekes.   I highly recommend her books and audiotapes, especially if you want to understand the physiological distress your body is under; she brilliantly normalizes the physical and psychological symptoms so people have the knowledge of what is happening in their bodies and mind.  Often people are so scared of the symptoms, they aren’t sure any more what they were afraid of in the first place.  This is called secondary fear. 

Stay open.  Be curious.

Namaste, Barbara