Anxiety therapy
GAD, panic, social, OCD, phobias — and the modalities that move them.
In this guide
What works first-line for each anxiety presentation, the worksheets clients actually fill out, and worked cases that show the formulation.
Modalities
The therapies most relevant to this topic.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are interlocking — change one and the others move.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Stop fighting your inner experience; start moving toward what matters.
Exposure and Response Prevention (for OCD)
Approach what you fear; resist the ritual; let the brain relearn safety.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
An 8-week group program that uses mindfulness to prevent depressive relapse.
Compassion-Focused Therapy
Build the capacity for self-compassion in clients dominated by shame and self-criticism.
Disorders
First-line picks and clinical guidance for the presentations under this topic.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Chronic worry across multiple life domains, often with intolerance of uncertainty.
GAD is driven by worry as a strategy — clients believe it prepares or protects them. Treatment targets worry behavior, intolerance of uncertainty, and avoidance, alongside relaxation and metacognitive beliefs about worry itself.
Panic Disorder
Recurrent panic attacks plus fear of future attacks; often with agoraphobic avoidance.
Panic is maintained by catastrophic misinterpretation of body sensations (I'm dying, going crazy) and by avoidance/safety behaviors. Interoceptive exposure — deliberately producing the sensations — is the core intervention.
Social Anxiety Disorder
Fear of negative evaluation that drives avoidance, safety behaviors, and post-event rumination.
Treatment targets self-focused attention, safety behaviors, and avoidance of feared social situations. Behavioral experiments that drop safety behaviors are more effective than habituation alone.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Intrusive obsessions paired with compulsions that temporarily relieve anxiety and reinforce the loop.
OCD is maintained by the compulsion, not the thought. Treatment that reduces compulsions (overt and mental) breaks the cycle and lets new safety learning form. Medication (SSRIs at higher-than-depression doses) often adjuncts therapy in moderate-to-severe cases.
Specific Phobias
Marked, persistent fear of a specific object or situation, with avoidance.
Single-session exposure-based treatment (Öst) achieves clinically meaningful gains in many specific phobias. The active ingredient is exposure with inhibitory learning maximizers.
Health Anxiety
Excessive worry about having a serious illness, checking and reassurance-seeking behaviors.
Treated as an OCD-spectrum / anxiety problem. Cognitive misappraisal of body sensations + checking/reassurance behaviors maintain the disorder. ERP-style work targets the safety behaviors directly.
Worksheets
Free, printable, Quick-Send to clients.
For clients
Plain-language explainers you can share or open together in session.
Worked cases
Anonymized vignettes with formulation across 2–3 modalities.
How-to
Step-by-step walkthroughs.