The Mickel Therapy Clinic, Auckland, Mickel Therapy - contact Kim or book a session
by Dr David Mickel
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who'll decide where to go"
Dr Seuss
The words anxiety and anxious seem to be used with increasing frequency in our world today. Arguably, this overly liberal use of these terms has the effect of diluting and confusing their meaning. What is certain, however, is the numbers of people experiencing anxiety states is increasing. Many sufferers of CFS and Fibromyalgia have at some stage experienced the symptoms of anxiety.
Historically, anxiety has been firmly categorised as a psychological state or disorder. In psychological theory anxiety is defined most generally as a vague, unpleasant emotional state with qualities of apprehension, dread, distress and uneasiness. However, looking a little deeper we find that the definitions of anxiety tend to vary depending on the psychological theory being called upon; so Learning theory defines anxiety in a different way to Freudian theory, which defines it in a different way to Existential theory, and so on.
If we were to ask a selection of people what they thought anxiety was they would probably link it somehow to a heightened fear state. Certainly when using the word anxious the majority seem to be making to reference to an emotional state. We’ve all heard examples a bit like, “I felt pretty anxious when my boss asked me to write that report”. Of course, in this example the word anxiety is used to refer to and emotional experience of nervousness or concern.
In Mickel Therapy we take a very different approach to anxiety. Because of the physical symptoms that are often experienced with anxiety states we believe that anxiety should be classed as a physical condition rather than psychological in the traditional sense. Anxiety has a number of physical symptoms which can include, sweating, muscle tension, dizziness, visual and auditory disturbance, stomach upset, dry mouth, palpitations and increased or erratic heart rate.
So we suggest that anxiety is a symptomatic state or ‘condition’. This means that it is NOT an emotion – and not simply a heightened fear state.
When we look at a couple of real life examples, it becomes clear that anxiety cannot be the emotion of fear in a different guise. Example 1, “I was watching TV on a Thursday night and all of a sudden was hit with a massive jolt of anxiety”, completely real and cannot possibly relate to fear given the circumstances at the time. Example 2, “I was just dropping off the kids at school and felt this huge anxiety. I couldn’t work out what I was afraid of”. Again, given the circumstances there was no evidence of the primary emotion of fear.
So what triggers anxiety and the associated physical symptoms? Like the other ‘Energy Disorders’, anxiety results from the build up of primary emotional energy in the cells of the body. These primary emotions are rarely if ever fear based. So in the example above, the sufferer was not frightened of anything when dropping off the kids to school. However, there was a build up of other negative emotional energies that needed processing. Unfortunately, if these emotions go unnoticed or unprocessed then anxiety symptoms will ensue.