RAT for Anxiety
Is RAT an Effective Treatment for Anxiety?
Around 20% of American adults experience anxiety disorders every year, and the symptoms and sensations associated with anxiety disorders can significantly affect a person's quality of life and lead to long-term health issues. RAT is a form of healing that seeks to change the route cause of anxiety so that the same stimulus produces different reactions. In my experience, both for myself and others, RAT has been an incredibly effective form of treatment.
How Is RAT Therapy Used to Help Treat Anxiety?
Everyone has core beliefs, fundamental belief systems that can be both positive or negative. Our negative core beliefs are our deepest fears and insecurities and are responsible for the anxiety you experience. RAT treats anxiety by processing through such beliefs until they are no longer believed and, therefore, no longer evoke intense negative emotions. The first stage in RAT is eliminating the negative belief creating the anxiety while the second step is inculcating a positive belief in its place which serves to create a healthy foundation of beliefs which leads to even less anxiety. Over several sessions, RAT allows you let go of the negative beliefs that fuel your anxiety and adopt healthier ways of thinking.
For example, a person may have a longstanding belief that they must achieve perfection in everything they do, which leads to intense feelings of anxiety around their work and family life. With the help of the therapist, the client identifies that their negative belief influencing their anxiety is that they are not good enough and their perfectionist tendencies stem from a need to constantly prove to themselves that they are. Anything less than perfection reinforces their negative belief system. RAT would target the belief "I'm not good enough" until the client no longer believes that about themselves. Then RAT would focus on installing the positive belief "I am good enough" and would continue until the statement is fully believed.
What Types of Anxiety Can RAT Therapy Treat?
Anxiety can have multiple triggers, and these vary from person to person. For example, some people feel intense anxiety in social situations, especially when meeting new people. Others may find work situations triggering, such as making a public presentation or applying for a promotion.
Whatever your anxiety triggers are, engaging in RAT sessions can help you overcome them. This therapy is suitable for treating a broad range of anxiety disorders and conditions that cause anxiety as a secondary symptom. These include:
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) - PTSD
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) - Panic Disorder
- Phobias - Social Anxiety
You don't necessarily need an anxiety disorder diagnosis to benefit from RAT treatment. Some people experience many symptoms of these conditions without meeting the full diagnostic criteria. If this sounds familiar, we can still help you work through your thoughts and feelings with RAT treatment to gain relief.