Anxiety Treatment

A Different Approach to Anxiety and Recurring Fear

Anxiety is a common human experience. It can arise before an important event, during periods of uncertainty or stress, or in response to situations we perceive as threatening. For some people, however, anxiety becomes recurring or disproportionate to what is actually happening and can interfere with everyday life, relationships, work, and overall well-being.

There are many established approaches to anxiety treatment, including psychotherapy, behavioral approaches, medication, and combinations of these options. The appropriate approach depends on the individual, the nature and severity of the anxiety, and other personal and medical factors.

Emotional Resolution® (EmRes®) offers a different, body-centered way of working with the emotional response itself.

Anxiety and the Body

Anxiety isn't experienced only through our thoughts. It is also profoundly physical.

A person experiencing anxiety may notice tightness in the chest or throat, changes in breathing or heartbeat, sensations in the abdomen, trembling, heat, pressure, muscular tension, or other changes throughout the body.

Our ability to perceive these internal bodily signals is known as interoception.

Contemporary research increasingly recognizes the importance of interactions between the brain and body in emotional experience. EmRes works specifically with the bodily sensations that arise when an emotional response is activated.

Emotional Resolution® and Anxiety

Rather than attempting to suppress anxiety, reason it away, or deliberately replace it with a positive emotion, EmRes invites attention toward the physical sensations occurring in the body.

Through a process called Viscero-Somatic Quieting™, these sensations are perceived without attempting to analyze, control, or modify them. As the sensory experience unfolds, the sensations can naturally change and subside.

When this process reaches completion, a recurring emotional response associated with a particular situation may lose its automatic intensity.

The objective is not to eliminate the body's capacity for anxiety or fear. These responses can be appropriate and protective. Instead, Emotional Resolution focuses on recurring emotional reactions that continue to arise even when they are no longer proportionate to the present situation.

Finding the Right Support for Anxiety

Persistent or severe anxiety deserves appropriate attention. Emotional Resolution® can be explored as one approach to emotional well-being, but it is not intended to replace medical care, psychotherapy, psychiatric treatment, or other professional support when these are needed.

The Emotional Health Institute provides access to Certified EmRes Practitioners and teaches Emotional Resolution® to individuals and professionals interested in learning this body-centered approach to recurring emotional difficulties.