Which Therapy Is Best for Anxiety? How Finding the Right Approach Can Reduce Anxiety Symptoms
Last Updated on January 27, 2025 by Prath
Reviewed by April Justice, LICSW
- Published on 27 January 2025
If you are struggling with generalised anxiety, panic attacks, overthinking, or relentless worries, know that you are not alone.
For many types of anxiety, therapy is the most effective treatment option, as it addresses the root causes of your fears.
The symptoms of anxiety can manifest in different ways. While one person may struggle with heart palpitations, someone else may face daily indecisiveness.
Seeking the best therapy for anxiety can help you overcome specific issues you may be facing, learn how to relax, and build healthy coping skills.
Therapy is also tailored to align with your unique needs. For example, if you have social anxiety, your therapy may include gradual exposure to face your fears (ie exposure therapy). In contrast, someone with general anxiety might focus on managing unhealthy thoughts and identifying potential triggers.
This article will help you identify the best therapy options for your anxiety so you can make the most of your sessions and experience lasting relief.
This Article Contains:
Types of Anxiety Disorders
According to research published by the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), anxiety was the most common issue faced by young people in Singapore.
Nearly 27% (or more than one in four youth) had severe anxiety. Symptoms the youth complained of included feeling worried, tense, or restless most of the time.
These feelings can often be categorised into specific types of anxieties.
For example:
- Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD): This type includes having recurrent worries about many different things in daily life.
- Social anxiety disorder: This diagnosis means that you may experience intense fear or distress in social situations like parties, crowded areas, workplaces, etc.
- Panic disorder: This includes having panic attacks, which could be triggered by distressing events or fearful situations.
- Phobias: This means that you may have fear triggered by a particular object or situation, such as going near a waterbody or seeing a spider.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): This diagnosis could mean that you may have anxiety symptoms due to a negative experience in childhood or adulthood that may have been traumatic.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): This means that you have repetitive and uncontrollable thoughts or urges, which could make you feel restless and anxious throughout the day.
The best therapists in Singapore will help you address negative thinking and avoidance, which are the most common and harmful patterns in all types of anxiety disorders.
It might be useful to learn about the different types to help you consider your own experiences and choose a specific therapy type for support.
Best Therapy for Anxiety
A common goal of therapy is to focus on finding the possible causes of anxiety (eg negative childhood experiences), identifying triggers, and teaching practical tools to manage or even prevent the symptoms from occurring.
You can opt for individual, couples, or family therapy.
In general, mental health professionals may use a combination of different approaches. The choice of therapy may also depend on your personal preference and the severity of your symptoms.
In the section below, we’ll explore how each approach works and provide examples of how it helps manage anxiety.
Talk Your Heart Out (TYHO) Therapists can help with several types of anxiety issues. You are not alone.
1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT involves directly confronting your fear and has benefits that go beyond just treating anxiety.
For example, symptoms of depression may also accompany issues like generalised anxiety disorder, which CBT can help manage.
CTB has two major elements: cognition (ie thoughts and feelings) and behaviour.
Therapists in Singapore will help you change negative thought patterns by:
- Teaching you how to identify unrealistic beliefs and challenge them
- Helping you assess the likelihood of feeling triggered
- Providing you with therapeutic skills to cope with uncertainty
A common negative thought we may experience if we have anxiety is ‘catastrophising’: immediately jumping to extreme conclusions and expecting unrealistic consequences of all events.
A therapist’s job would be to help you detect these distortions and teach you a better way to cope with distress.
The second part of CBT includes reducing your anxiety and modifying your maladaptive behaviours (ie destructive actions).
During therapy, you may learn techniques to keep calm and overcome fear-driven urges.
Some CBT tools include:
- Breathing exercises: This helps calm your stress response and reduce immediate anxiety.
- Scheduling positive activities: This helps create intentional activities that give you joy and confidence to tackle the symptoms.
- Guided journaling: Your therapist may help you track your mood and identify triggers and patterns in your thinking.
When to Choose CBT
Research shows that CBT is effective in managing GAD, phobias, social anxiety, and panic disorders.
CBT might work best for you if you struggle to:
- Manage your thoughts
- Stop engaging in unhelpful or harmful behaviours
- Perceive situations from a new or different perspective
- Cope with stressful events in life
- Improve your mood
Example
Let’s say you’re dealing with low self-esteem. You may think no one will like you if you go to a party. Perhaps you assume you will do something embarrassing during an event.
If you are invited to a social situation, your immediate reaction might be, “I can’t do this. What if I freeze and make everyone around me uncomfortable?”
You might turn down the event due to feelings of nervousness or panic. The avoidance may further contribute to the negative cycle of thoughts and feelings.
Instead, during therapy, you may learn:
- Relaxation exercises like deep breathing or grounding techniques to handle your emotions and counterattack your anxiety.
- How to replace negative thoughts with realistic ones. For example, reframing “I can’t do this” with “I can handle this one step at a time” can reduce panic.
- Taking small steps towards facing social situations. For example, your CBT therapist may guide you in attending small gatherings and gradually increasing your exposure to big events.
As you apply these techniques in real life, you may see yourself becoming effective in handling your anxiety and facing your fears.
2. Exposure Therapy
It’s only natural that we tend to avoid facing anxiety, as it can be an unpleasant emotion.
For example, if you fear heights, you may avoid looking down from a building or go out of your way to avoid travelling on a flight. Similarly, you may keep away from pools, beaches, and even bathtubs if you are terrified of drowning.
The problem that accompanies avoidance is that you may not have a chance to overcome your fears.
Exposure therapy includes gradual exposure to fearful situations or objects. Your therapist may guide you through repeated exposures to help you gain a sense of control over your anxiety.
Exposure is either done through imaginative situations or real-life events.
The most common way to conduct exposure therapy is through systematic desensitisation. The three steps involved in this process are:
- Relaxation: Your therapist may use deep breathing, mindfulness, or muscle relaxation to calm down and control feelings of anxiety.
- Listing: You may be guided to create a specific and measurable list of 10-15 situations or objects you are terrified of.
- Exposure: In the final step, you and your therapist will overcome each situation in your list through relaxation techniques and exposure therapy.
When to Choose Exposure Therapy
Exposure therapy can help with social anxiety, separation anxiety, phobias, and OCD.
You might benefit from exposure therapy if you:
- Are living with a specific type of phobia affecting your daily life
- Would like to unlearn habits that may be causing anxiety
- Want to confront your fears
- Have frequent panic attacks
- Feel disconnected from yourself due to your fears (ie depersonalisation)
Example
Let’s say you have a fear of public speaking. You may turn down personal and professional opportunities for growth due to your fear.
Saying no to guest speeches or presentations may be your immediate response. However, during exposure therapy, you will first learn deep breathing to prevent a trigger emotion.
Tip: Breathe in for a count of 4, hold your breath for a count of 4, and breathe out for a count of 4. This breathing method can help you relax before you make a decision.
After relaxation, your therapist will help you create a list to expose you to the fear. Like:
Step 1: Watch other people giving speeches
Step 2: Attend webinars or workshops
Step 3: Take a practice course to learn how to give a speech
Step 4: Say yes to a speech invitation
Step 5: Write your speech
Step 6: Practice the speech with yourself
Step 7: Practice the speech with your close friends or family
Step 8: Practice the speech with all your friends in the same room
Step 9: Invite your loved ones to attend your official speech
Step 10: Give a speech on stage
3. Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT)
DBT is a type of talk therapy based on cognitive behavioural therapy.
DBT focuses on three main elements: dialectical perspective (ie opposite outlook of what you should be having), acceptance, and change.
The concept of DBT is similar to the notion of loving yourself as you are while still trying to change aspects of your life for the better.
The four skills you may learn during DBT include:
- Mindfulness: This skill helps you connect with your present thoughts without reacting to them.
- Distress tolerance: You will learn how to manage your anxiety during distress.
- Interpersonal effectiveness: Through scientific techniques, you will learn to say no, stay assertive during pressure, and ask for what you need.
- Emotional regulation: Similar to mindfulness, you will learn how to manage your anxiety before it gets out of control
When to Choose DBT
DBT is one of the best therapy in Singapore to help with issues like self-harm, anxiety surrounding food habits, OCD, and generalised anxiety disorder.
Choose this therapy if you:
- Struggle with controlling destructive or distressing habits
- Suffer from uncontrollable thoughts
- Feel moody all the time
- Experience frequent emotional upheaval
- Are highly sensitive
- Feel like your anxiety affects your interpersonal relationships
How to Find the Best Therapist in Singapore for Anxiety?
You may have to do your personal research and assessments to find the best therapists.
During the research, gauge whether a therapist’s personality and therapy experience align with your needs.
For example, at Talk Your Heart Out (TYHO), you can read full descriptions of Therapists, watch their introductory videos, see what approaches they offer, and check if they can help with your issue.
Once you are sure, shortlist a couple of Therapists and book a session with the one you relate to the most.
During the first appointment, ask your Therapist if they:
- Provide affordable therapy sessions
- Are willing to explain their therapeutic approach in detail
- Have previous experience working with clients who have similar issues
- Accept constructive feedback
Asking questions will help you consider whether to move forward with a professional. If the fit isn’t right, feel free to look for other Therapists from your shortlist.
Sometimes, finding the best Therapist can take a while. Still, it may be the most contributing factor towards receiving strong and meaningful support.
Conclusion
If you live with an anxiety disorder, you may not have peace of mind and the energy to get through every day.
Consulting a therapist online or in person to develop an effective and personalised treatment plan is important.
Based on the specific type of anxiety, your therapist will help you overcome symptoms and guide you towards the life you dream of living.
Know that anxiety is manageable and can be controlled through the right support.
