Inpatient Treatment for Anxiety

Inpatient treatment for any mental illness involves temporarily removing someone from the hassles of his day-to-day life to focus on their recovery in a secure, controlled environment monitored by mental health professionals. For those suffering from severe anxiety disorders, inpatient treatment can help that person learn to cope with his disorders and eventually recover.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

• The cornerstone of anxiety treatment therapy, most inpatient psychiatric facilities begin treatment of anxiety disorders with cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT. The Anxiety Treatment Center website describes CBT as a two-fold process meant to "change thinking patterns (cognitions) that have prevented individuals from overcoming their fears." Because anxiety disorders often have their roots in unfounded fears and exaggerated concerns, working to change the way someone suffering from the condition thinks about herself and her surroundings will better enable her to lead an anxiety-free life.

  The Anxiety Treatment Center goes on to describe the second aspect of cognitive behavioral therapy as "the behavioral component helps individuals to slowly come in contact with their fears." If you suffer from an anxiety disorder and were undergoing CBT, your therapist would gradually introduce you into the environment or situation that causes you the most worry. Through time (and with cognitive therapy), you would begin to lose your fear of the situation and gain more control of your emotions and physiological responses to anxiety.

Exposure Response/Ritual Prevention Therapy

• The Remuda Ranch Treatment Center focuses on the treatment of anxiety and panic disorders in women and girls. It also uses CBT, as stated on its website, along with Exposure with Response Prevention. This type of therapy focuses on slowly exposing someone with an anxiety/panic disorder to something he fears while simultaneously guiding him through the unpleasant feelings and showing him how to cope with the physiological and emotional responses such anxiety causes.

  The Anxiety Treatment Center uses a similar therapeutic method called Exposure and Ritual Prevention therapy, which is meant to gradually distance someone with an anxiety disorder from her fears. By confronting those things that she might consider unbearable and surviving them will allow her to recognize that although they might cause her great feelings of anxiety, those feelings are fleeting and can be managed.

Alternative Treatments

• Finally, there are a number of alternative treatments that inpatient facilities use to treat anxiety. The Remuda Ranch uses art therapy, animal therapy (therapy involving interactions with horses, dogs and other animals to increase well-being) and recreational therapy.

  The Mood Disorders Treatment Center at Sierra Tucson uses a number of Eastern spiritual and meditation-based therapies such as qi-gong (popularly known as tai chi), massage therapy, yoga, acupuncture and nutritional and fitness plans. These types of therapies can increase relaxation and focus, allowing the person with an anxiety disorder to better control his thoughts and behaviors, especially when encountering something that normally makes him anxious.