Foundation Team
Medical Editor:
John Williams, MD
Clinical Advisors
David H. Barlow, PhD, ABPP
Harold J. DeMonaco, MS
Todd Farchione, PhD
Catherine Finn, MSW, LCSW
William Sieber, PhD
Claudia Zayfert, PhD
Clinical Lead:
Catherine Finn, MSW, LCSW
Many people suffer with anxiety, but a number of effective treatment options are available. To ensure people with anxiety understand their options, and to help them decide which is best for them, the Foundation has developed a Shared Decision-Making® program called Help for Anxiety: Treatments That Work.
This program is for people who have been told by a health care provider that they have an anxiety disorder, or for people who have symptoms of anxiety that affect their daily life. The program is for adults who have common anxiety problems (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Phobias), and for people with medical conditions and anxiety.
The overall goal of this program is to help people who have anxiety make informed choices about seeking treatment and managing their condition. The program is designed to help people understand that they have a choice of effective treatments for anxiety and that their individual preference for one type of treatment over another may influence how well it works. This is because anxiety treatments take some time to work and a person is more likely to stick with a treatment they feel is best for them. Treatments can be tailored for people with other medical conditions. The program focuses on treatments that are most effective at managing symptoms: self-help, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and prescription medications.
The program offers practical information about how to get help for anxiety from health care providers, including how to get a referral to a mental health professional, the pros and cons of different treatment choices and how a person can recognize symptoms and manage anxiety, or anxiety and a medical condition, over the long term. It also includes an Anxiety Symptom Checklist that people can complete and bring to their medical appointment.
The program includes interviews with men and women who have successfully worked with their health care providers to manage their anxiety symptoms.
This program was developed with our production partner, Health Dialog. It is available as a DVD, a booklet and a web-based program (Health Crossroads®) for Health Dialog members.
