Psychotherapy for Anxiety
Most anxiety treatments start from one assumption: something is broken, and it needs fixing. My new approach – described in my new book, FLOAT: Exiting the Anxiety-Stress Loop – starts somewhere else. Anxiety loops, overthinking, panic and obsessional patterns are usually not resolved by fighting them harder or analysing them more. They resolve when you change your relationship to them. Below are the ways anxiety commonly shows up, what’s actually driving each one, and how this approach works.
Why can’t I just think my way out of anxiety?
Because your brain doesn’t have a single rational controller you can reason with – it runs more like a chaotic committee, and three members do most of the work in anxiety.
The Threat Detector is the primitive alarm system that fires first and asks questions later; once it’s gone off, it’s very hard to switch off directly.
The Analyst is the problem-solving part of your brain – useful when a problem has clear facts, but prone to spinning in loops when it doesn’t. Anxious thoughts do not have solutions because they are not based on facts but outdated predictions.
The Storyteller then steps in to explain the alarm with a narrative – you failed, you’re an impostor, this is going to be a disaster – not because the story is true, but because the brain needs some explanation to work with.
Arguing back at an anxious thought often just confirms to this committee that the thought deserves more attention, which is why disputing and reasoning can make an anxiety loop worse rather than better.
If the loop of replaying thoughts, worrying and analysing is your main experience, more than any physical sense of dread, you may find it useful to read the dedicated page on therapy for overthinking, which goes into this in more depth.
Why am I anxious all the time?
Daily, background anxiety – constant worry, overthinking, one thought chaining into the next – is what’s clinically termed Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and it’s the clearest case of the Threat Detector, Analyst and Storyteller running in a loop with no off-switch. The instinct is to analyse it harder: what’s wrong with me, why do I do this. That move feeds the loop rather than closing it. The more useful move is noticing the loop directly, rather than arguing with its contents.
Why did I suddenly have a panic attack out of nowhere?
A panic attack that appears from nowhere usually follows on from escalating life problems (and the anxious thoughts applied to them) that leave the person feeling stuck, trapped and overwhelmed. When the Threat Detector notices this it responds with intense alarm signals that trigger panic symptoms: rapid heart rate, breathlessness, dizziness, nausea, etc.
Successful treatment involves disengaging from anxiety loops while also attending to real-life solutions that address worrisome problems.
Why do I keep having panic attacks, and how do I stop them coming back?
Recurring panic attacks over months or years is panic disorder. The original trigger is the same as a single panic attack, but a second layer gets added: you become anxious about having another attack, and that fear itself sets off the next one. The solution is to accept panicky feelings for what they are without resisting them. When you stop worrying that panic will return the brain drops the threat signal.
Why can’t I stop checking things, or why do I keep having intrusive thoughts?
Obsessional disorder takes the form of alarming, intrusive thoughts that keep on returning to the same subject – work, relationships, personal appearance, etc. They are typically based on embedded judgments that there is something badly wrong with you, or that you are inadequate in some way. Perfectionism is a milder form of this problem.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) pairs obsessional thoughts about danger or insecurity with a compulsion – checking appliances, locks, doors and windows; counting; washing or cleaning; compulsively researching a feared danger online (especially common with health anxiety) that briefly relieves the anxiety. However, each time you perform one of these ‘fixes’ the brain interprets two things: a) that fixing works for a short time, and b) that your fixes confirm the threat. Your intrusive thoughts come from the Storyteller, relating back to you all the terrible things that are going to happen if you don’t keep on checking.
Why am I scared of flying, driving, heights, or lifts?
Specific phobias like these usually develop after a bad experience, sometimes a long time ago. For example, one bad flight you took twenty years before has been stored in the brain as a warning that all other flights are going to be like that one.
The solution lies in exposure – teaching the brain to tolerate flights, drives, heights and lifts on a gradual basis. For example, sitting as a passenger in a car while a trusted friend drives, then taking over for a few minutes as a first step.
Social phobia is anxiety about social gatherings driven by fear of judgment or rejection. Agoraphobia isn’t a fear of open spaces, despite the name – it’s anxiety about leaving the safety and familiarity of home. Both these problems are treatable using exposure and the method described below.
What’s the actual way out of an anxiety loop?
Not by out-arguing it. The approach I use – set out in full in my book FLOAT – moves through four things, not as sequential steps but as one continuous shift in how you relate to anxiety:
Awareness: stepping back from the content of anxious thoughts into the open space in which they simply appear, rather than being pulled inside them. While also dropping the labels that come with the experience. For example ‘panic’ might be seen as a fluttering sensation in your chest rather than as an ‘attack’.
Acceptance: Allowing anxious thoughts and feelings to be what they are – signs of a misfiring brain program based on out-of-date predictions.
Witnessing: observing anxious sensations as they arise instead of resisting or fighting them. Noticing how they work. For example, you might notice that your anxiety is a repeat program based on certain cues (for example, the way someone looks at you). Noticing that enables you to see what your anxious brain is reacting to, and how that pattern was formed in earlier life.
Dissolving. When you give up worrying about anxious states, or wishing they would go away, and meet them with neutral acceptance – that loosens your relationship with them. Left to itself the anxiety loop (or program) has nowhere to go but fade into the background. Over time it can dissolve.
No one method works for everyone. For that purpose I still offer other approaches I have acquired over the years. These include:
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Eye-Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
New from Dr John Eaton: FLOAT: Exiting the Anxiety-Stress Loop
My latest book lays out this model in full, drawing on neuroscience, philosophy, and thirty-six years of clinical work. Out 13 August 2026. Pre-order the Kindle edition on Amazon at the introductory price of 99p.
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