The answers are yes, yes and yes, but not everyone. Over five years ago I quit all medication and did CBT only. I don't recommend it. Even though CBT doesn't help, it cures. Can you imagine taking all of the part of your life you don't want and locking it away so all that is left is the parts you want. Like coming to a fork in the road and one fork is washed out so you can't go down it without working real hard to. And that fork is where all the bad thoughts and symptoms are. Imagine them gone so you get up in the morning with no cares and go to bed knowing they are gone. That is what the cognitive side of CBT does. It changes your thinking so you don't get the symptoms with anxiety and you can lock it away. Relaxation skills and coping skills are the behavioural side of CBT and they allow you to cope so you can do the cognitive and change your way of thinking. They have to come first. You have to be able to do them so you can reduce the severity of the anxiety. That is all you want to do with them, is reduce the anxiety to tolerable. It will still be there just something you can live with. Or you do medication instead. Or both. Both is okay. Neither of these will cure anxiety because although you can tolerate the anxiety and get on with your life just having periods of it not so good, the thought is still in your mind that you are not cured. That thought is a bridge across the washout in the road. The cognitive side of CBT takes care of that thought for good. It locks it away so that even though a trigger is still there it means something different. That is the only cure. Making them ineffective by making them mean something different. Technically this is done by changing the code attached to them so they don't access the negative thought in your memory. It is easy to do except that unless you do medication or the relaxation and coping skills you can't. You just will not allow yourself to do it. And it isn't even your fault it is conditioning. It is believing you are stuck with anxiety that won't let you do it. That is the first thought you need to change. Fact. You have an anxiety disorder. So do I. I will always have it. But mine is locked away and harmless. Even when you are cured you will still have the disorder, you won't know it and you will swear it is gone. In a sense it will be. That isn't important. What is, is that the symptoms will be gone starting at first as just being weaker and slowly just fading away. And because it takes time you need the relaxation and coping skills first. These make it tolerable (or take the medication) But don't stop there. Lots of people do. They settle for the meds or coping and avoid the triggers. If their job is a trigger they quit it. If their relationship is a trigger they get out or avoid the bad parts. So many people do this and it is so wrong. It has to be faced to deal with it. It will not go away. But you can make it go away. Do what ever works for you to cope but don't forget the Cognitive therapy, it is what is going to make all the bad stuff go away. It is what is going to cure you. And it will. I spent six weeks in a psych ward when I hit bottom. All it did was give me a rest and the determination to never go back there. Psych wards are only a place to get away from the world. They cure nothing. I took my pills and rested a lot and talked to people. Except for missing my home it wasn't bad, just not going to cure me. It wasn't meant to. And there were no straight jackets or screaming people among the anxious. Just a lot of tired people, some who cried a lot. 

I am perfectly fine now. I'm better than normal even. You can be too. I really believe that. CBT does work. But it has to be CBT.

Davit

Can CBT really help with anxiety?  Can people actually get better doing CBT without meds?

 

Anyone get through their panic and anxiety with just CBT?