High-Intensity Anxiety Training

If you’re too busy – or too anxious – to deal with your fears, a few forward-thinking therapists can help you take down anxiety at warp speed. It’s like HIIT for your emotions. But you’ve got to be ready to work.

- Meghan Rabbitt

Barbara O. Rothbaum has been working with people who have post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, since 1986, not long after the condition became an official diagnosis back in 1980. She has seen it all – the jumpy, sweaty, can’t-breathe panic and near fainting that happen when the surf washes over someone’s waist and they’re sure they’ll be sucked under; the horror of impending abuse or trauma that flashes up with the click of a key in the lock. It’s never pretty and often doesn’t end well.

“Weekly therapy is like ripping off a scab,” says Rothbaum. “In the week between sessions, the scab heals a little – but you know you have to go back and experience the pain of ripping it off again. Who wants to do that?”

Nobody. It’s why most PTSD treatment programs have a high dropout rate. Hell, it’s why a lot of those suffering from any kind of anxiety – whether it’s a serious fear of flying or an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that keeps you from using public toilets – don’t go to therapy at all.

“Many people with anxiety avoid therapy because avoidance is part of the problem,” Rothbaum says. It’s also why she and a handful of other practitioners are getting radical, shortening the course of therapy for conditions like PTSD, OCD, panic attacks and certain phobias – sometimes to three weeks, other times three hours.