Although medication can be a helpful addition to therapy in certain cases, in other cases it can actually hinder treatment. A PsychCentral blog post says the latter applies benzodiazepines if you suffer from driving anxiety or driving fears that are part of the larger issue of panic disorder.
Benzodiazepines are drugs from that family of medications that depress the central nervous system and are meant to calm you down. MayoClinic.com notes options typically include Valium, Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin and Librium, and PsychCentral offers a list of reasons why they don’t work for panic disorder.
- They can be a habit forming
- They can lead to addiction
- They can set up a dysfunctional response to anxiety where, instead of working through the anxiety people simply pop a pill to make it go away. When it comes back after the pill wears off, they continue to do the same (wherein lies the risk of habit formation and addiction).
- They can work against cognitive-behavioral-therapy, or CBT, which is one of the treatments used for driving anxiety, phobias, panic and other mental health issues.
As an added bonus, the article also points out tactics that do work for panic disorder and may be a better fit for your driving fears if you have the disorder.
Read full article: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/therapy-that-works/2013/01/panic-disorder-therapy-that-doesnt-work/
