Helping Clients Switch off the Worry Channel

If our clients struggle with worries, we can benefit them by taking a close look at what worries are. Worries are thoughts about negative outcomes that could possibly occur. When we think about what could go wrong in a situation, we are worrying. We are anticipating and imagining the future in a way that, so far as we know, only humans can.

This ability to imagine a possible problem is both a blessing and a curse. It can be helpful to have the ability to foresee possible consequences of not having enough money for the month, or to imagine one’s car sliding off the icy road in winter weather. But we often worry needlessly, about situations that never occur. Understanding the benefits and costs of worry can help our clients to worry in a helpful, and not harmful way.

To recognise the benefits of worry, we might ask a client to imagine a prehistoric woman who had the ability to worry. This clever woman had built her hut near a stream, filling it with tools and food, and constructing places for her family members to sleep. But one day, when a fierce rainstorm came, the woman noticed the stream getting higher and higher. She had thought only of the benefit of being close to that stream, but now she began to worry. She could imagine that stream washing away her hut, and perhaps even her children. The worries caused her some distress, and she decided to build a new hut, on higher land, farther away from the stream, and move her family there.

This story illustrates why the ability to worry could be beneficial to our human ancestors, but it’s important to consider whether worry was what really helped the woman (and her family). Notice that worry by itself did not help. In fact, it caused her some distress. This is because, when we imagine negative outcomes, the amygdala is activated by these thoughts, and we experience fear and anxiety. What helped the woman was that these thoughts (and perhaps the anxiety) caused her to make a plan to deal with the danger she anticipated, and carrying out that plan was what was beneficial.

I give my clients a simple diagram that helps them remember the beneficial way to use worry.
 

WORRY → PLAN →
 

When we are worrying, we need to remember that the benefit of worrying is that it can possibly be alerting us to the need for a plan. So we need to encourage clients to stop worrying, and move on to coming up with a plan that can assist with that situation. The plan may be something that they actually carry out, like the woman constructing a new hut, but it also can be a plan that they make just in case the situation occurs. If you worry you will be short on funds, you could make a plan that, if so, you’ll ask your brother for a loan. You make a plan even if you don’t use it.

Also, notice that there is an arrow from PLAN, indicating that when you make your plan, you move on with your day. We can tell our clients that we do NOT go back to worry, because it has served its purpose, and they don’t need to stay focused on distressing thoughts that cause them anxiety. Keeping this diagram in mind can remind clients of how to use worry in a beneficial way.

One more point… A common question I hear is “What if you find a problem with your plan?” This means that a client has a worry about their plan, so we can encourage them to make a plan to deal with the problem, perhaps by changing their plan. If a client continually finds problems with their plan, we may need to remind them that the goal is not to make a PERFECT PLAN; they might not even have to use this plan!

Shifting away from worries is important, because they cause stress by activating the amygdala and producing anxiety. By explaining this and sharing this simple diagram, we can help clients to see that staying on the Worry Channel does not provide a benefit.