Acceptance
and commitment therapy (ACT) - Developed as a mindfulness approach,
this type of therapy works to accept thoughts and emotions, without
judgement, distance who you are from what you think, such as changing,
“I am an anxious person,” to “I am feeling anxious because of my current
situation.” You are also expected to make a commitment to change
unhealthy behaviors.
I've found ACT very heavily based on recognising thoughts for what they are- thoughts- and learning to "diffuse" thoughts rather than fight against them. So remove their power over you.
Cognitive
behavioral therapy (CBT) - Focus on identifying, recognizing and
changing unhealthy and unhelpful thought patterns and thereby changing
behaviors that are associated with the negative thought patterns.
Exposure therapy is often used in CBT for anxiety, for example, if you
are afraid of dogs, you will be slowly introduced to a dog - first
through a picture, then across the room, then next to you until you can
confront your fear and understand that your anxiety will lessen with
time, providing skills for coping with past, present and future fears.
(Those are actual explanations i found at healthcentral.com)
There is no harm in learning about different therapies. If you do some research, you might find yourself wanting to try one more than the other. You can always switch later on- you can even combine elements and techniques from all kinds of therapies. The only reason you might want to do just one at time is so your brain doesnt get overwhelmed with all the new information. Its always better to just learn one technique at a time, from whatever therapy it comes from.
Remember, it takes time for your brain to learn new ways. Its been stuck in its anxious way of thinking for however long. These are all skills to learn to change how the brain thinks- from anxious to able to cope. So none of the skills will be easy at first- i used to put notes everywhere to remind myself to practice or think about the new technique. I'd practice one technique for a week, then learn the next one... Some i didnt find helpful at all, and at the end of the week i'd just forget it.... Other times id go "this technique is really cool", and it helped to change how i think. I'd write the ones that worked down.
You get enough techniques together- from CBT, from ACT, from whatever else- and your brain will learn better ways to think and to cope, and the anxiety will slowly get beaten.
