Avoidance is what keeps anxiety alive. 13 questions to map your specific avoidance patterns and reveal where anxiety is most constraining your life.
Build My ProfileAvoidance is the most powerful maintaining mechanism in anxiety disorders. Every time a situation is avoided, the immediate anxiety reduces, providing reinforcing relief. And the nervous system registers that the situation was dangerous enough to require avoidance, making the next encounter more anxiety-provoking than the last. This mechanism makes avoidance self-reinforcing: each successful avoidance makes the next avoidance more compelling.
The cumulative effect of sustained avoidance is a life that becomes progressively smaller. For a broader anxiety assessment, the anxiety level test covers all dimensions.
Avoidance is any behaviour reducing contact with anxiety-provoking situations. It provides immediate relief but maintains anxiety over time by preventing the evidence that situations are manageable from accumulating.
Each avoided situation teaches the nervous system the situation was threatening, making future encounters more anxiety-provoking and preventing the natural reduction of anxiety through exposure.
Yes. Exposure therapy, a core component of CBT, directly addresses avoidance through systematic, graduated re-engagement with avoided situations.
The anxiety level test measures overall severity. This test maps the specific avoidance patterns maintaining the anxiety.