For those who don't know, Claire Weekes was a psychiatrist who suffered from anxiety disorder. As luck would have it, she developed a method for recovery which worked for her and she spent the rest of her life advocating it to others through books, consultations, lectures and TV appearances.
Weekes claimed that her method could help anybody recover so long as they were willing to practice it and to not expect a cure just because they read the book.
As many of us realise, high anxiety can run in families from generation to generation, so the tendency will always be there. She herself fell into this category of inherited anxiety disorder.
But she still claimed her method could still bring recovery because if people can cure themselves once then if they have a subsequent episode they can cure themselves again. And should find it easier the second time round.
Weekes taught that first and foremost we should FACE our anxiety rather than hiding from it or pretending it doesn't exist. This doesn't mean we should obsess about it all the time, the distraction of keeping ourselves occupied stops us becoming too introspective which only grinds us down further.
Secondly, Weekes said that instead of fighting our anxiety and constantly testing ourselves, which only causes more stress, we should ACCEPT the symptoms for the time being. Agree to co-exist with our anxiety and depletion (depression) for the moment. Through understanding about the limitations of anxiety and reassurance we can stop responding to the flash of first fear with second fear and so stop bombarding our nervous system with extra fear hormone. So eventually our nerves lose their sensitivity and return to normal and all our symptoms resolve.
Acceptance is the hard part of Weekes' method but the reward is great: nothing less than the restoration of our quiet mind. To help us accept (for the time being) she developed FLOATING. This means developing a sensation of literally drifting through our daily tasks on an imaginary cloud carrying us effortlessly forward.
The final imperative is to LET TIME PASS! This is no five minute fix, we probably spent months getting ourselves into this state, at least allow a few weeks to get out of it.
As you may realise, the purpose of Claire Weekes' method is to end the corrosive fear that keeps our nerves sensitised - thereby exaggerating all small worries ten fold and opening the door to agoraphobia, derealisation, social anxiety, feelings of impending doom and general anxiety disorder.
This method for recovery she first described in the 1960s in her first book 'Self help for your nerves" (U.K version) and 'Hope and help for your nerves' (U.S. version) both available from Amazon new or used. When I last checked the U.K. book was in its 44th reprint so it has withstood the test of time.
I apologise to regular posters here who have heard all this before from me but newer members are popping up here all the time who will be unaware of Doctor Claire Weekes' method.