Most forms of therapy show equal results. The results, however, are not reliably good. For , most therapies rely on in the left brain. But, executive function, itself emotionally fragile, falls apart just when our need for it to regulate us is greatest. When arousal becomes too high, executive function gets overwhelmed and shuts down.

Neuroscience has provided us with a more reliable way to regulate anxiety. We now know that heavy duty emotional regulation depends largely on the . Some therapists intuitively employ—and help their clients develop—right brain . Unfortunately, therapists who are not relationally intuitive, apply the "paint-by-the-numbers" therapy they learned in grad school.

In "Emotion Coming of Age" Leslie Greenberg writes "the field has yet to pay adequate to implicit and relational processes of regulation." Greenberg says there is a "fundamental implicit affect regulatory process performed by the right hemisphere . . . to allow the . . . building of . . . automatic emotion regulating capacities . . . important for enduring change."

For the right brain to regulate emotion, development is necessary. You probably know people who are not troubled by anxiety. They were fortunate enough to develop the automatic regulation Greenberg is talking about early in life.

How did they develop what they needed? Development is “relationship dependent.” When we are with a calming person, we feel less . And if the person is completely non-judgmental, we feel our guard being let down, and may feel completely at ease. Most likely during your non-anxious friend's early , when hyper-aroused, he or she was consistently-enough calmed by an attuned and non-judgmental .

The key to effective treatment for anxiety is a relationship with a non-judgmental therapist. As you discuss (both discuss and feel) things that trigger distress, your therapist needs to take in what you say and feel what you feel. In spite of sharing the content and distress you are feeling, your therapist self-regulates his or her own arousal. You discover impossibly difficult feelings can be felt and arousal-regulated. As this gets built in, you no longer have to do something (possibly self-destructive, or not in your best interest) to get rid of seemingly impossible-to-bear feelings. You can feel the feelings AND regulate arousal.

This is not just intellectual learning. The therapist's non-judgmentally sharing of your experience is calming. It stimulates the vagus nerve, which slows your heart rate and activates the calming parasympathetic . The development that should have taken place in early can develop now as your therapist’s calming presence is established inside you, and becomes associated with anxiety triggers. The therapist’s calming is carried with you, psychologically active, even when alone or with other people.

This approach is laid out in detail in Allan Schore's book The Science of the Art of . and, as this approach applies to phobia, in my book, SOAR: The Breakthrough Treatment for .