The Bernhardt Method is a short-term therapy for anxiety disorders developed at the Institute for Modern Psychotherapy in Berlin. It was named after the institute’s two directors, Daniela and Klaus Bernhardt. It was first introduced to an international audience in the book “How to calm Anxiety: Live a Life Free From Panic in Just a Few Weeks”, which remained on the bestseller list in Germany for over two years and has since been translated into more than 20 languages.
How the Bernhardt Method Came About
In the foreword of his book, Klaus Bernhardt describes how he and his wife came to develop the Bernhardt Method. There you can read:
More than 14 million people in the German-speaking world alone suffer from a diagnosed anxiety disorder, over two million of whom are plagued by recurring panic attacks. These people wish for nothing more than to return to a normal life as quickly as possible, a life without the fear of fear.
Many years ago, based on my own experiences, I decided to do everything in my power to help people with panic attacks more quickly and comprehensively than had previously been possible. In our psychotherapy practice in Berlin, we therefore specialized in the treatment of anxiety disorders. My wife and I work with a completely new type of therapy, which has its roots in modern brain research. Our method has little in common with what anxiety patients typically expect as treatment. We do not use exposure therapy, breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, or delve into childhood experiences. We also strictly oppose the use of antidepressants and tranquilizers, except in very rare cases. As a result, we are often asked why our form of therapy is so radically different from that of most of our colleagues. I often like to quote Albert Einstein, who once said so aptly:
“The purest form of madness is to keep everything the same and, at the same time, hope that something will change.”
Unfortunately, this wise quote largely describes how anxiety patients are treated nowadays. The same therapy methods are practiced over and over again, even though they typically don’t help at all or only very slowly. At the same time, new, groundbreaking insights from brain research are seemingly ignored. Instead of using this knowledge to finally establish better therapy standards, antidepressants continue to be prescribed, and methods are used that have hardly evolved in decades. Yet, in the past 20 years, we have gained many new insights into the brain and how it functions. Thanks to imaging techniques, we can watch our gray matter at work, observing which thoughts and mental exercises trigger specific reactions, and experts now have the ability to exchange ideas globally via the internet.
All of this has led to us now having a fairly accurate understanding of what must happen in the brain for panic attacks to occur in the first place, and also what can be done to stop this fear. All the techniques described in this book have been personally tested and refined over the years in our practice. You may find it hard to believe, but today, more than 70 percent of our patients need fewer than six sessions to completely overcome their panic attacks.
How to Use Neuroplasticity to Unlearn Fear
Much of what we believed we knew about the brain in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s is now simply incorrect and has been scientifically disproven. Unfortunately, many of the therapeutic approaches that are still considered standard today were developed during that time or even earlier. It’s no surprise, then, that many who have been treated with these methods for years still suffer from anxiety disorders.
Until the mid-1990s, it was believed that the brain of an adult didn’t change much anymore. However, thanks to Professor Dr. Eric Kandel and several other brilliant scientists, we now know that the exact opposite is true. Our brain is constantly changing and adapts every day to how it is used. For example, a study of taxi drivers in London found that the part of the brain responsible for spatial orientation is significantly larger in them than in someone who works in an office.
This ability of the brain is called neuroplasticity. Almost all therapeutic methods offered for anxiety disorders, however, were developed at a time when the brain was not believed to possess this adaptability. Most of these methods are between 30 and 60 years old, and in the case of psychoanalysis, they are over 120 years old. Many conventional therapeutic approaches are based on the idea that the brain is more or less fully developed by adulthood and cannot change significantly after a certain age.
But how promising can the current standard therapy methods really be? It’s like a boat builder who has only ever seen water as a frozen surface trying to develop different types of boats. How well do you think his boats will float when summer comes and the ice suddenly melts?
Just as certain areas of taxi drivers’ brains visibly enlarge, your brain also responds daily to how it is used. Have you been worrying for years? Is criticism quicker to escape your lips than praise? Were you raised to be a pessimistic realist from a young age? Then your brain will be much more efficient at finding problems than opportunities. It will find reasons much faster for why a dream can’t be realized than it will develop an idea of how it could work. It’s not that there are actually more concerns than solutions; rather, your brain is just much better trained to see the one and overlook the other.
A brain that has been trained to respond to fear long enough will almost inevitably develop an anxiety disorder or depression sooner or later. But if it’s possible to train the brain in the direction of fear and panic, then it must also be possible to change it toward ease and joy. And indeed, there are now techniques that make such “reprogramming” possible within a few weeks. A common saying among neuroscientists is: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” In other words, neurons that fire signals together connect through synapses.
With the help of a newly developed mental training, now known as the Bernhardt Method, it is possible today to have a large number of your synapses simultaneously fire positive information, leading to the connection of these synapses and creating a new positive neural pathway in your brain.
The stronger this new network in your brain becomes, the more often positive thoughts will automatically occur to you, while fearful thoughts will gradually decrease. Once you’ve managed to think more positively for three weeks than you’ve spent dwelling on worries, your body will also begin to actively help you overcome your fears. Because from that point on, the laws of cell renewal will no longer work against you, but for you. Another popular saying among neuroscientists is “Use it or lose it!” Just as muscle fibers deteriorate if not regularly exercised, muscles grow and become stronger when trained. In the same way, the synaptic connections where fear is stored in the brain will weaken if not used for a long time, while constant rumination on fear ensures that it generalizes and spreads.
You might already be realizing why so many standard therapies take unnecessarily long to help anxiety patients return to a state of lightness and security. On the one hand, group therapy, exposure therapy, and the constant discussion of fears neurologically reinforce the very thing that should be reduced. On the other hand, the relaxation techniques used, such as Qi Gong, progressive muscle relaxation, and autogenic training, “only” provide some relief but do little to change the neural foundations of your fear. And unfortunately, the commonly used breathing techniques don’t have the potential to quickly reverse unfavorable brain patterns. Fear can only be permanently eliminated where it originated—in the neural structures of your brain.
Troy A.
Tampa, Florida