WRONG! that's the old way of thinking by psychologists who have never been in the situation we find ourselves. That's the logical answer: I got fed up with paying good money to 'experts' who asked what I had been thinking about before the anxiety kicked in.
For me it has always been physical: I feel queasy, fear hits and when really bad, I am unable to get out of bed. I do not need a thought pattern in order for the anxiety to strike. No amount of books helped. Written often by people who apparently had suffered but were' cured', I never found them any use at all. CBT was no help at all. My phobia was caused within hours of my being born so is deep rooted, no amount of CBT can alter what my brain learned in those formative hours.
Anxiety *is* normal. What is difficult is learning how to control it in order to have 'daily living' …….