About Lucinda Bassett - Founder of the Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety

Lucinda Bassett who founded the Midwest center for stress and anxiety, shares her 20 years battle with anxiety and depression through the center. This is her way of helping others suffering from stress and anxiety.

Lucinda Bassett’s story

Though her story is well known, it deserves mention here for but for her the Midwest center for stress and Anxiety would not have existed. All her childhood was overwhelmed by anxiety and stress and signs of depression. Even as a child she worried herself about everything, whether her family would suffer some accident or tragedy and if she was the victim of some illness or disease.

By her twenties, according to her, anxiety grew intolerable leading to severe panic attack regularly and daily. Several stress symptoms like palpitation of the heart, nausea, tension, head ache and other stress related disorders over took her. All the health care officials she saw gave her up. It is really astounding that a person in such a situation would rise to become the founder of the prestigious organization like the Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety.

While watching the today show on a day Ms. Bassett heard a guest describe the personal characteristics of one with anxiety disorder. She recognized her own qualities perfectionism, intelligence, negativity, creativity, high expectations, need for control, obsessive thinking-in the description. She realized that she had almost all those traits in her she had the physical signs, fearfulness and psychological signs of anxiety.

By self study she knew more about her disorder and at length developed stress management techniques herself which later were implemented in treatment at Midwest center for Stress and Anxiety.

At that time she met a doctor who had treated others with the same problem. He sought Ms Bassett’s help at group therapy sessions. Thus in 1984 Ms Bassett and Dr. Philip Fisher founded the Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety.

In due course they recorded the therapy sessions and used them as one of the most effective behavior modification techniques ever known-repetition and reinforcement. Free seminars wee conducted, recordings provided to many depressed people and TV infomercial created for their techniques.