Anxiety - a condition most Australians will experience during their lifetime - is still relatively poorly understood in a social sense.

It's not understood because the symptoms can appear to lack rationale - brought on by an unhealthy fear of the future or residual stress from everyday life.

However, two Ballarat mental health professionals are trying to help people understand it by normalising the conversation about anxiety - a natural emotion they believe humans need, but more importantly need to harness effectively.

"Anxiety makes people alert, it can help motivate and protect you," said Dr Julie Rowse, clinical manager at Ballarat Health Services' Child and Youth Mental Health Service.

Dr Rowse, who treats 15-25-year-old locals for anxiety, and her colleague Lisa Sambrooks, who helps Ballarat's youngest cohort of 0-14 years, are working to change the perception of anxiety among young people.

"It's about normalising what is normal - we get people coming in saying, 'I don't want to be anxious anymore', but actually its quite normal," Ms Rowse said.

"If you can use anxiety for a positive, it won't consume you."

Ms Sambrooks said eight-month-old children can get separation anxiety, which was a natural part of the life cycle.

"It's only when they're still getting anxious at three and four-years-old when they're getting moved away from their mum that we will look at treatment," Ms Rowse said.

Being able to regulate emotions and feelings is just like learning to riding a bike or dress yourself as a youngster, she said.

Ms Sambrooks said while anxiety was a "high prevalence disorder", people needed to learn how to use it properly.

The pair, who have more than 20 years combined experience in Ballarat mental health, said psychosocial treatment was always their first port of call, regardless of how serious a case was.

Empowering people to understand and address their mental issues in a holistic sense clearly drives both women.

Medication, they said, always has the possibility of misuse, which wasn't the case with physiological approaches to anxiety.

Local clinical psychologist Peta Price said while anxiety wasn't a 21st century notion, society had become more prone to developing symptoms.

"Society has become very anxious about risk so we overprotect our children and they don't learn to manage anxiety," said Ms Price, who used the term 'helicopter parents' - where adults overprotect their children so they don't learn to manage themselves in difficult situations that could cause anxiety.

Ms Price said most people felt as if anxiety came on suddenly, because people weren't aware of the slow incremental discomfort that was simmering beneath the surface.

"We're not taught to read ourselves," she said.

"The psychological approach is to help people to become aware of discomfort before it becomes overwhelming."

The proliferation of medication has become problematic for people with mild levels of anxiety, Ms Price said.

"Medication can mask things so you don't learn how to manage," she said.

"Many people feel better when they have medication and there are very good reasons for considering medication, but we have to think carefully before we resort to medication as a first resort, particularly with anxiety."

She said anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax were of particular concern, given their highly addictive nature.

"Some people feel they can control themselves unless they've got a pill," she said.

Victoria's appetite for anti-anxiety medication is growing.

Department of Health Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme (PBS) and Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (RPBS) prescription figures for the seven predominant anti-anxiety drugs - including Xanax, Zoloft and other benzodiazepines - show that in the four years since 2010, Victoria's anti-anxiety prescriptions have jumped almost 50 per cent.

Since 2010 3.74 million prescriptions of varying anti-anxiety medications were signed for patients in Victoria, while in 2013-14, 945,328 prescriptions were issued.

Nationally, prescription figures - which are not strictly limited to treatment of anxiety and may capture treatment for other conditions - for the seven drugs have climbed by 56 per cent, with 3.69 million prescriptions handed out across Australia in 2013-14.

Medication can, in some cases, provide a temporary mask to a long-term problem, according to Ms Price.

"If the person feels better (on medication) then they still haven't learnt how to manage their systems so once they come off it (drugs) it's not long before they've relapsed into their anxious behaviour."

A doctor's desire to help a patient, and the person's search for a "quick-fix", creates an unhealthy collusion for medication, Ms Price said.

"Doctors are trapped in their desire to help, if they see someone who is stressed they want to help - that's how they are trained," said Ms Price, who added pharmaceutical companies had a lot of influence on "many different levels".

Therapy can be considered a "weakness" within certain cohorts, which can influence a tendency toward over-medicating, according to Ms Price.

"People are aware medications aren't great but you're always going to get a group of people that are looking for a quick fix," she said.

However, in the more severe cases, Ms Price suggested a mixture of medication and therapy was the most helpful outcome.

"There's room for medication, but the most room is for education. That's the bottom line, I'm a strong believer we need education with these things," she said.

Ms Price criticised the state government's mental health services, suggesting it wasn't set up to appreciate severe cases of mental illness.

After a doctor devises a Mental Health Plan for a patient, 10 sessions per year with a psychologist or psychiatrist are subsidised by Medicare.

Ordinarily sessions with practitioners can cost $150-200.

In 2011, 12 sessions were available under Medicare - with patients able to apply for six more under exceptional circumstances.

"Ten sessions for someone with difficulties is not enough," Ms Price said.

"The Mental Health Plan assumes these symptoms are not significant problem."