Stress, fear and anxiety are natural reactions to difficult situations. They are sometimes experienced as interchangable reactions inside us. They can feel immobilising or we can get caught up with worry about the past or future, which takes a lot of emotional energy and stops us living in the present moment – we don’t enjoy life for what it is. Anxiety may become excessive and chronic, difficulties can begin. Chronic anxiety is a psychological state characterised by unpleasant feelings of uneasiness, apprehension, fear or worry. Anxiety affects the life style, job performance, self-confidence and relationships of many people. This can make it difficult to deal with stressful situations, which can create anxiety in itself. This may then lead to a vicious cycle of anxiety about anxiety..
Paradoxically, if we try to avoid our anxiety by denying it, our feeling of panic can be compounded. When we struggle to respond appropriately and constructively to the inevitability of everyday events, our anxiety can become of a more neurotic nature.
Anxiety includes some the following conditions:
These conditions can be extremely alienating. Fear of social interactions with others is often to do with feeling evaluated by others – social anxiety. This can become a difficult and painful problem which is sometimes chronic in nature and may cause people to withdraw or isolate themselves..
The counselling and psychotherapy can help deal with low self-esteem by building up a healthy self-confidence, a confidence which comes from the inside, so that your feelings of self-worth are no logner dependent on how others view you, which feeds into insecurity.
Someone who suffers from excessive anxiety might also experience it as a sense of dread or panic. Although panic attacks are not experienced by every person who has anxiety, they are a common symptom. Panic attacks can come without warning, and although the fear is generally irrational, the perception of danger is very real. A person experiencing a panic attack will often feel as if they are about to die or pass out..
Anxiety is often a future-oriented mood state in which one is ready or prepared to attempt to cope with upcoming negative events. This may suggest that there is a distinction between future vs. present dangers that divides anxiety and fear. General existential anxiety is also common..
Physical symptoms can include palpitations, chest pains, faintness, sweating, shortness of breath, hyperventilation, choking and nausea.
Fear can keep us from taking risks, we can become immobilised, our curiosity becomes diluted, we don’t fully live, always choosing the predictable, ending up feeling isolated and lonely. Continuously fearing outcomes can be exhausting and draining. The fear can be a sign that something in us needs attention, which the counselling and psychotherapy can explore with you. We may find out what other feelings lay behind it. When fear begins to lose its grip on us, more psychological energy will be available to take risks and be more creative in our lives.
Existential anxiety – inevitable to all of us, this is about our daily existence – that we are alive, difficulties embracing suffering which is part of our human condition. Neurotic anxiety – persistently arousing our nervous system, resulting in ongoing, internal tension and relentless pressure.
Coping with stress, fear and anxiety can be a lonely and isolating experience. I have worked with many clients who have suffered from debilitating anxiety. With anxiety, counselling and psychotherapy needs to explore and address the underlying issues before coping strategies are put in place, otherwise improvement is only temporary or incomplete. This may include some of the following interventions:.
- Providing you with a secure attachment base and emotional support through the therapeutic relationship, which provides containment..
- Helping you explore and understand your condition based on your own unique situation and history.
- Helping you explore and understand your symptoms..
- Helping you explore and understand why your condition developed..
- Helping you to face and tolerate your fears..
- Helping you to manage and understand panic attacks..
- Helping you to develop assertiveness skills, to manage your life better..
Counselling and psychotherapy for Anxiety can then help you to develop your own coping mechanisms in order to deal with your anxiety and strategies to overcome negative thinking patterns.. The relationship between you and your counsellor or psychotherapist is important here in helping you to develope and strengthen a more containing part of yourself, which can hold, tolerate, nurture and be with your anxiety.
