Psychotherapy for Anxiety
Anxiety can often go undiagnosed because many of us simply think of it as stress. Anxious feelings and thoughts can come in many forms, and often start slowly and incrementally. Feeling anxious occasionally is common and normal. In times of particular stress however, those anxious feelings and thoughts can become too loud, leaving us feeling very distressed To better know if you might need to speak to a therapist about anxiety, let us first look at what it is, the many forms it can take, symptoms of anxiety and types of treatments that might be useful if you decide to further pursue therapy.
What is anxiety?
In small doses, anxiety can be a useful motivator for all of us. Being worried about a test or presentation, for example, will urge us to work and study harder for the desired results. Anxiety becomes an issue when it feels debilitating or starts to interfere with our daily activities in a negative way. It is when worrying starts to feel overwhelming that we might want to seek out a therapist for anxiety to aid us in understanding where it originates from, and to equip us with the tools necessary to better manage our anxious feelings.
Types of Anxiety
Anxiety is a common issue that can rear its head at any time, but not many people know that it can present itself in a number of ways, including:
Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD): Possibly the most common, GAD is often a long-term issue where we feel anxious about various things, instead of just one. For example, we will often find something else to worry about once the original issue has been resolved.
Panic Disorder: A heightened form of GAD where we might regularly experience sudden attacks of panic or fear, often accompanied by uncomfortable physical symptoms such as hyperventilation, dizziness, chest pain and issues with eyesight and hearing.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): In OCD, anxiety is experienced through intrusive and distressing thoughts and images which are often accompanied by compulsions, or rituals, that feel temporarily calming.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Anxiety that is triggered by reliving traumatic events, such as crises, serious accidents and personal assaults, through flashbacks or nightmares.
Social Anxiety: Like GAD, social anxiety, or social phobia, is a long-term disorder which goes beyond just being shy. It is usually rooted in an overwhelming fear of social situations and can make everyday activities, like meeting people, feel impossible.
Phobias: Unlike social anxiety, phobia anxiety is usually triggered by a specific object or situation which provokes an intense fear. Common examples are spiders, snakes, heights, blood or needles, but it can present in a number of ways as a simple or complex phobia.
Health Anxiety: More commonly known as Hypochondria, health anxiety involves excessive worrying about having a severe illness, to the point where it becomes debilitating. Hypochondria is irrational, and is thus often maintained despite a doctor’s reassurance that we are healthy.
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Symptoms of Anxiety
As evident by the section above, anxiety can be seen as a blanket term for several more specific issues. Each one can bring about a unique set of symptoms, but some more general signs are:
Dizziness
Adrenaline
Heart palpitations
Nausea
Sweating
Temporary loss of hearing
Temporary loss of eye-sight
More specific symptoms can also present themselves alongside these general signs in the types of anxiety discussed above. These would include:
Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD): In therapy for generalised anxiety, we will often address the distressing feelings and thoughts you are suffering, which might include constant worrying, issues with focus and trouble with sleeping. High anxiety levels often result in feeling on edge, having difficulty making decisions, irritability and a strong sense of not being in control.
Panic Disorder (including phobias): Feeling faint, experiencing shortness of breath (often accompanied by chest pain), trembling, numbness, a dry mouth, ringing ears, chills and/or hot flushes and an overwhelming feeling of dread.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Apart from flashbacks and nightmares, those who suffer from PTSD might also experience insomnia and have difficulty concentrating.
Social Anxiety: Therapy for anxiety will address worrying about everyday activities, fear of social embarrassment, fear of being judged, fear of being criticised, and possible issues with low self-esteem. Specific symptoms are similar to that of panic attacks.
When do you need a therapist for anxiety?
Severe anxiety is often brought on by a crisis, such as worrying about finances, health, relationships or work. Anxiety becomes an issue for us once it prohibits us from carrying out everyday activities. If anxiety is affecting our work, impacting the relationships around us, or keeping us from social activities we would otherwise enjoy, it might be time to seek out help.
If you think you are suffering from anxiety, or if you are looking for help in identifying and understanding anxious thought and feelings, and how better to handle those challenges, please do get in touch with me at The Modern Psychotherapist, Central and West London
At The Modern Psychotherapist, Central and West London, we integrate and utilise a variety of psychotherapeutic techniques in order to better acknowledge and understand unpleasant feelings and symptoms, rather than avoiding and repressing those feelings.
Anxiety therapy: Types of treatment
It takes courage to acknowledge that there might be something uncomfortable going on for us, and to subsequently make the decision to get in touch with a therapist. The approach here at The Modern Psychotherapist is client-centred, and thus we will initially discuss your concerns and goals to better tailor future sessions. There are a variety of different psychotherapeutic methods and techniques that might help begin the process of alleviating your symptoms. These methods and techniques involve the integration of humanistic, psychodynamic and cognitive behavioural therapy, but what does that mean?
Humanistic and Person-Centred Counselling: Probably the most common form of therapy and often referred to as talking therapy, counselling offers you the chance to sit down for an in-depth talk about the challenges you are facing, as well as your accompanying thoughts and feelings. At The Modern Psychotherapist, anxiety therapy in central London and anxiety therapy in west London takes place in a safe, empathetic and non-judgemental space where you are supported in beginning the process of acknowledging, understanding and articulating the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings you are experiencing. This form of therapy very much deals with what you are thinking and feeling in the here-and-now, and helps with emotional regulation.
Psychodynamic Therapy: Psychodynamic therapy is the body of research and literature which was built upon the ideas of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis over the last century. This form of therapy is a traditional talking therapy and is usually experienced over a long period of time, where a more in-depth strategy explores past experiences often rooted in the unconscious mind. The aim is to bring these problems, and all the thoughts and feelings that stem from them, into the conscious mind in an attempt to understand them, recognise patterns of relating, and reduce the distress they cause. Becoming aware of deep-set internal patterns can lead to changes in obstructive and destructive behaviours.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: More simply known as CBT, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is based on the idea that thoughts drive feelings that drive behaviours. If the thoughts are consistently negative, this can drive negative feelings and also negative behaviours, until we are trapped in a vicious cycle. Unlike psychodynamic and humanistic models, which are explorative talking therapies, CBT is more focused on the here and now, and providing us with the tools to make positive changes to emotional, thinking and behavioural patterns. CBT can be imagined as a chain where if you make positive changes to one chink, it will strengthen the rest.
Anxiety Therapy Central London
Serious anxiety is very difficult to cope with alone, and often we try to address it by being more organised, in seeking reassurance from those around us or from avoiding worrying situations. Unfortunately, suppressing anxiety tends to stimulate it further. The best course of action is to seek a therapist so as to acknowledge, understand and begin to articulate anxious thoughts and feelings, and in so doing, starting to take control of the anxiety, instead of letting it control us.
If you are ready to take the first step, I am a fully qualified (MAPsych, PGDipPsych) and registered (MBACP) integrative psychotherapist, servicing the following areas of Central and West London:
Bayswater
Anxiety Therapy West London
Shepherds Bush
Queen’s Park
I also have experience in helping clients with depression, stress, low-self esteem and low self-confidence, trauma, relationship and family dynamics, communication, anger management, and bereavement.
Common Questions:
What happens in a therapy session?
Our initial session will mostly involve talking about your reasons for coming to therapy, your concerns and beginning to understand what you would like to achieve in our future sessions. Each and every session, including this first assessment, will offer you a warm, safe and non-judgemental environment in which you will be able to express yourself freely about your own personal challenges and experiences. Everything you say in therapy is subject to strict confidentiality.
How long would I need to have therapy for?
You are the client and in total control of how long we work for. It is important to keep in mind that each journey is individual and that some issues might take longer to fully explore, and potentially resolve, than others. I recommend starting with six sessions with regular check-ins to see how you and I feel the work is progressing. I see our work together as a collaborative process.