Counselling Therapy
Treatment
ANXIETY
ANXIETY STATES
Anxiety states can be distinguished from other unpleasant emotions such as anger, sorrow or grief by their unique combination of experimental, physiological and behavioural manifestations.
ANXIETY STATES
Chronic conditions. Symptoms of nervousness, depression, inability to concentrate, insomnia and generally cannot enjoy life. An anxiety neurosis occurs when in addition to these symptoms, they also feel apprehension
OBJECTIVE ANXIETY
A reaction or response to a real danger in the external world.
NEUROTIC ANXIETY
The source of danger is internal rather than external and the person is not consciously aware of the stressor.
Efforts to reduce objective anxiety result in the repression of internal cues, i.e. banishing from awareness all thoughts or memories associated with previously injured or punished behaviours, and see the stage for the later appearance of neurotic anxiety. The reason for this is that repression is never final or complete and a partial breakdown in repression permits fragments or symbolic representations of repressed traumatic events to erupt into awareness
These derivatives of repression evoke neurotic anxiety reactions.
These are the danger signals
Internal Cues Objective Anxiety Repression of Internal cues Breakdown In Repression Derivatives of Repressed NEUROTIC ANXIETY
ANXIETY
COMPLICATIONS: Especially in the case of agoraphobia and claustrophobia. Be on the look-out for underlying material problems. For example, the wife may not feel dominated by the husband and the claustrophobia might a symbolic expression of her feeling of being trapped.
In such cases, assertion therapy should precede desensitisation and might make it unnecessary.
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Feeling distressed, nervous, constantly worried, preoccupied and generally on tenterhooks are all feelings associated with anxiety. However, anxiety is a normal and natural response to anything that is perceived as threatening. It is the same reaction as fear, but often without real danger being present. Both anxiety and fear have two components –physical and mental.
Anxiety gets out of control when upsetting thoughts increase bodily tension and vice versa. It is often more intense at times of extreme stress or when we are facing a physical, emotional or intellectual threat of some sort. Difficulties arise when anxiety becomes excessive and we therefore feel ‘out of control,’ are unable to think rationally and respond inappropriately.
Symptoms of anxiety include: apprehension, sweating, dry mouth, shakiness, restlessness, continually anticipating disasters, nausea, an inability to concentrate, restlessness, muscular twitches, difficulty in getting to sleep or waking early, change in eating, smoking or drinking habits, pursuit of destructive behaviours, a negative thinking style etc.
However, there are many anxiety related behaviours, which can be destructive and disruptive, which are fuelled by obsessive thoughts and driven by fear. Phobias can develop, addiction can take hold, panic attacks begin to happen and avoidance sets in and before you know it, your world is shrinking.
My aim is to work with you to understand and recognise the cause of your anxiety and to help you learn how to control it. No one learns how to cope with anxiety by trying to ignore it or pretending it doesn’t exist. It will not go away on its own. So, my approach involves helping you to explore ways in which the anxiety response is triggered in you. I will be showing you how to quickly kick-start an automatic relaxation response to reduce adrenaline release and bring your bodily feelings once again under control. I will then help you to control distressing thoughts and slowly help you to face your fears with calm and confidence.
Anxiety management is a self-help approach in which you will succeed in overcoming your problems entirely due to your own efforts. (With my support, of course!) Knowing you have succeeded because of the changes you have made will increase both your self-esteem and confidence.
Other skills that I have found help my clients to deal effectively with situations that induce anxiety are:
- Being assertive
- Problem solving
- Decision making
- Conflict resolution
- Communicating effectively
- Emotional literacy
- Time management
- How to maintain a positive attitude
· Because you will have learned a range of new skills to help you manage anxiety, it is extremely effective in the long term and the skills remain with you for life.
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“Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I
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Symptoms leading to Stress and Anxiety
EXHAUSTION: Allowing yourself to become overly tired or in poor health. Good health and enough rest are important. If you feel good, you are more apt to think well.
DISHONESTY: Begins with a pattern of unnecessary little lies and deceits with friends and family. Then come important lies to yourself. This is called rationalising – making excuses for not doing what you do not want to do, or for doing what you know you should not do.
IMPATIENCE: Things are not happening fast enough or others are not doing what they should or what you want them to do.
ARGUMENTATIVE: Arguing small and ridiculous points of view indicates a need to always “be right”.
DEPRESSION: Unreasonable and uncontrollable despair. May occur in cycles and should be dealt with….Talked about.
FRUSTRATION: At people and also because things may not be going your way. Remember – everything is not going to be just the way you want it.
SELF PITY: “Why do these things happen to me?”
“Why must I be ill?”
COCKINESS: Got it made, no longer fear illness. Getting into situations that could threaten your health will wear you down.
COMPLACENCY: Dangerous to let up on disciplines because everything is going well.
Always to have a little fear is a good thing. More relapses occur when things are going well than Otherwise.
EXPECTING TOO MUCH FROM OTHERS: “I’ve changed; why hasn’t everyone else? It’s a plus if they do – but it is still your problem if they do not. They may not trust you yet, may still be looking for further proof. You cannot expect others to change their lifestyles just because you have.
LETTING UP ON DISCIPLINES: This can stem either from complacency or boredom. You cannot afford to be bored with you programme. The cost of a relapse is always too great.
USE OF MOOD ALTERING CHEMICALS: You may feel the need to ease things with a pill and your doctor may go along with you. You may even ease things by substituting drugs for a drink – or two. Remember – You will be cheating.
WANTING TOO MUCH: Do not set goals you cannot reach with normal effort. Do not expect too much but rather be realistic. “Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.
FORGETTING GRATITUDE: You may be looking negatively on your life, “concentrating” on problems that are not totally corrected. But it is good to remember where you started from – and how much better life is now.
“IT CAN’T HAPPEN TO ME” This is dangerous thinking. Almost anything can happen to you and is more likely to if you get careless.
OMNIPOTENCE: This is a feeling that results from a combination of many of the above. You now have all the answers for yourself and others. No one can tell you anything. You ignore suggestions or advice from others. Relapse is probably imminent unless drastic change takes place.
Motivation for Life
Program Designed by Alpha Integrative Counselling Services
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Guide to do every day
1. Study something new every day-
2. Do at least one new thing different every day and make it part of your life
3. Keep a positive dairy
4. Go for a walk if possible
5. Get out of house at least once a day
6. Be nice to someone else at least once a day
7. Be good/treat yourself at least once a day
8. Phone at least one person everyday
9. Be good to yourself
10. It is ok to feel
11. It is OK to Think
12. Act as if to give the Confidence to achieve
13. Learn to trust yourself
14. Learn to trust others
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Unhelpful Thoughts
1. Over-generalisation. Making a sweeping statement about oneself following a single incident; “She didn’t want to go out with me – that means no one will.
2. Personalisation. Attributing failures to oneself when other factors may be at least as much to blame: “She didn’t enjoy the cinema this evening because she was with me”.
3. Magnification. Misinterpreting a minor setback as a major disaster, ‘making a mountain out of a mole hill’ “Since she said she couldn’t go out with me that evening it’s pointless asking her out again”.
4. Minimisation. Misinterpreting one’s achievement so that it’s actual worth is underestimated: “She seems to enjoy my company, but that’s only because there’s nobody else available”.
5. Dichotomous reasoning. Categorising oneself as one thing or the other, as a success or a failure with no intermediate position: “She doesn’t like me, that’s because I’m basically unlikeable.
6. Arbitrary inference. Making a negative inference from something without taking into account alternative explanations: “She arrived late which means she didn’t really want to come anyway”.
7. Selective Abstraction. Basing a conclusion on one fact taken out of context while ignoring any conflicting evidence: Although she has kept all our other arrangements the fact that she didn’t come tonight means she is not committed to our relationship”.
It can be seen that some thoughts are examples of more than one mechanism in play; indeed, the example above of over-generalisation might also result from personalisation, magnification or selective abstraction.
Thought, Feelings & Action (Cognitive Behavioural Programme)
Designed by Alpha Integrative Counselling Services
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Handling Criticism
(How to respond to criticism assertively)
1. If it’s fair criticism, ask for specific suggestions, alternatives, from the person. What might you do to handle a situation, or behave differently?
2. No need for long, self-critical, or rationalising excuses.
3. When a person’s criticism is somewhat vague, unclear. For example, ‘You are “cold” with people’, have them clarify or give specific examples.
4. Respond with opinion statements rather than ‘you’ statements, for example, ‘I think you misinterpreted what I said’, instead of, ‘Your interpretation is all wrong.’
It’s ok to share your reactions, feelings, regard the criticism: ‘I feel a little angry about your bringing up this issue again’, or ‘I feel unjustly criticised.’------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Developing Assertive Behaviour
Learning to behave more assertively leads to more fruitful communication and increased self-confidence.
Assertive people:
1. Take responsibility for their thoughts, feelings and behaviour. They do not blame or judge others.
2. Stand up for their own rights, and respect the rights of other people.
3. Act without undue fear or anxiety.
4. Ask for what they want and need openly and honestly, and accept that they may not get exactly what they want. They do not fight to win their corner – unlike the aggressive person.
5. Are willing to compromise or negotiate to settle conflict situations. They do not take flight from difficult situations, or allow themselves to be walked over – Unlike the passive or submissive person.
6. Don’t feel the need to bully or manipulate others (unlike the aggressive person), and don’t feel the need to please others in the hope they will be approved of, (unlike the passive person).
7. Can give and accept praise easily.
8. Can give and accept criticism – they are aware of their particular crumple buttons’ and do not over-react to criticism.
9. Have high levels of self-confidence and self-esteem, and build other people’s self-confidence and self-esteem.
10. Like themselves for who they are, and accept other people as they are.
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PROMISES
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations, which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that we are living and have a purposeful life.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
Motivation for Life
Program Designed by Alpha Integrative Counselling Services
Exert from AA book
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The Price of “Nice”
“Nice” behaviour eventually has a ‘Price’ for both the ‘nice’ person and persons involved With him/her. It is alienating, indirectly hostile, and self destructive because:
1 The ‘nice’ person tends to create an atmosphere such that others avoid giving honest, genuine feedback. This blocks emotional growth.
2 ‘Nice’ behaviour will ultimately be distrusted by others. That is, it generates a Sense of uncertainty and lack of safety in others, who can never be sure if they will be supported by the ‘nice’ person in a crisis situation that requires an aggressive Confrontation with others.
3 ‘Nice’ people stifle the growth of others. They avoid giving others genuine Feedback, and they deprive others of a real person to assert against. This tends to Others can never be certain if the relationship to turn their aggression against themselves. It also tends to generate guilt and depressed feelings in others who are Intimately Involved and dependent on them.
4 Because of chronic ‘niceness’, others can never be certain if the relationship with A ‘nice’ person could endure a conflict or sustain an angry confrontation, if it did Occur spontaneously. This places great limits on the potential extent of intimacy In the relationship by placing others constantly on their guard.
5 ‘Nice’ behaviour is not reliable. Periodically, the ‘nice’ person explodes in unexpected rage and those involved are shocked and unprepared to cope with it.
6 The ‘nice’ person, by holding aggression in, may pay a physiological price in the Form of psychosomatic problems and a psychological price in the form of
Alienation.
7 ‘Nice’ behaviour is emotionally unreal behaviour. It puts severe limitations on
all relationships, and the ultimate victim is the ‘nice’ person him/herself.
Motivation for Life
Program Designed by Alpha Integrative Counselling Service
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phone 01376552774