Helping you get it right
ANXIETY DISORDERS HOME
Do you have fears that keep you from doing various things in your life?
Do you worry all the time?
Do you suffer with Panic attacks?
Do you have obsessions or compulsions?
What is anxiety?
When you are in a difficult situation, you assess your coping abilities against a threat and work out a format for getting through it. However, with an anxiety disorder, there is often an over estimation of the perceived threat and an underestimation of coping abilities.
Various categories of anxiety include:
General Anxiety Disorder is defined as excessive anxiety and worry, occurring more days than not for a period of at least 6 months, about a number of events or activities.
The disorder is defined in terms of a cognitive process: worry, of a minimum severity level to distinguish it from normal worry. Worry is perceived as difficult to control, leads to significant distress or impairment. It should not be due to another psychological, physiological, or medical condition. Fears of a wide range of possible dangers, fear of not coping, beliefs about vulnerability. This can be non specific and the feelings can be associated with various areas of a patient's life.
With general anxiety the triggers are perceived by the patient to be non specific situations or events, but ultimately it is due to how the patients thinks about a situation or event. If it is not challenged, then the condition is maintained via avoidance behaviours.
Key cognitive themes include: intolerance of uncertainty, fears of wide range of possible dangers and a fear of being unable to cope with them.
Panic Disorder/Attacks - A panic attack is a sudden surge of overwhelming anxiety and fear
triggered by a panic-inducing situation in which you feel endangered and unable to escape. Symptoms can include: Palpitations, shortness breath, hyperventilation, dizziness and sickness, detachment, hot and cold sweats, shaking, numbness in the extremities and tingling, dry mouth.
Can move onto a 2nd stage: Chest pain which feels like a heart attack and feelings of suffocation.
OCD – recurrent impulses, thoughts or images/repetitive behaviour (is considered a form of anxiety however, this is a maintenance structure of anxiety as the patient feels better by conducting the repetitive or safety behaviour. The anxiety is reduced for a short period of time, but returns because the patient hasn’t dealt with the triggers.)
Agoraphobia – anxiety about being in situations in which escape would be embarrassing, or help unavailable in the case of a panic attack.
Health Anxiety – preoccupation or belief one has a serious disease - with a focus on health issues being far worse than they actually are.
Phobias – persistent fear of object or situation, exposure leading to anxiety or panic.
PTSD – anxiety stimulated from a reaction to a specific traumatic event which threatened death or injury. This category is not dealt with by The Insight Centre.
SOLUTION FOCUSED TREATMENT PROGRAMME
I can help you to set yourself free from anxiety, enabling you to lead a happier and more fulfilled life.
Cognitive Restructuring- Identifying thoughts associated to anxiety. To discover how your thoughts can trigger anxiety. Learn to evaluate your thinking and generate alternative thoughts which produce different emotions and behaviour. Lowering anxiety levels.
Relaxation training - physical and mental relaxation. When the body is reprogrammed to be relaxed you are switching the body from the "flight or fight" mode to the "rest and digest" mode. If you develop the ability to relax before and during stressful situations, then you can substantially reduce the frequency and severity of the anxiety you experience. Relaxation and anxiety can not exist at the same time.
Controlled breathing - Many people breath shallowly when anxious and this pattern leads to an imbalance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the body, which can cause the physical symptoms of panic and anxiety.
Distraction - When anxious we tend to focus on physical sensations or thoughts connected to our anxiety. Distraction works because our attention is focused away from the thoughts or physical sensations that contribute to our anxiety.
Overcoming avoidance - avoidance is a hallmark of anxiety, the more we avoid a situation the more anxious we become about facing it in the future. Work with the support of the therapist to approach various anxiety stimulating situations. This is done via a hierarchy of anxiety stimulating situations with the least anxious provoking situation being dealt with first. You will learn to increase your coping abilities through various supportive strategies and techniques.
Develop a Coping Card - This is a helpful tool which is simple, personal to you, but very effective. It can provide a swift prompt or supportive guidance for coping in a reactive moment.
The above programme is individually tailored to suit each patient's condition and identified goal, optimising the treatment outcome.