Anxiety - Finding Help

Anxiety is a natural and normal emotional reaction to threats and situations that are perceived as dangerous. If we however overestimate danger and at the same time underestimate our own ability to cope, different type of anxiety disorders may arise.

Types of anxiety:

• - Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
• - Panic attacks
• - Social phobia
• - Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Four different components of anxiety

We can differentiate between four different components of anxiety: Cognitive, emotional, behavioural and the physical component.

• - The cognitive component of anxiety describes the negative automatic thoughts and images we have about threatening or unpleasant events. The threatening event can be something in the very near future, and then the thoughts tend to get panic-like, or it can be more vague about something might happening in the future and then the thoughts are often more like 'ongoing worries'
• - The emotional component describes the particular ways we feel when we experience anxiety (could be panic, worry, despair, anger etc.)
• - The behavioural component is about the ways we act and react in relation to anxiety. Some typical types of behaviour are avoidance and escaping from the feared situation as well as safety behaviours where we do something to protect or prepare ourselves for the situation (e.g. always asking for others advice and reassurance or over-rehearsing the sentences we are going to say in social situations)
• - The physical component describes all the bodily sensations that are related to anxiety, such as nausea, hyperventilating, increase in pulse and blood pressure, dizziness etc. Some people are also anxious about how they appear to others and fear that the physical symptoms of anxiety will make others judge them in a negative way for blushing, trembling etc

How We Treat Anxiety

We offer our clients cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) alongside Psychotherapy. CBT is a psychotherapeutic approach which has been developed and adjusted over the last thirty to forty years and within that period it has grown increasingly popular and is recognised worldwide. An essential part of the treatment is to examine the thoughts and beliefs connected to our moods, behaviours, bodily sensations, and to the events in our lives. By doing so, we can become more aware of dysfunctional patterns of thinking which are associated with emotional and behavioural problems and work to challenge, and in time modify these, into more constructive ways. EMDR is a remarkable treatment method used to heal the symptoms of depression. EMDR therapy uses bilateral stimulation, right/left eye movement, or tactile stimulation, or sound, which repeatedly activates the opposite sides of the brain releasing emotional experiences that are "trapped" in the nervous system. EMDR allows a client to process an emotional experience they cannot yet talk about.

Anxiety Disorders - The London Recovery Clinic

Anxiety Disorders - people become very anxious just about getting through the day. This generalised anxiety disorder (referred to as GAD) can prevent people from even undertaking everyday tasks that some of us will take for granted. Nick Kypriotis from the London Recovery Clinic explains about how anxiety can affect people, and discusses symptoms.