If you’ve experienced feelings of anxiety, stress, or panic in your life, you’re not alone. Whether it’s an overwhelming work environment, financial issues, or trouble with relationships, it can be easy for negative feelings or reactions to come up. When stress turns into anxiety or even an anxiety disorder, the guidance and support of a psychotherapist can be a great resource.
Working with a psychotherapist can help you live the life you want, feel the way you want to, and understand the feelings you’re dealing with. Although it can be frustrating to determine the exact issue you’re experiencing, the only way to receive a proper diagnosis for an anxiety disorder is by seeing a licensed therapist.
This brief article should not be a substitute for seeking professional help, but rather an idea of what you can expect during treatment. If you want to determine whether you are overwhelmed, anxious, stressed, or suffering from an anxiety disorder, we encourage you to schedule a free Meet and Greet with a member of our team.
A Psychotherapist Can Help You Treat The Following:
FEELINGS OF OVERWHELMINGNESS
It can be easy to feel overwhelmed as tasks and responsibilities pile up. You may feel especially overwhelmed when faced with difficulties if you’re someone who processes things deeply. Luckily, getting expert advice on how you feel is an extremely helpful tool in working towards a clearer headspace. A few visits to a psychotherapist can help you optimize your search for solutions, get an outsider point of view on your circumstances, and protect your health.
Psychotherapists use a variety of resources to help patients defuse feelings of overwhelmingness. These may include coaching you on mindfulness or teaching you distress tolerance skills. These proven techniques for calming yourself down can be extremely effective.
FEELINGS OF ANXIETY OR STRESS
Anxiety is your body’s response to stress due to a specific stressor or difficult experience. Just because it is an inevitable part of life, however, does not mean it can’t be managed. Anxiety can help motivate you to solve problems or overcome difficulties despite being challenging to experience. Symptoms of anxiety may include strong physical changes, worry, or even fear. It usually disappears when the issue at hand is resolved.
Normal levels of anxiety are time-bound; meaning that they have a start and an end. There are two levels of anxiety. Stage one is regular anxiety and stage two is anxiety disorder, both of which a therapist can help you with.
REGULAR ANXIETY
Treatment for regular anxiety is short and focused on helping you manage your stress. The areas of the brain that make good decisions become compromised during stress, hence why learning how to manage it can be a great skill.Your therapist can offer guidance to help you make good decisions, gain insight, and solve the problem(s) you might be facing.
Treatment can include learning coping skills to modulate the stress response. Examples of this include relaxation techniques or “listening” to your body. Your therapist may also review optional activities that can enhance or optimize your response to stress so you become more resilient.
ANXIETY DISORDER
A clinical marker of anxiety disorder is anxiety that lasts for weeks or even months.
This disorder is characterized by ongoing feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure. The typical symptoms include heart palpitations, chest pain, choking sensations, dizziness, worry and feelings of unreality. Aside from physical symptoms, people with anxiety disorders often experience intrusive thoughts and avoidance that interfere with their experience.
Many people avoid certain situations out of worry or stop doing specific things out of fear. Others have intense emotional responses that are disproportionate to the events or suffer distress that they find impossible to manage or control. Your psychotherapist will consider how your life is impaired and how severely the anxiety is affecting your life.
An extreme version of anxiety disorders is panic disorder. When you suffer a panic attack, you experience a sudden and overwhelming feeling of fear. This often appears without a clear reason or warning. The main symptom of panic disorder is a persistent fear of having future panic attacks.
Most people have one or two panic attacks in their life, but if you have frequent panic attacks, you may want to consider seeking professional help. Working with a psychotherapist can help you stop suffering and put you on a path to a healthier life.
Our team at HealthOne is here to support you in fighting your fears and working towards feeling better.
TREATMENT FOR ANXIETY and PANIC DISORDERS
Evidence-based psychotherapy treatment modalities for anxiety and panic include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), Psychodynamic therapies and exposure therapies. Your psychotherapist will work with you to make you feel more comfortable, help you understand your concerns, and help you reduce your levels of anxiety by focusing on your strengths. Since individual needs vary, they will ensure to tailor their strategies to your needs.
COGNITIVE-BASED TREATMENTS
Cognitive-based treatment (CBT) is a treatment that lasts 12-16 weeks, sometimes more. You will work systematically with your psychotherapist on pre-determined steps. Cognitive re-structuring is a component of CBT that focuses on helping you change irrational responses to situations. It also provides ways to correct any thinking traps and inaccurate beliefs you may be experiencing.
Other approaches can teach you how to deal with distressing emotions or provide varying levels of exposure to the situations that trigger your anxiety. This can help you learn to change your expectations based on real data from the events.
INSIGHT BASED TREATMENTS
Psychodynamic treatment is a form of talk therapy that is insight based. Your psychotherapist will help you analyze internal processes that often remain hidden to your daily consciousness.
The treatment may focus on helping you develop awareness on how such internal processes affect your way of interacting with the world, your ability to soothe yourself, your sense of identity, and your relationships.
SEE RESULTS
Oftentimes, anxiety is accompanied by other concerns, such as depression. Psychotherapy can help you work on all of your concerns in an effective, systematic way. Undergoing psychotherapy with a therapist you feel is a good fit for your needs can have a wide range of benefits. The experience can help you overcome fears, stuck feelings, and the paralysis that can stem from excessive anxiety. Psychotherapy can also help you feel better, suffer less, and live an inspired life.
If you’re interested in learning more about our services please visit our book appointment button at the top and click on the Wellness department for a free meet & greet with our licensed therapists.