Stress

Stress in most cases, is how we describe the “feeling” that we experience when we are actively coping with challenging situations, either in our personal or business lives.

Stress is NOT an illness, it’s an emotional response although, as with many human emotional experiences, it has become socially defined as a problem.

Technically, stress is our reaction to a threat where the threat can be existential, social, personal or financial.

Tranceform also offer help for work related stress and are official stress & resilience consultants to the West Midlands Black Country NHS Clinical Commissioning Group who contract us for our Thriving at Work course.

We all experience stress in our daily lives and in fact many people believe that they perform more effectively when they are under stress, but some people find it intolerable and when this is the case, our health can start to be affected in a negative way.

Different people are able to tolerate very different levels of Stress and this is probably due to the types of personality that we have, and to the general experiences that we have gone through in our lives, however, anybody CAN learn to manage how we “react” to any given stressful situation in more productive ways.

The treatments we offer at Tranceform are specifically aimed at those people who are experiencing significant negative symptoms due to either highly stressful situations, or because of negative thinking patterns.

Signs & Symptoms of Stress

The signs and symptoms of stress fall into four basic categories:

Behavioural Symptoms

• Restlessness
• Irritability
• Anti-social behaviours
• Increased consumption of alcohol
• Increased smoking

Physical Symptoms

• Vomiting
• Headaches
• Disrupted sleep
• Chest pains
• Muscle tremors

Cognitive Symptoms

• Poor concentration
• Confusion
• Uncertainty
• Nervousness
• Nightmares

Emotional Symptoms

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Anger
• Guilt
• Grief

Long Terms Effects of Stress

Un-managed stress can have a direct effect on wellbeing as well as physical health.

The study of stress and how it effects our bodies is known as psychoneuroimmunology or “PNI”.

Biological illnesses in which stress can be cited as a significant factor include:

• Diabetes
• Hair loss
• Heart disease
• Hyperthyroidism
• Obesity
• Sexual dysfunction
• Tooth and gum disease
• Gastric ulcers

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Stress

If you’re committed to overcoming your stress-related problems then we highly recommend following our Tranceformental CBT 10 session programme.

The Tranceformental programme is a highly successful & pragmatic mental health counselling course, run over 10 sessions, that will teach you everything you need to know to understand your problem, identify how unhelpful thinking and limiting beliefs might be reinforcing the issue, and then show you how to make any changes to your unhelpful thinking styles or maladaptive safety behaviours that you may have developed as part of your coping strategies.

The programme is also available as an online self-help CBT programme.

Our Tranceformental CBT programme is an evidence-based, research supported approach used by mental health practitioners around the World.

Alternative Therapies for Stress

Although our preferred form of mental health counselling for stress-related problems is Tranceformental CBT we also offer alternative psychotherapies for those who might prefer a different approach.

These include:

Psychodynamic therapy which focuses more on emotional problems and relies on the Therapeutic Relationship to bring about change. Available with Paul.

General Counselling which is less structured but still provides a safe and non-judgmental environment to discuss issues which is therapeutic in its own right.

Hypnotherapy is an alternative form of therapy that can be applied to a very wide range of problems and is available with Joan.

Free Initial Consultations for Stress

We offer all prospective clients a FREE initial consultation to discuss your stress prior to commencing any treatment plans.

The consultation is free and lasts around 50 minutes.

During this consultation we will discuss the various therapy options that are available to you and make a considered recommendation based on your individual personal circumstances.

Initial consultations are also available as part of our online therapy service.

At Tranceform Psychology we recognise the importance of the therapeutic relationship in helping people to bring about effective change, so its important to be able to ‘meet’ to discuss any therapy treatments BEFORE proceeding.

Our policy is to help people make a fully balanced & considered decision about undertaking work with us, including both the financial and personal implications.