Anxiety

Anxiety is one of the most common types of mental health problem that people consult us for at Tranceform.

You can feel anxious about almost any experience or situation as long as you believe that it is harmful to you in some way.

Thought of this way, Anxiety is a threat response.

Threats exist in many areas of our lives including:

• Relational threats
• Social threats
• Economic threats or
• Physical threats

As long as you consider a situation to be threatening, you are likely to experience anxiety.

General Anxiety

Many people experience anxiety and are not even aware of any particular triggers in the environment.

This non-specific anxiety is referred to as a Generalised Anxiety Disorder by the healthcare profession, although there is very little evidence that this is caused by a fault in a persons biology.

These general feelings of Anxiety can strike at almost any time, and most people will experience them at some point in their lives.

You can try out the GAD7 standard Anxiety Test here if you want to.

There are many factors that can lead to these feelings of worry and stress, for example you may be anxious about a job interview, money worries, problems in your personal relationships or even just the day to day pressures of everyday life.

These feelings are completely normal and a natural reaction to stress, but for some people the level of worry can become so significant that it starts to affect their ability to get on with living.

Why Do I Experience Anxiety?

Anxiety is an absolutely normal reaction to any situation where we believe that we are in danger.

We are hard-wired to respond to threats in this way and do not have any conscious control over the reaction, however, we DO have control over what we believe is threatening.

When our mind prepares to deal with a threat it considers three possible ways of solving the problem:

(1) FREEZE – and hope that the threat goes away,

(2) FLIGHT – escape from the threat, normally by running away, and

(3) FIGHT – face the threat.

Regardless of which of these three options we choose, our bodies prepare for action by flooding our bloodstreams with Adenalin.

This Adrenalin makes our hearts beat much faster, prepare our muscles for action and causes our breathing to become more shallow.

These chemical changes in our bodies are experienced as the symptoms of Anxiety!

Symptoms of Anxiety

• Increased heart rate
• An impending sense of fear or dread
• Feeling like you’re going to faint or pass out
• Feelings of dizziness
• Palpitations
• Fatigued Muscles
• Dry and Sticky mouth
• Sweating excessively
• Breathlessness
• Cramps in the Stomach

You may have only a few or even all of these symptoms and to some extent they are all normal responses to threats.

However, being in a high state of alert for long periods of time can be quite overwhelming.

Therapy & Counselling for Anxiety

We offer a number of different types of therapy and counselling for Anxiety and anxiety-related problems.

Choosing the most suitable therapy depends on a number of different considerations including factors such as:

• How long you have had the problem.
• Your personal preferences.
• How your problem is affecting you today.

You can read more about the different types of therapy for anxiety on the following links:

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Anxiety
• Self-help CBT course for Anxiety
• Counselling for Anxiety
• Hypnotherapy for Anxiety

Although all therapies use slightly different approaches, the one thing they all have in common is the relationship that is formed between the client and therapist.

Furthermore, research also suggests that therapy relationship may be the most important factor in achieving a good therapy outcome.

Free Initial Consultations for Anxiety

We offer all prospective clients free initial consultations to discuss your Anxiety prior to any treatment.

The consultation is free and lasts around 50 minutes.

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

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

We recognise the importance of the therapeutic relationship in helping people to bring about effective change, so its important to be able to discuss our change programmes 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.