I am often the first person with whom my patients share significant and intimate thoughts and memories; I never take that privileged position for granted nor the opportunity to help someone to feel better about themselves and discover a more fulfilling life. One of my colleague once described me as natural psychologist; I guess she was alluding to the fact that I feel at ease being a therapist, I can empathise with people’s distress and discomfort but don’t feel overwhelmed by it, I can understand their problem and know how to help, it has always just felt like what I should be doing.
When we are faced with something new or unfamiliar our threat or fight/flight response kicks in. We have evolved to respond in this way, it’s a survival strategy, if we aren’t sure what awaits us, nature believes it is best to expect and prepare for the worst: In the days when we might have found ourselves foraging for food, if a nearby bush rustled it was best to assume there was a predator lying in wait and run, if we were wrong all that was lost was some foraging time. […]...
Having trouble sleeping, either struggling to fall asleep, staying asleep and/or waking up early is very common and is usually a symptom of another problem e.g. stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem. So, if you want to sleep better over the longer term you will need to work out why you can’t sleep, maybe by speaking to your doctor or a psychologist. However, in meantime the tips in this blog will help you to improve the length and quality of the sleep that you get. Tip 1 – Wake Up Getting […]...
BDD is an anxiety disorder that effect approximately 1 in 50 people. It effects both men and women of any age but is particularly common in teenagers and young adults. For more information about BDD watch this video: There are 2 types of treatment that have been proven to be effective for BDD, medication and talking therapy. I will explain a little about each of these and then go through what you can expect to be offered depending on the severity of your symptoms. Medication The biological origins of BDD […]...
This is the 1st blog of 8 in this series: Therapy Course for Anxiety. This course draws on techniques and strategies that research has proven to be effective in the treatment of anxiety. In this blog I am going to show you a quick quiz to help you to self-diagnose anxiety so that you know for sure that this is the right course for you. Then we will make a start on the road to recovery. Anxiety can be normal, necessary and helpful. It can motivate us to prepare, focus […]...
