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.
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 […]...
Low Self-Esteem is much more common than you may think and is one of the main risk factors for developing a mental health problem, in particular Depression, Anxiety, an Eating Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Also, if you don’t address low self-esteem, any treatment that you received for a mental health problem is unlikely to have a long lasting effect, with symptoms returning often within months of the treatment ending. So, how do you work out if you are suffering from low self-esteem? Ask yourself these questions: 1. Are […]...
In the first two parts of this blog we looked at why January can be such an emotionally and psychologically challenging time. In this final part we will look at how to overcome these challenges and protect yourself from negative emotions that may spiral into depression and anxiety. 1. Dealing with Christmas Make preparing for the psychological and emotional challenges of Christmas as much a part of your pre-festivities as putting up your tree. Measure your expectations for the time with your family based on your actual family not the […]...
In the first part of this blog we looked at four of the reasons that in January people feel more anxious and depressed that at any other time of the month. In this second part we will look at a further five. 1. Nothing to look forward to The simple truth is that on a day to day basis our lives are reasonably repetitive; as mentioned in part one of this blog we set things up in this way because as a society it makes us feel safer and more […]...
