As a psychotherapist, when an individual with anxiety approaches us for psychotherapy, they often cast anxiety in the villain role.
Whilst anxiety may be ruling there life currently, it is important to first appreciate that anxiety is in fact trying to protect us.
An anxiety response is a way of heightening our focus and attention to and preparing defences against anything that we feel may threaten us physically, our environment or the people who are important to us. So it is a necessary survival skill because people, life and the world around us can be unpredictable and even dangerous.
However when people come to see us a therapists, it is usually because their anxiety reaction is disproportionate and affecting their functioning in a way that is no longer helpful in adapting to our situation. It can be intense and time-consuming, making it hard to function on a day-to-day basis.
1) It could be a coping strategy from the past, a reaction that was proportional then but may not be now.
We need to reassure that protective part of you that the level of threat it is reacting to is indeed in the past. If it was a coping strategy that was established as far back as childhood, we help encourage that part to see that you are the only adult that your ‘child’ needs now. You can keep your child safe, explain that all situations and people are the same.
2) Your nervous system could be reacting to emotionally charged situations with a release of stress hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol, and suppressing the release of hormones which would signal it is safe to connect to others.
We need to help your nervous system to feel safe, connected and regulated with somatic techniques for your body to help return to an equilibrium known as ventral vagal. This can also mean learning to ask for help, learning to say no, or stop people pleasing to seek approval and validation from others.
3) You may be avoiding anxiety-provoking situations altogether.
Whilst this may seem like a good idea, it is counterproductive in the long term as it teaches your system that the situation you avoided really was dangerous and reinforce this need to avoid in future.
We support you to stretch outside your comfort zone, rather than try to leap outside of it. This helps retrain your nervous system without being overwhelmed with unpleasant emotions.
4) It may be that you are misinterpreting what people say or do, or even their gestures or facial expressions. We then experience a biased confirmation that what we worried about was indeed true.
We help you to reframe your perception of what is really happening in your interactions with others, and redivert attention to what is more important for you.
The neural wiring that promotes anxiety responses develops early in life, often before we encode lasting, conscious memories. We can become conditioned to react in strong ways without understanding why.
Beating ourselves up for something we cannot control will not improve the situation.
We learn that we can handle more than we imagined, feeling less at the mercy of our anxiety.
If the above describes you, why not give us a call to discuss how we can help. Our therapists are here to listen.
