Counselling for Anxiety
It’s worth pointing out upfront that there is nothing wrong with you if you experience anxiety. Anxiety is our body’s nervous system reacting to perceived threats. In other words, your body is preparing itself to stay alive (i.e. fight-or-flight, freeze/shutdown). This natural process becomes disruptive when there is no observable threat but you still feel anxious just the same.
Feeling fearful or worrying about a stressful situation in the future is more than enough to bring about feelings of anxiety. This response is often learned from past experiences where you may have lived in an unsafe environment where anxiety helped you to recognize a threat before coming into harm’s way. We usually feel anxiety through symptoms such as racing thoughts, feeling unable to relax, irregular sleep patterns, even exhaustion and depression with longterm anxiety.
It can also be as innocent as the prolonged pressure we place on ourselves in demanding situations of high stress jobs or living with your in-laws. These are learned responses to situations that require a heightened, anxious response. Not a bad thing, but definitely inconvenient over time. The bottomline is that your experience of anxiety can be changed. Through understanding the source(s) of your anxiety and learning more about your specific experience, the therapy approach will be tailored to what is most effective for you. Part of this process will likely involve using resources (such as those provided by anxietycanada.com) to develop healthy coping strategies when your anxiety becomes disruptive.
Let’s address your experience of anxiety together and create a new way of being.
Counselling for Social Anxiety
This form of anxiety is one that is directly related to what you feel at the thought of interacting with others. Symptoms like scattered thoughts, shaky hands, a desire to escape or feeling like everyone is looking at you are totally normal with social anxiety. Social Anxiety Disorder is a recognized condition in the DSM-5, however you can experience periods of social anxiety without having a formal diagnosis. Public speaking and meeting new people can be incredibly difficult if you experience consistent social anxiety.
Social anxiety, though uncomfortable and annoying, has the potential to reveal something significant about yourself and your relationship to others. The treatment for social anxiety is less of a cure and more based on listening to what your anxiety actually has to tell you. True to the foundation of our practice: you are the expert of your life. We will work together in counselling to determine what coping strategies are within your grasp and what can be learned from your experience of social anxiety.
As always, you know what is best for you… even if you don’t recognize it yet.
