Anxiety
Anxiety Counselling in Clayfield, Brisbane
Feelings of worry or nervousness can be normal - or even healthy, as anyone who has been spurred on by worry to prepare well for a presentation or exam can tell you. However, anxiety ventures into being an illness when excessive worry, nervousness, or panic gets in the way of day to day activities, perhaps interfering with our work or how we interact with friends and family.
If this describes you, you are not the only one! Research shows us that about 2 million Australians have the experience of anxiety every year. As quite a common reason to come to therapy, our team is quite experienced in helping people to manage and move through anxiety.
We are your local psychologists and counsellors if you live or work in New Farm or Tenerife, Kangaroo Point, Fortitude Valley, East Brisbane and Brisbane city. We’re also quite close (10-15 minutes of driving) from Highgate Hill, West End, Bowen Hills, Spring Hill, Herston, Petrie Terrace, Kelvin Grove, Norman Park, Balmoral, Hawthorne, Wilston and Windsor.
Types of Anxiety
As mentioned before, when anxiety becomes a problem, there are different ways it can show itself. Anxiety issues are grouped into several types.
Here are descriptions of some common types of anxiety:
Generalised anxiety: This is where you spend most of your time in worry about a range of everyday things that wouldn’t normally bother others. Moreover, these worries seem to be out of control and you feel nervous and tense more often than not.
Social anxiety: Intense anxiety surrounds social situations, if social anxiety is affecting you. Potential fears can be that you may embarrass yourself or that other people will be judgemental of you in some way. Commonly, people with social anxiety avoid social situations, staying away from things such as meeting new people, talking with co-workers, parties or other social events, and they tend to do whatever they can to avoid being the centre of attention.
Panic: The experience of panic can become a ‘panic disorder’ when there are repeated panic attacks and worries about having more panic attacks.
Specific phobias: This applies when the anxiety you have is an intense fear of a particular situation or thing (like small spaces, needles, dogs or spiders), which causes you to avoid that specific object, situation or thing.
How Can Counselling Help?
If ignored, anxiety can last for a long time, becoming exhausting and getting in the way of living our everyday lives. There are a number of highly effective treatments for anxiety, and anxiety sufferers can and do get better.
A psychologist or counsellor can assist you in finding effective ways to overcome anxiety. First, we will assess your situation by asking you detailed questions abut what’s happening for you. Depending on your unique situation, we will draw from the approaches below or others that fit your needs the best:
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). The goal of CBT is to show the effect of thinking on mood. t also teaches alternative ways to think about life, and the ways we look at things we see as dangers or stressors. This puts us in a position to challenge anxious thinking and to reframe the way we think. CBT helps with facing (rather than avoiding) things that cause stress; as often the avoidance of an issue can over time become a greater problem than the issue itself.
Exposure Therapy (ET). This is a behavioural therapy which is frequently used with specific phobias, and is often paired with CBT, rather than used as a stand alone therapy. The aim is for gentle, gradual exposure, over a period of time, to the object or situation that is causing anxiety, but in a smaller or less challenging form to start with. It’s similar to a vaccination, in that a vaccination exposes our immune system to a weakened version of a virus or bacterium so that our body can develop effective ways to deal with the real thing. Exposure therapy helps us face fears and challenge those fears in a safe, controlled way. This can involve confronting our fears in person, or in other ways, such as using imagination, images, or other means. Usually exposure therapy is delivered over multiple sessions before commencing to confront the fear in ‘real life’.
Mindfulness and relaxation techniques help clients bring their awareness to the present moment, in order to to give your body and mind a break. These strategies can help people to ‘self-soothe’ that is, to manage one’s emotions and reactions to reduce overwhelm and bring a sense of calm and safety.
Solution Focused Therapy helps clients identify goals that are meaningful to them, to measure where clients sit in relation to those goals, and to find ways forward to help navigate the gap.
Book an appointment or give us a call
If anxiety is affecting you, allow one of our team to help.
We are loath in Clayfield, and work with clients based nearby in New Farm, Fortitude Valley, East Brisbane, Teneriffe, Kangaroo Point, and Brisbane City. We’re also not too far away if you work or live in Albion, Bowen Hills, Spring Hill, Herston, West End, Kelvin Grove, Petrie Terrace, Highgate Hill, Norman Park, Kelvin Grove, Hawthorne, Wooloowin, Nundah, Windsor, Wilston, and Balmoral. Telehealth or zoom sessions are available from anywhere in the world. Naturally, if you feel we are a good fit for your needs, we welcome you wherever you’re coming from!