Getting Help for Anxiety/Panic!

About

How Common is Anxiety? Anxiety is by far the most common of issues that clients come to see me for. It is fairly normal for sufferers of anxiety to believe with a conviction that their situation is unchangeable. With studies proving such a low level in statistics in the effectiveness of some of the more popular psychotherapies, it is understandable why many have lost faith in the idea of therapy actually being of help for them. Not long ago, I treated a particular person who was suffering from a severe case of anxiety. The client had just ended in a therapy where he had been told that he had to simply tell his internal ‘bad thoughts’ to go away and leave him alone. Not only was this found to be unhelpful, it was also understandably hugely frustrating. General Anxiety Some of the most popular people in showbiz that we know of suffer from anxiety and panic disorders. The interesting thing is that often such individuals will portray themselves as being extremely self confident and in many cases other people will find it difficult to believe that such 'successful' people could be suffering from a 'mental health issue'. The Symptoms of Anxiety Anxiety can often be very debilitating as well as a major inconvenience. People who are anxious will often feel held back from achieving and accomplishing. Of course, anxiety and stress will often have an effect on a person physically. Lack of sleep, over eating, under eating, effects on family relationships...these are some of the common side effects of general anxiety. The Effect of the 'What if?' question Part of the chronic pattern of an anxiety sufferer, is the constant 'what if' question that they tend to play out in their mind. So even if the person has been through years of formal therapy, if they find they are still going around thinking to themselves "but what if x happens and I start to fell anxious again?", then they are still very much living with the chronic anxiety pattern. The Change-Work Process In helping a client