Counselling for Anxiety, Depression, and Worry
Do you wish to free yourself from the self torture that excessive worry inflicts?
Do you wish you could stop your mind from tormenting yourself with negative thoughts and concerns which lead to feelings of anxiety, panic, and possibly substance misuse? You are not alone. Worry, anxiety, and depression are common debilitating emotional states suffered by Canadians today.
Approximately 18% of adults have worries, fears, and anxiety that make it difficult to accomplish everyday tasks.
What is Worry?
Worry is a form of thinking. Everyone worries some of the time. Everyone experiences anxiety. A primary aspect of worry is that it is usually non-productive. Often times worry equals thinking about something over and over again. Even with all this thinking the situation is not resolved, the problem is not solved. Worry is a primary cause of anxiety and depression. Anxiety taken to an extreme form leads to panic.
Are there Good Aspects of Worry?
There are times when worry can be beneficial. Ordinary worries usually diminish over time with the help of reassurance, education, problem solving, and empathetic support. These common sense strategies often prove ineffective for the chronic worrier. Some beneficial aspects of worry:
- Encourages us to change a situation
- Prompts us to study for a test or exam
- Helps us plan for an upcoming event exploring various scenarios and how best to approach possible situations
- Signals that there is a legitimate problem to address and stimulates problem resolution
- Alerts us that there is true danger or psychological or social threat ahead
What are the Negative Aspects of Worry?
Unfortunately, for many people in our society, worry has become a problem. When it is excessive it leads to anxiety, panic, fear, repetitive thinking patterns, negative health effects, depression, and substance misuse. Everyone worries some of the time. Everyone has experienced anxiety at some point in their life. Excessive worry and anxiety destroy your quality of living. Worry and anxiety in extreme forms can make life a living hell, poisoning pleasures, sabotaging achievements, and skewing perceptions of what is going on around us.
Many terms are now used to describe debilitating or excessive worry such as stress, anxiety, or generalized anxiety disorder. Maybe you should use these terms as well throughout the page for clarity and also for search engines. Then you might use “anxiety” etc as keywords and include them in your title tags.
If you experience excessive worry you may have a tendency to worry about a range of future possible negative events or ruminate over what has already passed. These worries are likely distressing and hard to control. Often times, you may try to avoid or distract yourself from worrying thoughts and situations that trigger worry.
Seeking reassurance from others can become part of the worry cycle. You are worried, you seek an outside reassurance that your worry is unrealistic, and this in turn gives temporary relief from the torment. Then another day rolls around, you are excessively worried, you seek reassurance, are then temporarily relieved of that worry and the pattern continues. It is important to break this cycle to truly get long lasting relief from excessive worry and anxiety.
An example of unproductive worry is a mother whose 19 year old daughter goes on her first long distance driving trip by herself. The mother worries that her daughter will get into an accident or her car will break down and she will be accosted by a stranger, and so forth. This escalating type of worry has no beneficial aspects to the mother or daughter and results in heightened stress, anxiety, depression and possibly a panic attack.
If you feel tortured with excessive worry and anxiety you may believe that there is nothing you can do about it--or you may simply not know where to go for assistance. As a result, excessive worry can be life-long and can lead to severe anxiety, depression, poor health, and substance misuse.
| Situations and thoughts that commonly cause worry and anxiety: | Common health effects of excessive worry and anxiety |
|---|---|
| Relationships | Irritability |
| Finances | Difficult sleeping |
| Health of self and others | Light-headness |
| What others think of you | Breathlessness |
| How you look | Sweatig and hot flashes |
| Safety concerns | Nausea |
| Community issues such as poverty, homelessness, development proposals | Trembling or twitching |
| The environment | Uncomfortable awareness of the heart rate |
| The environment | Sexual dysfunction |
| Family issues | Dry mouth |
| The future | Butterflies in the stomach |
| The past | Colon spasms |
| Children | Easily startled |
| Employment | Inability to relax |
| Body image | Feeling tired for no reason |
| Career | Headaches |
| Thoughts of dying | Muscle tension and aches |
| Pregnancy | Difficulty swallowing |
| Worry itself | Frequent visits to the bathroom |
How Counselling can assist you in developing mastery over your worry
The good news is—you can overcome excessive worry and anxiety. Have you ever had friends or family say to you “stop worrying so much” and inside you know you would love to do this but don’t have a clue how to stop?
Counselling with Barbara can assist you to learn the skills and develop the tools to become free from excessive worry, anxiety, and panic attacks (sometimes referred to as generalized anxiety disorder), as well as the depression that excessive worry fosters.
It is not necessary to be in counselling for years to achieve mastery over your worry. Often, brief counselling (2-6 sessions) is sufficient for you to develop the awareness of how to become the master of your own life experience. Through your strong determination to change your patterns of thinking and applying what you learn in counselling in your day to day living, you can live a happy life that is good for you and good for those who come in contact with you.
The primary objectives of counselling to relieve worry and anxiety include the following:
- Developing clear self awareness as to the nature of your thinking
- Examining your various thinking patterns to determine if these current patterns serve you well or are detrimental to your emotional and physical well-being
- Learning the tools, strategies, and techniques necessary to empower yourself to change your thinking from negative, self defeating, worrying thoughts, to thinking that is good for you, free from the self-torture that excessive worry inflicts.
- Develop strong problem solving skills which allow you to move through problems in a clear and effective manner. This includes gathering sufficient information so a constructive path becomes apparent.
- Increasing your ability to maintain positive personal boundaries, good for you, and good for others.