Anxiety counselling in York

Most of my clients are feeling some degree of anxiety when they start counselling. It may be easy for you to identify what you are feeling anxious about (e.g. your relationships, family issues, work or study) or you may not know, but you do know that you are feeling fearful, worried or stressed. 

 

What is anxiety?

Anxiety results from our fear response, a natural, unconscious, primitive response to threat. This innate fight or flight (or freeze, fawn, flop) response can literally be a life saver. However this threat response is designed for occasional use. If it is regularly being activated and there is no obvious physical danger, it can significantly negatively impact our quality of life. Anxiety can show up in our body, mind and behaviours in multiple ways that are unhelpful to us and can cause yet more stress.

 

For many people anxiety now results from threat to their sense of self such as rejection, criticism and exclusion, rather than a threat to their life. This, coupled with not having effective ways to respond to anxious feelings means that anxiety can become stuck. 

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How will counselling help me?

There is no one, simple quick fix to anxiety. If there was someone would be making a lot of money! However, counselling can help by making you more aware of how you experience anxiety and understand the origins of your anxiety.  Counselling can also help you identify ways to break the familiar cycle of anxiety and find short term and longer term ways to respond to it that help you. 

 

I work with people who experience anxiety, social anxiety, panic attacks and stress. 

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