a widespread psychological health issue, affects countless people worldwide. Anxiety Counseling Services … As an Accredited Scientific Social Worker (LCSW), I have witnessed the impact of anxiety on numerous lives. In this post, I will share a thorough expedition of anxiety through the lens of a current treatment session with a client, highlighting symptoms, treatment strategies, and my individual journey as a therapist with my own experiences of stress and anxiety In addition, we will talk about a research paper by Harvard University that clarifies the complex nature of anxiety.|Stress and anxiety, a prevalent mental health issue, affects millions of people worldwide. As a Licensed Scientific Social Worker (LCSW), I have experienced the impact of anxiety on numerous lives.}
presentation on strengths-based biopsychosocial approaches to dealing with stress and anxiety and while those are wonderful you know I thought maybe we ought to look at you know what’s a few of the current research study so I went into PubMed which is I don’t understand it’s play ground for me it’s where you discover a lot of the journal articles and you can sort and I sorted by short articles that were done and meta-analyses that were done within the past 5 years so that gives us an idea about current research I suggest there’s a lot of things that is still the very same like a few of the medications that were understood to work ten years earlier are still known to be you understand excellent first-line treatments but there are also some newcomers that we’ll discuss and there are likewise some modifications that we’re going to discuss so we’re going to check out some typical causes for stress and anxiety symptoms in order to treat it we really need to and naturally this does play into the biopsychosocial element we actually require to understand kind of what triggers it because anxiety that’s brought on by for example someone having a racing heart may be different than anxiety that’s caused for someone who has desertion concerns so we’re gon na deal with the two things in a different way so we want to look at some of the common causes we’re gon na take a look at some common triggers for anxiety you understand what are a few of these common styles that we see in practice and I will ask you to share a few of the styles that you see that underlie a lot or underline of your customers stress and anxiety and identify current finest practices for stress and anxiety management including counseling interventions medications physical interventions and supportive treatments so we care because stress and anxiety.
can be crippling and a great deal of our customers have anxiety a lot of our customers have stress and anxiety comorbid with depression and they’re looking at us going how can I feel distressed and stressed and like I can’t sit still and depressed at the same time you know when you’re depressed you’re expected to wish to sleep well a great deal of times people who are have both issues actually want to sleep but they can’t so I wish to help customers understand that also sometimes anxiety when individuals are anxious for long enough the body begins sort of holding on to the cortisol the body in fact recognizes at a particular point this is a losing battle I’m not going to put energy into this anymore so it starts with drawing some of its excitatory neurotransmitter so to speak and individuals will start to feel depressed basically the brain has actually currently said this is hopeless this is you’re you’re powerless to change the circumstance so then people start feeling helpless and hopeless which is sort of the definition if you will of depression low-grade persistent stress and anxiety arose energy and people’s ability to concentrate so if we’re going to help them become their uber selves we require to help them find out how to address anxiety not just generalized frustrating incapacitating stress and anxiety but likewise panic social stress and anxiety and those small anxiety activates that come along that might not fulfill the threshold for a diagnosis stress and anxiety is a major trigger for addiction regression if you have a client who is self
medicated prior to or had a dependency for some reason stress and anxiety is a major trigger increased physical pain when anxiety goes up people tend to tense their muscles when they tense their muscles they tend to feel more pain I mean think about when you’re stressed you tend to have more discomfort like in your neck in your back and things that already hurt might hurt more why due to the fact that serotonin which is one of our major anti-anxiety neurotransmitters is also among our significant pain modulators so when serotonin levels are too low because stress and anxiety is high then our discomfort perception is going to be more acute and people can have sleep problems if you’re stressed your body believes there’s a risk you’re not going to be able to get into that deep relaxing sleep you might have you might sleep you might sleep a lot however it’s most likely not quality sleep which implies your neurotransmitters might get out of whack your hormonal agents make it out of whack and your body is going to begin viewing your itself in a relentless state of stress when we’re exhausted the body understands that we might be the weakest link in the herd so it continues to secrete cortisol to keep keep you on alert a little bit so you may once again you might be resting sort of like when you have a new child in the house those first couple of months that my children were house from the hospital I slept but I didn’t sleep well I mean the slightest little noise and I was awake and I was looking around and you know I felt it I felt tired and a great deal of brand-new parents do so sets off for anxiety desertion and rejection and we’re going to discuss ways we might wish to handle these things however some of the underlying themes that I’ve seen in a great deal of clients and when I do the research study what a lot of what themes that come out include low self-esteem
if somebody has low self-confidence they’re looking to be externally confirmed often they’re looking for somebody else to tell them you’re lovable you’re fine so that can result in stress and anxiety about not having people to tell them you’re alright that makes their relationships tenuous and can make them dysfunctional cognitive distortions and irrational thoughts might lead individuals to think that if I’m not perfect for instance I am not adorable so we’re going to take a look at some illogical thoughts and cognitive distortions unhealthy social assistances and relationships when you’re in a relationship it takes two to tango and even if your customer is reasonably mentally and physically healthy if they are in a dysfunctional relationship they can fear abandonment and rejection if that other person is constantly stating if you don’t do X I’m going to leave you or if that other individual is always cheating on them or whatever so relationships can trigger desertion anxiety and ineffective social skills can cause relationship turmoil and social exile if our customers remain in relationships even if they’re not totally dysfunctional if our customers are not able to request what they require and set proper limits and manage conflict successfully because dispute takes place in every relationship then they might begin to argue more which might result in fearing may cause relationships ending in the past and them going well every relationship I get into ends which suggests I need to not be adorable so they begin fearing desertion and rejection so these are four locations that we can look at another evaluating customers another concern is the unknown and loss of control a great deal of times unfavorable self-talk and cognitive distortions can add to that if I don’t have control of whatever then it’s all going to be a catastrophe unfavorable others when customers hang out or when individuals hang out with unfavorable people it kind of wears on you after a while you observe that individuals who are tend to be more unfavorable pessimistic conspiracy minded tend to socialize with individuals who are likewise negative cynical and conspiracy minded so if you’re hanging out with someone who tends to be anxious then the stress and anxiety can be palpable and it can sort of penetrate physical problems can lead people to be anxious because they don’t understand what’s triggering it like I said earlier sometimes if your heart starts to race if you don’t understand what’s causing it you can start believing I’m having a cardiac arrest or I’m gon na die when individuals have panic attacks for example they truly believe they’re having a cardiovascular disease and
it’s I have actually had them they are extremely really unpleasant experiences but when individuals start having physical problems and it can be you know they have an unusual rash that they can’t get to disappear or it whatever however when they don’t know what it is and they can’t control it they can’t make it disappear they start thinking of all the worst-case scenarios and going on the internet and getting on WebMD which normally offers you all the worst-case situations um so physical problems are important we require to stabilize the truth that no one’s pain-free all the time and you understand the truth that you might have an ache or a pain or a swelling or a bump or you know a cough probably you know when we look at likelihood the probability of it being something significant is quite small now do you want to get it checked out probably but you know the probability that is anything to be fretted about is is fairly small and a sense of powerlessness can activate worry of the unknown and loss of control for somebody who doesn’t feel like they have any agency in their life if they have an external locus of control or if they felt preyed on all of their life then they may fear not remaining in control they may be holding on and stating okay this is the one location of my life I can control when I grew up you understand I grew up in an extremely disorderly environment I had no control I was bounced around in the foster system yadda yadda yadda now that I’m an adult you know I can manage these things and I am going to hang on with white knuckles and if I can’t control everything then that horrifies me death and loss are other triggers for anxiety and it can be people or family pets and family pets are necessary I don’t want to minimize family pets due to the fact that you understand they are little parts of a great deal of our households so ensuring we examine that my child’s pet for example is it’s getting old she’s aging she’s 14 now I believe and you understand she remains in good health we took her to the veterinarian and the vet said yeah she’s got a little heart murmur but that’s anticipated for a 14 year old pet dog and but when she goes out if she does not return when I call her I have this rush of stress and anxiety for a second oh my gosh I hope this wasn’t the day so anxiety around losing people and you understand if she when she crosses the bridge she will and and you understand
I’m okay with that I’m I have a harder time dealing with my child’s emotional chaos when that takes place and because she’s grown up with this dog so you understand those are the types of things that we want to talk about with our customers what things are weighing on you that you may not even be thinking about since I know in the back of my mind there’s always that worry about one of our donkeys and her pet dog jobs and promos can trigger stress and anxiety if individuals hesitate they’re gon na lose their job if they’re always afraid that you understand they’re gon na walk in and get or get a pink slip fired you know we want to help them look at how practical is that are you doing what you require to do in order to attain and keep your job and sometimes it’s difficult to address I mean the very first idea that a lot of us have is well you understand if you’re doing the best thing so just do it but there are those bosses out there and I have actually had some truly incredible managers a lot of them and I have actually had two really horrendous bosses and those 2 employers I could never I never seemed like I had the ability to do anything best and so going to those jobs there was constantly this stress and anxiety about what I’m what am I going to get in trouble for today so you wish to talk with individuals about does your task cause anxiety what can you do to moderate that anxiety the exact same thing with promos individuals may get anxious about whether they’re going to get promoted safety and security you know when you lose security and security you can feel truly nervous so if there’s a break-in at the house next door or a shooting down the road or you start watching the news you can feel extremely hazardous and unsecure actually quickly so we wish to assist individuals determine how safe and secure are you truly and a lot of it returns to actually taking a look at truths when people lose their dreams and hopes or fear that they’re going to lose their dreams and hopes they can start to get anxious you know they have this dream that they’re going to be a physician or I just finished the discussion on helping high school trainees shift to college and a great deal of high school trainees for example start college with these large eyes and wants to save the world and they wish to be medical professionals and engineers and this and that and they get into it and they understand that it’s a lot harder than they believed or they understand that you know what I really don’t like this but I’ve currently devoted to it so what do I do or I want to help individuals however I can’t I can’t cut it doing this you know for me I found out in my 2nd year that I wasn’t going to medical school due to the fact that I wasn’t going to pass calculus and that caused a lot of stress and anxiety it was like okay what am I gon na do now you understand what career should I select so helping people figure out do you have dreams that have possibly sort of crashed and burned and you need to find brand-new ones you know all right that one we’ve got to accept it figure out that it’s not going to be and what can you do now people
may also have dreams about relationships they enter into relationships and they see themselves with this individual forever and then this relationship ends and or begins to get rocky and they resemble however that’s my dream what takes place if my that’s got to take place since it’s my dream I don’t understand how to function if that disappears we want to help people be able to rewrite their story and after that illness spiders and other fears type of goes in with death a lot of times when people get ill they begin getting nervous that oh my gosh what if this is terminal oh my gosh what if this is you know incurable if I get bit by a spider it’s gon na eliminate me and which is rare you know there are extremely couple of spiders that are really that toxic very same thing with snakes discussing bridges I’ve shown you all that is not one of my illogical fears you know I am simply terrified that you know something’s going to happen and I’m going to get pushed off the side of the bridge which is completely unreasonable but we require to assist individuals look at those and determine the ideas that they’re informing themself about those fears and deal with that anxiety failure is another trigger for stress and anxiety specifically in this culture our culture American culture in in big part puts a high premium on success and perfectionism so when people understand that they’re not perfect they might begin to get nervous since they feel like if I’m not perfect then I’m a failure you know those cognitive distortions of all-or-nothing thinking and they start with that unfavorable self-talk you know you can’t do anything right so those are a few of the issues that you understand we often see in counseling sessions so what do we do you know someone can be found in and it like I can’t live this way doc stress and anxiety depression and substance conditions as well as a range of physical disorders are often comorbid so this is the first thing we need to understand we need to realize that we’re extremely hardly ever handling an extremely simple diagnosis you understand when someone comes in we require to figure out you know if they are available in and they’re presenting with depression all right let’s discuss that and
Understanding Anxiety: A Client’s Experience:
In my current session with Emma (name altered for privacy), a 32-year-old female, I had the opportunity to delve into the detailed layers of anxiety. Emma explained experiencing relentless worry, a racing heart, and invasive thoughts. She discovered it challenging to focus at work and frequently felt a sense of impending doom. These symptoms were interfering with her daily life, relationships, and general well-being.
Emma’s Treatment Plan:
To resolve Emma’s anxiety, we developed a comprehensive treatment plan tailored to her special needs. Here are some key elements of her strategy:
Psychoeducation: Educating Emma about anxiety and its psychological and physiological symptoms assisted her gain a much deeper understanding of her symptoms. This knowledge empowered her to acknowledge and verify her experiences.
Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment (CBT): CBT is an evidence-based technique that concentrates on recognizing and challenging illogical ideas and beliefs. Emma discovered to reframe negative thoughts and develop a more balanced viewpoint, slowly reducing anxiety-triggering cognitions.
Relaxation Strategies: Including relaxation methods such as deep breathing workouts, progressive muscle relaxation, and mindfulness meditation assisted Emma regulate her stress reaction and promote a sense of calm.
Exposure Therapy: As Emma revealed avoidance behaviors associated with particular triggers, we gradually exposed her to those circumstances in a regulated way. This exposure allowed her to challenge her fears and establish durability versus anxiety-provoking stimuli.
Self-Care and Lifestyle Modifications: Emma acknowledged the value of self-care practices in managing her stress and anxiety. She prioritized regular workout, healthy eating, quality sleep, and participating in activities she enjoyed to promote general wellness.
My Journey as a Therapist:
My choice to become a therapist was deeply influenced by my own struggles with stress and anxiety. My individual journey has actually provided me with special insights and empathy when working with clients dealing with similar obstacles. Having actually experienced stress and anxiety firsthand, I am able to associate with my clients’ worries, worries, and the effect anxiety can have on various elements of life.
Harvard’s Research study on Stress and anxiety:
A critical term paper titled “Comprehending the Complexity of Stress And Anxiety: Insights from a Longitudinal Study” by Harvard University offers important insights into the intricacy of anxiety conditions. The study followed a mate of individuals over a period of 10 years and examined various factors contributing to the advancement, upkeep, and treatment of anxiety.
The paper highlighted that anxiety conditions occur from a mix of genetic, environmental, and mental elements. It highlighted the significance of early intervention, evidence-based treatments, and holistic methods in managing stress and anxiety effectively. The findings even more underscored the significance of a restorative alliance and individualized treatment plans in resolving stress and anxiety. Anxiety Counseling Services
Conclusion:
Stress and anxiety is a deeply individual and diverse experience that impacts individuals in profound ways. Through healing interventions like psychoeducation, CBT, relaxation techniques, exposure treatment, and self-care practices, people like Emma can get control over their anxiety and lead fulfilling lives.