Anxiety / Phobias

Everyone can experience events that create worry, fear, panic or anxiety.

For the majority of us these feelings are completely natural. For some these feelings occur regularly causing distress and ruining the enjoyment of life and/or is affecting the ability to function effectively at work, home, school or other social settings.

Instead of treating symptoms, hypnotherapy addresses the cause for distress and anxiety at the subconscious level, where most of our behavioural patterns, emotional reactions and unintentional responses originate.

The effectiveness of this type of approach has been proven by numerous scientific studies. For example, in a study published in American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis (January 1986, Volume 28, Issue 3, pages 138-146) brief reconstructive hypnotherapy was used and it showed that “Combinations of these interventions resulted in the restoration of anxiety-free functioning.”. Similarly, an article “Cognitive Hypnotherapy for Anxiety Disorders” published in the same journal in 2012 (Volume 54, Issue 4, pages 264-274) showed how cognitive hypnotherapy is at least as effective (if not more so) than behaviour therapy for anxiety disorders.

At the Centre for Modern Psychology we treat people with General Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety, Phobic Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Call us for a confidential discussion.

Social Anxiety

Social phobia is a surprisingly common form of anxiety disorder that causes an individual to experience intense anxiety in some or all of their social interactions in everyday life.  Given this, social anxiety can be defined as the persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations in which one is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others, and where exposure to such situations provokes intense anxiety.

General Anxiety Disorder

Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), an excessive worrying about various topics such as e.g. finances, health, work, study, etc. People suffering with generalised anxiety disorder tend to spent a lot of their time feeling on edge, restless, tense, or irritable, can find it hard to concentrate, often tire easily, and have poor sleep.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). A person has ongoing unwanted/intrusive thoughts and fears that cause anxiety. Although the person may acknowledge these thoughts as silly, they often try to relieve their anxiety by carrying out certain behaviours or rituals. For example, a fear of germs and contamination can lead to constant washing of hands and clothes.

Panic Disorder

Panic disorder. A person has panic attacks, which are intense, overwhelming and often uncontrollable feelings of anxiety combined with a range of physical symptoms. A person having a panic attack may experience shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness and excessive perspiration.

Sometimes, people experiencing a panic attack think they are having a heart attack or are about to die. If a person has recurrent panic attacks or persistently fears having one for more than a month, the person is said to have panic disorder.

Panic is a rapid increase of anxiety, combined with unpleasant sensations such as sweating, dizziness and a racing heart, which lead a person to believe that they are about to catastrophically cease to function or even die.  Individual panic attacks tend to last from one to about 10 minutes, but panic can continue at a lower level for hours, as one panic attack succeeds another.

Panic attacks can seem to come “out of the blue”, or they may be triggered by particular situations. Sufferers often worry about when they will another attack, so they remain vigilant for symptoms and avoid trigger situations.  Unfortunately this pattern of vigilance and avoidance only makes it more likely they will have another panic attack.

Phobic Disorder

Specific phobias, are excessive fears of particular objects or situations. Some common examples are a fear of animals, blood, injury, injections, flying or heights.

 The person will experience anxiety or panic when exposed to the situation or object and may feel an onset of the anxiety or panic when thinking about it. They may realise that the response is exaggerated yet feel powerless to change it.

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