The types of problems I work with
An individual approach
Below I have listed some common difficulties that people who come to therapy are experiencing. However, I do not treat people as a label and see these difficulties on a continuum of human experience. In doing so I advocate the approach of 'what has happened to you?', rather than 'what is wrong with you?'. This means taking an individual formulation driven approach to everyone I see, in order to make sense of how peoples' problems have started, and what is keeping them going.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder
Worrying is part of being human. However, for some people it can take over their life and this results in them spending most of their time 'in their head' with worries feeling out of control and focusing on 'worst case scenarios'.
Worries are about a range of everyday experiences such as health, work, family, relationships and finances. They prevent people from being able to enjoy the present moment. This sense of constantly being on edge can be exhausting and result in poor sleep, irritability and a life focused on future threats rather than current pleasures.
Although people often talk about being 'born worriers' or 'just like their mum', it does not have to be this way. Excessive worrying is a learned behaviour and can be unlearned. I will teach you a range of techniques that can help you change your relationship with your worries, learn to let them go, and tolerate more uncertainty in your life so you can live in the now and not in your mind.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
OCD is a commonly misunderstood condition and the term is frequently misused by people to describe liking things to be clean, or wanting things to be ordered in a certain way.
The truth is that OCD can be a highly disabling condition which is characterised by a strong sense of responsibility related to the intrusive thoughts one experiences. This then leaves the person feeling compelled to cancel these out through a 'compulsion' - a behaviour or ritual which reduces anxiety in the short-term. However, this can keep the problem going as the person with OCD never learns they can cope with the anxiety related to the intrusive thought.
OCD can present in many different forms. These include fear of contaminating oneself or others, which can result in excessive cleaning rituals; the fear of causing an accident or fire which can result in excessive checking of appliances or going back on a route to check if someone has been hurt; having a 'bad' thought about something happening to others and cancelling this out through rituals such as touching objects in a certain way or repeating words or phrases.
The good news is that OCD is a highly treatable condition and results can be seen very quickly through helping people change the relationship they have with their intrusive thoughts - we all experience them. I will also support people to experiment to see what happens when they do not do their compulsions, and understand how to break the vicious cycle they have become trapped in.
Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)
Social anxiety is more than just being shy. People with SAD have a such a strong fear of humiliating themselves or being judged that they either avoid social situations altogether or use a range of 'safety behaviours' to help them cope. These may include planning what to say, continually monitoring themselves and their actions, or wearing certain items or clothing to 'hide' areas of feared judgment such as sweating or going red.
Unfortunately these behaviours often have an unintended counter-productive effect where someone may be so self-focused that they come across as aloof or uninterested. These actions may also actually increase someone's anxiety as they heighten a focus on their social fear.
Social anxiety is often described in three distinct stages - worrying in the build up to a social event, self-focus and anxiety during the event, and then post-event processing where the person thinks about all the things they could have said or done in a biased negative manner.
In therapy for SAD I will focus on understanding a person's fears and help them change the way they behave in social situations in order to discover that they can cope, and reduce their self-focus.
Often these social fears are related to an early experience where the person was humiliated and imagery work is sometimes done to help rescript this experience to help view it in a more compassionate light.
Health or Death Anxiety
Health anxiety is a continued and all pervasive fear about one's health despite medical reassurance. As with generalised anxiety, it can prevent the sufferer from fully enjoying their life as their focus on their health can become all consuming. Common symptoms include the frequent checking of one's body for signs of illness or disease, googling symptoms, the pursuit of continued medical investigations despite reassurance being given, and people becoming 'hyper-vigilant' to one's own body - that is picking up on normal changes and seeing these as a sign of illness or concern.
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Treatment involves trying to help people see the cost of their efforts to 'ensure' they are healthy, as this is something that can never be guaranteed. In building up a tolerance for uncreating people are encouraged to change their health related habits and reflect on how they may be feeding into their concerns. They will also be ecnouraged to focus on what they would be doing if their health worries were not getting in their way.
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Death anxiety is often related to fears of pain when dying, or the unknown and the consequences of this once someone has died. Like work with the other disorders, treatment involves challenging these death related beliefs and also exposing people to thinking about their own death - in doing so it can reduce the fear that avoidance has created over time.
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Panic Disorder
A first panic attack can often be one of the most frightening experiences of someone's life. During the panic attack people commonly think they are having a heart attack, are going to die, or pass out - and have no idea of what is actually happening to them. The extreme physical sensations people experience understandably often lead them to doing everything possible to prevent having further panic attacks in the future. Unfortunately this can result in people being robbed of experiences that they have previously enjoyed in life and may mean they are staying at home more, avoiding exercise, taking precautions or staying away from crowded places or those that do not feel 'safe'.
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Treatment for panic disorder helps us understand what happens to our body during a panic attack and that, although this 'fight/flight' response feels extremely frightening, it is in fact an evolved response to danger that is harmless. We go on to look at behaviours that may be keeping Panic Disorder going, and deliberately face our symptoms to learn that it is our misinterpretation of bodily sensations that cause us to become stuck in a vicious cycle of panic.
Things that happen
Often life seems to be going well and then something can come out of nowhere to shake our foundations.  Whether it is a bereavement, the loss of a job or an unexpected diagnosis, I have helped many people adjust to difficult life circumstances. Using a solution focused approach I help clients draw on their existing strengths and resources to navigate and make sense of the difficulties life has thrown at them.