Talk About Your Relationship With Your Therapist
Most of us dont have many relationships in our lives in which we talk about the actual relationship. We might talk about ourselves and our behavior, or the other person and their behavior, but rarely do we look another person in the eye and tell them what they mean to us, and what were afraid of and hoping for from them.
The therapy relationship is incredibly strange – its basically you telling your secrets and fears to someone who started as a stranger to you and often remains kind of a stranger, even as you grow closer to them.
So why not talk about it? What does your therapist mean to you? Who do they represent? What do you wonder that theyre thinking about you? What are you thinking or wondering about them that youre afraid to share? Ask your therapist if you can dig into it with them were all trained for this stuff, and they should be able not only to hang with you, but to guide you through it.
Talk Therapy For Anxiety Symptoms
Talk therapy provides a way to learn about anxiety disorders and new skills and techniques to manage symptoms.
This type of talk therapy for anxiety offers relief from symptoms, including:
- Irritability or restlessness
- Excessive worry, fear, or feelings of impending doom
- Trouble sleeping or insomnia
- Hyperventilating
- Palpitations
Meeting with a licensed therapist provides guided sessions that build up better coping and life skills. Sessions can be combined with psychiatric services if anxiety symptoms are severe. If your symptoms are severe and debilitating, please seek help immediately for the life and comfort you deserve.
Have You Ever Seen A Therapist Or Counselor Before
Your therapist might ask if youve ever seen a therapist, counselor, psychiatrist or other mental health professional before.
If you have, make sure to let them know. Your therapist might ask about your past experiences with therapy, as well as the specific aspects of therapy that you found helpful and rewarding or difficult and uncomfortable.
If youve never seen a therapist before, your therapist may spend more time helping you to feel comfortable and familiar with the therapeutic process.
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How Would You Describe Your Partner Friends Or Family
If someone else plays a significant role in your life, its important to let your therapist know about how they treat you and how you feel around them.
Your therapist may ask you certain questions about your relationships with other people, or about your family dynamics, your interactions with friends, etc.
These can offer insight into how you connect with others, identify the people that are there for you and show you how strong your support network is.
While talking about your relationships with other people may feel unusual, remember that your therapist isnt there to judge you.
How Common Is Anxiety In Children
Anxiety and anxiety disorders are considered the most common mental health problem in childhood. Separation anxietyis common in younger children, whereas older children and teenagers tend to worry moreabout school or havesocial anxiety. While OCD can occur at any age, in children it usually appears between the ages of 6 and 12.
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Benefits Of Anxiety Therapy
Counseling for anxiety can be liberating. Here are five benefits of anxiety therapy:
How Do You Cope With Your Problems
Everyone has a coping strategy for dealing with problems. Whether youre troubled by anxiety, stress, depression or a certain situation or individual, you likely have behaviors that you turn to in order to cope.
Some coping habits are productive and healthy, such as making notes in a diary, meditating or setting goals for yourself to work towards.
Others are unhealthy, such as using alcohol, drugs or other destructive behaviors to cope with stressful situations and other challenges.
Your therapist might ask you this question to learn more about how you cope with difficulties in your life, as well as changes that you may be able to make to stop your coping strategies from interfering with your progress.
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Talk About Your Jealousy
Everyone experiences jealousy at times, but life isnt fun when you feel like you are constantly preoccupied with anyone elses life but your own. Therapy can help you identify your triggers and habits, so you can start building new ones that will become the foundation for building the life you love.
How To Overcome Anxiety
Its important to understand what is causing your anxiety then you can look at steps to address it.
You may want to look at ways to break out of a cycle of negative thoughts that are making you anxious. Or you may need to think about whether what is making you anxious is a fact or something you have imagined .
Breathing exercises can help to regulate your breaths physically, which can have an impact on relaxing your mind as well.
Mindfulness techniques, such as meditation, can also have a positive impact for some people.
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What Should I Be Looking For In A Therapist
There are currently no laws in place stipulating what training and qualifications a counsellor must have in order to treat anxiety. However, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has developed a set of guidelines that provide advice about the recommended treatments.
In the first instance, those suffering from anxiety should be offered access to a support group and self-help information recommendations by their doctor. If this doesnt help, or the anxiety is more severe, psychological treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy and/or applied relaxation are recommended. Further treatment may require medication.
Read the full NICE guidelines:
Final Thoughts On Talk Therapy
Talk therapy can be a valuable resource for individuals who need support with their current distress. Clients may need to meet with a few different therapists to find what best works for them. Likewise, while some practitioners exclusively focus on using one model for treatment, therapy can be much more fluid. Its not uncommon for therapists to blend interventions from a variety of different theories to provide the best care.
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Eye Movement Desensitisation And Reprocessing
EMDR is another talking therapy that’s been developed to help people who have post-traumatic stress disorder .
People who have PTSD may experience intrusive thoughts, memories, nightmares or flashbacks of traumatic events in their past.
EMDR helps the brain reprocess memories of the traumatic event so you can let go of them.
EMDR can be a distressing process, so it’s important to have a good support network of family and friends around you if you plan to try it.
A course of treatment is likely to be 8 to 12 sessions.
Types Of Talking Therapy
Talking therapies are psychological treatments for mental and emotional problems like stress, anxiety and depression.
There are lots of different types of talking therapy, but they all involve working with a trained therapist.
This may be one-to-one, in a group, online, over the phone, with your family, or with your partner.
The therapist helps you find answers to the problems you’re having.
For some problems and conditions, one type of talking therapy may be better than another.
Different talking therapies also suit different people.
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Talk About Your Relationships
This doesnt just mean your love life. Tell your therapist about all your relationships, whether thats your partner, your family, or your friends.
Do you feel like you have support at home? Do you feel like you have other people to share your feelings with, or do you have difficulty opening up with others too, not just your therapist?
Relationships are important to your mental health, and they play an important role in affecting your mood and feelings on a day-to-day basis.
So, if youve been avoiding your moms calls, even though you love her, let your therapist know, and maybe you two can explore why youre avoiding her.
Even if you feel like you have good relationships, talking about them might help you realize the things that are working in your life and the resources you can lean on out of session.
If You Find It Hard To Remember How You Felt During The Week Take Notes Out Of Session
In other words, keep a journal between therapy sessions. This can be especially helpful if youre shy or find it difficult to remember things on the spot.
Of course, you dont have to bring your journal with you or read from it in session. But writing things down allows you to look for patterns in your feelings and behaviors that you might want to address with your therapist, Small says.
For instance, a person may observe that they have been feeling inadequate or insecure and this would be a good thing to address with their therapist, she says.
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Revisit Your Therapy Goals
In our practice, during an early session, every client works with their therapist to build a list of therapy goals. The point of this is to figure out what success would look like, so that youre not coming in, week after week, with no end game. We put the goals in your file, and for longer-term clients, we revisit them with you annually.
If youve been coming in for awhile and feel like you dont have much to say, it can be helpful to review that list. When your therapist goes through it with you, you may realize that one of the following things is true:
- Youve made a lot of great progress on your goals, and its time to start thinking about a break from therapy.
- Youve never really touched on something you identified as important when you started therapy.
- In the preceding few weeks or months, youve been talking a lot about something that isnt anywhere on your goals list, and youd like to add a new goal.
Any of these realizations are wonderful grist for the therapy mill.
What if youre working with a therapist outside of our practice who didnt build a goal list with you at the beginning of therapy? You can still ask them to look back at their progress notes from your first few sessions, and to tell you what you said you were hoping to get out of therapy.
Talk About Problems In Your Relationships
Talk about what bothers you in your current romantic relationship or relationship with a friend or family member. Talk about whether or not you feel heard, respected, or cared for by this person or group of people.
An area you might not think of right away is how you interact with sex. Masturbating often, cheating on your partner and many other sexual actions can mean sex addiction.
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The Cycle Of Anxiety Worksheet And Questions
This worksheet and set of questions are best used together. The Cycle of Anxiety worksheet is designed to help those of us with anxiety understand how the symptoms often lead us to engage in avoidance behaviors. Because many therapeutic interventions attempt to deal with anxiety by breaking the cycle, the illustration can be helpful to visualize, understand, and target the source of our anxiety.
As part of self-therapy, you can use the Cycle illustration to introduce yourself or your client to the concept of how feedback and reinforcement contribute to the recurrence of avoidance behaviors.
This activity can help facilitate an understanding of why its often important to tackle the source of these negative emotions head-on when they occur. As a therapist, it is often not possible to be around when your client experiences external anxiety-inducing triggers, and this worksheet is very handy for them to have on hand.
The questions accompanying the worksheet help you or your client make the Cycle more meaningful, and include the following:
You can access and download The Cycle of Anxiety Worksheet from TherapistAid, and the full set of questions.
How Do I Know Which Kind Of Therapy Is Right For Me
There are many different approaches when it comes to therapy. Therapists may train in one approach or use a number of different methods. Some use specialist techniques for example, an art therapist would use art to help you explore your feelings. Others offer specialist treatment for specific issues such as addictions or eating disorders.
It can be easy to be overwhelmed by the number of different types of talking therapy out there. Dont let that put you off. We go through some different types below, but the most important thing is the relationship you have with your therapist. Trusting them and feeling comfortable opening up means you will get the most from your sessions, no matter what approach they use.
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What Are Your Strengths And Weaknesses
From creativity to the ability to focus intensely on a certain goal until its accomplished, everyone has unique strengths.
Your therapist may ask you to describe your strengths. Dont worry, this isnt the type of question youd get in a job interview — instead, its designed to help your therapist learn about the unique and specific skills that you have to deal with problems and challenges.
During therapy, your therapist may help you to learn about how you can use these strengths to cope with things like stress, anxiety or depression and make progress in your life.
Similarly, your therapist may ask you to talk about your weaknesses. By being honest and open in your answer, youll be able to identify points that you can work on together to help you better deal with tough situations and take control over your thoughts and behaviors.