Difficulties I Can Help With
I am able to provide support for any of the following difficulties. For clarity, you do not need to have a formal diagnosis in any of these issues for me to be able to support you with them. If you suspect you have any of the issues below we can assess and explore this in sessions.
Depression- This can be experienced as consistent negative or self-critical thoughts. Other symptoms include difficulties with motivation and sleep or appetite disturbances. Sometimes we may experience depression as feeling very emotionally flat or apathetic instead.
Generalised anxiety disorder- People often experience this as uncontrollable worry about a variety of different topics. You may struggle to cope with uncertainty in daily life or get stuck in avoidant or reassurance seeking patterns.
Obsessive compulsive disorder- This is defined as a combination of obsessive thoughts about distressing topics and compulsive behaviours that we use to manage our distress. Behaviours may be repetitive or ritualistic in some way. OCD can involve a variety of different themes. Further information can be found here: https://iocdf.org/about-ocd/
Post-traumatic stress disorder and CPTSD- Trauma can exist in many forms whether it is from a single event or ongoing circumstances like childhood abuse. Common difficulties can include feeling as though the trauma is very recent and experiencing intrusive images, flashbacks, or nightmares to events. Trauma can also deeply impact how we see ourselves as a person or how we see the world around us. Working with PTSD and complex PTSD is one of my key areas of interest within my work and I have supported dozens of people to recover from many different forms of trauma.
Social anxiety- This can be a very difficult issue where we struggle with fears of being rejected or judged by others. We may struggle to socialise in group contexts or to talk to authority figures. We may also feel that we need to monitor ourselves or put on a mask when socialising to ensure that we make the right impressions on those we talk to.
Panic disorder and agoraphobia- These two issues often go hand-in-hand. Panic disorder is when we struggle with sudden intense physical symptoms associated with stress (in essence panic attacks). These can include feeling like our heart is racing, like we can’t breathe, or like we will faint. This can then lead to agoraphobia where we find it difficult to go to certain places because of a fear of it bringing on these physical symptoms. This can mean avoiding crowded areas like shopping centres or being too far away from a safe space like our home.
Sleep disturbances- Sleep is an important but often overlooked aspect of our mental health. Sleep disturbances can be caused by a variety of factors and can involve difficulties getting to sleep, waking in the night, or waking early. This can lead to us feeling constantly drained or foggy and can make it hard to keep up with daily life.
Stress- Many of us struggle with managing stress, whether it’s a chronic combination of factors, or if we’re going through a major life event or change of circumstances. I can help you to develop strategies to manage stress catered to your individual circumstances.
Phobias- These tend to involve an intense fear of a particular kind of object or activity. This can involve spiders, driving, animals, vomiting or a variety of different topics. Phobias around needles or blood can also lead to difficulties with fainting. I can provide support with all of these issues including fainting.
Health anxiety- This involves being anxious around having an underlying health condition. We may find that we repeatedly google symptoms that we notice, or we may be hyper-aware of our body and on high alert for any potential symptoms we could develop. This can lead to catastrophic thoughts. We may find that we go to the GP a lot more than usual or may avoid them entirely.
Low self-esteem- Self esteem fluctuate over our lives or it may be a theme that we may have struggled with for a long time. Although it isn’t a specific mental disorder, it often manifests as a mix of symptoms associated with depression, generalised anxiety, and social anxiety.
Chronic physical health conditions- There is a strong interplay between our mental and physical health. For example if we are feeling low we are likely to experience pain more intensely. There are many physical health issues which can be exacerbated by our mental health problems. I can help you to develop strategies and techniques to manage the psychological aspects or impact of physical health difficulties. Difficulties I can help with include but are not limited to chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, and medically unexplained symptoms.
Anger management- Difficulties with anger or irritability can cause a lot of friction in our daily lives and can lead us to see ourselves as a bad person. There is often a lot that we can do to manage anger however. Anger in itself may be a symptom of a larger mental health difficulty or it could be a response to stress or health issues. I can help you to develop techniques to manage anger and irritability specific to your individual circumstances.