How Trauma Affects your Health: A Therapist Explains

And then it clicked. Why my successful, career driven, Oxbridge educated client's PTSD symptoms were not impacting on her day to day life. She was ticking all the boxes and acknowledging the presence of current trauma symptoms, all while living life without any apparent distress or impairment to her emotional coping. But suddenly, there it was. She had come to me because her consultant had recommended therapy to help her manage flare ups of her IBD and skin conditions to complement her medical treatment. Now it was all making sense. Perhaps her trauma symptoms were wreaking havoc on her physical health instead. To find out more about how trauma can show up in the body, keep reading...

Counsellor, Therapist, or Psychologist? How to Choose the Right Professional

You know you need help, your anxiety has been out of control and you’re finally ready to take that step of starting therapy. But what do you google? Therapist? Counsellor? Psychologist? It’s all SO confusing, and who knows the difference anyway? Your search results come back with a sea of different names, job titles, qualifications, and mysterious letters after the names that make no sense to you. To add to the confusion, the prices for sessions are wildly different! Why is a counsellor charging £50 per session, a psychotherapist charging £70, and a clinical psychologist charging double that? If finding the right therapist feels like an overwhelming task, keep reading to find out how you can choose the right professional to help you with your anxiety or trauma.

How to Stop Night Time Panic Attacks: A Therapist Explains

You wake up in terror, heart pounding, feeling like you can’t breathe, your pajamas are soaked in sweat. It’s 2 am and you’ve been sound asleep in your bed until now. Your thoughts race and you look frantically around the room. It’s hard to understand what’s going on, you’re afraid you are going crazy with all of these middle of the night episodes. Your palms go clammy and your chest feels tight- it’s hard to breathe. You get up, throw open the windows to get some cold air in the room. When that doesn’t work, you end up locking yourself in the bathroom, crying on the floor and waiting for it to pass. When it finally does, you’re terrified of going back to sleep and having another one. If this sounds like you, keep reading…

What Makes OCD Worse and How CBT Can Help

That set of rules that you need to follow so that something awful doesn't happen. The complex ritual that needs to be done a certain number of times in a specific way in order for you to feel reassured that nothing bad will happen. Asking your partner for reassurance that you washed your hands despite knowing you have washed them 3 times already. Having to say certain words and phrases out loud. All of these types of behaviours help you to feel relief from the anxiety when your OCD gets triggered. But are they really helping or making things worse long term? Keep reading to find out...

Health Anxiety: How Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Can Help

It’s 2 am and you are up again in the middle of the night, googling symptoms, after noticing some heart palpitations that you’ve never experienced before. You’re used to researching symptoms as they arise on the internet, trying to rule out anything dangerous. The more you read on Google, however, the more your anxiety rises. You feel scared by what you are reading about worst case scenarios and become convinced you have a serious heart problem. You lie sleepless for the next several hours, unable to calm down and fall asleep, watching the clock until you can ring the GP surgery in the morning. It’s a vicious cycle and you’ve become a “professional patient” of sorts where you feel like the GP no longer takes you seriously, leaving you feel more anxious and unreassured than ever. If this sounds like you, keep reading.

Social Anxiety at Work: Coping Strategies from a Psychologist

It’s bloody happened again. You’re in the middle of giving a presentation at work and you can feel yourself starting to go hot in the face as you notice everyone’s eyes on you, waiting for you to start. Your heart feels like it’s thumping out of your chest and your breathing quickens. As you notice your body reacting in this way, your anxiety and self consciousness grow and you feel mortified. You freeze and completely blank out, not remembering what you were supposed to say next and spend the next 20 minutes stuttering and stumbling your way through your presentation. If this sounds like you, you might be dealing with social anxiety…

Three Ways to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Are you tired of feeling like a prisoner to your worries? Do you find it hard to let go of worries and get on with your day? Does it feel like nothing works to stop you from jumping down that rabbit hole of anxiety? If this sounds like you, keep reading to learn some new strategies to get those anxiety fuelled worries under control!

Think You Have OCD? How to Regain Control of your Life

“I’m so OCD about keeping my house in order”. Does this sound like a familiar phrase? People describing themselves or others as having OCD has become so common and is often used casually in conversation to describe a tendency to want to have everything organised and in its place. But is this really what psychologists mean when we diagnose or treat someone with OCD? And if you do think you have OCD, what can you do about it? Keep reading to find out!

Why Can't I Stop Worrying? A Psychologist Explains

You’re up late at night again, worrying about what tomorrow will bring at work. It’s a nightly occurrence now, waking up in the middle of the night plagued with racing thoughts and a feeling of dread about going into work the next day. The worries circle round and round in your head, as you imagine worst case scenarios and feel more and more anxious. You can’t seem to switch off and relax to go back to sleep; you are too tense and feel like you can’t stop the worries. If this sounds like you, keep reading to understand why from an anxiety specialist.

Grounding Techniques to Get Rid of Anxiety Fast

Anxiety can be a very intense experience, especially when it comes on suddenly or out of the blue. When the brain goes into fight/flight mode, a number of physical changes happen very quickly in the body to prepare to quickly run away or stay and fight off a perceived threat. This is an in built response for all of us, and is a really helpful one if we are faced with a bear in the forest or another situation that immediately threatens our survival. But if this fight/flight “alarm” becomes faulty, it can go off at the wrong times, when there is no threat. When this happens, panic attacks or anxiety attacks can occur. While these episodes are not medically dangerous, they can be incredibly scary in the moment and make you feel like you are going crazy, having a heart attack, or going to faint or do something else out of your control.

Sleeping Well with Anxiety: Tips and Tricks

It’s 2 am and you are wide awake again, lying in the dark. Your mind is racing with worries, thoughts, and plans of everything you have coming up. Why do I struggle to stay asleep? Why do I keep waking up in the middle of the night with all of these racing thoughts? Why can’t I just relax and go back to sleep! You toss and turn, fighting with your mind to turn off your brain so that you can get back to sleep, but it’s no use. Finally, at about 4 am, you drift off only to be rudely woken again by your alarm at 6 am. Feeling exhausted, you drag yourself out of bed to start your day wondering how you will have the energy to be present for your children, get through the work day, and tick off all the things on your to do list. You’re feeling increasingly more frustrated, tired, and anxious about going to sleep that night and starting the cycle all over again. You feel stuck, hopeless, and don’t know how to get back to sleeping well and reclaiming your energy. If this sounds like you, read on…

Testimonials

“I have been able to regain confidence to face colleagues and patients, friends and family. The sessions were really helpful as it helped me to manage my stress, overthinking, confidence issues, social anxiety. These sessions help me to stay grounded. Ms. Aneesa was my life line back to work”

“Emotions were validated and listened to. Having another perspective was really useful for me. Aneesa listened and prompted questions- although uncomfortable- that made me stop and re think and gave me more insight. I hope you realise how much progress I made with your help”

“Of all the different therapy services I have tried through my GP or work, working with Aneesa has singularly been the most beneficial in helping me to recover”

“I am no longer at the mercy of my anxiety and have learnt techniques to control my stress levels at work. I have told all my junior doctor colleagues about the service”