Anxiety
Anxiety is related to our “fight or flight” response – our body’s natural response to danger. It is said to be an unpleasant emotional state, with the feelings of apprehension, distress, and uneasiness. As it is important to recognize and identify when it starts to become a problem. If your anxiety is starting to affect the way you want to live or affecting the way you live it might be time for you to seek help.
Some of the symptoms might be:
• Muscle tension
• Restlessness
• Sleeplessness
• Difficult breathe
Action: If you are worried about anxiety or are having panic attacks please contact your GP and consider discussing your symptoms with a trained therapist
Abuse
Abuse can come in different forms such as; child abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, financial abuse and domestic abuse. Abuse could make you perplex bringing confusion or shame. Often feelings of personal responsibility or guilt are associated with this deeply distressing issue. It is important to remember that abuse is not always visible and can be difficult to come to terms with. Understanding the impact that being abused has can be very difficult to do alone. It is important to note that some may manage to reconcile their about alone while others need the help of their GP or a trained therapist. Please if you are going through any form of abuse please contact your GP immediately and consider Contact a counsellor.
Action: If you are, or feel you are, in danger contact the police immediately by dialling ‘999’. If you have a non-medical, non-emergency issue, or you need any sort of help or advice, call the national non-emergency helpline by dialling ‘101’.
Pre-marital counselling
Empowerment for the journey, this is a form of couples therapy that help you and your partner prepare for marriage. Counselling support in Building lasting relationship, discovering your marriage partner methods and principles, Psychological, physical and spiritual. Counsellor will support you in considering your attitudes to communication, beliefs and values, decision making, finances, maturity, Love, appreciation and forgiveness, communication, sex – marital intimacy, money matters in marriage, Managing conflict in Marriage, Health matters in marriage. Having an understanding before embarking on the marriage journey will make a lot of difference, pre-marital counselling can help in exploring and understanding your expectations, your plan for the future and the things involved when sharing your lives together. Embracing your differences, complementing one another, discussing and examining your share intentions, personal needs, hopes and longing. It often requires both the partner to complete a questionnaire separately to identify your feeling about each other and your expectations from the relationship. It helps in exploring your strengths and weaknesses, your potentials and any problem areas. There are benefits of premarital counselling: Focusing on the positive aspects of your relationship rather that the negative, you will develop conflict resolution skills – you are equipped with problem and conflict solving resolution skills, having constructive discussion, alleviate fears related to marriage and give clarity – anxiety that comes up about married life with all it entails. The aim is to improve your relationship with each other and help to build a strong foundation for marriage.
Christian counseling
Counselling from a Biblical perspective aims at navigating spiritual concerns. Christian counselling is an activities that support people towards constructive change and growth in every aspect of their lives through a caring relationship and within the set boundaries carried out by a trained counsellor with a christian worldview.
Depression
Depression is said to be a common mental disorder that affects many people, it is not ‘sadness’ or ‘unhappiness’ and people suffering from depression may experience a wide spectrum of symptoms, emotional and physically. The sufferers may isolate themselves, be detached or feeling alone and sense a blackness or heaviness of their mood. Many do find it difficult to identify the cause of their depression. However, this does not make their symptoms less important.
Living with depression is difficult and seeking the support that is required could be as hard because f the fear of stigma or labelling. It is very important to know that there are support for you if only you can reach out.
Symptoms can or may include:
- Frightening thoughts
- Fatigue
- Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and/or helplessness
- Insomnia, or excessive sleeping
- Loss of interest in activities
- Overeating or appetite loss
- Thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts
Action:
If you experience some of these symptoms for extended periods of time please contact your GP and consider discussing your symptoms with a trained counsellor.
Relationship/Couple counselling
Healthy relationships with others in our lives can make us feel fulfilled and to have sense of belonging. For a person to be in a productive relationship, it can enact meaning in their everyday lives. Relationships gives us the assurance that we are loved and so enable us to grow whilst supported. Relationship requires communication and time investment, if there is a break down certain negative feelings will then take over. Sometimes the relationships we find ourselves in are unfulfilling and we don’t know what to do to alter the situation.
There are many types of issues that can arise in relationships. A counsellor will be able to work with the individuals involved to determine the causes of the problems and help to explore different ways to reach a positive and fulfilling solution.
Couples
Long lasting relationships are never free of conflict and discord as offense will come. Break in communication sometimes could put strains in our relationship, we then find ourselves struggling to find fulfilment and often begin to build up bitterness, resentment and anger. When this begins to happen it might be time to find a counsellor or a therapist who can help you and your partner identify the issues and work through them together in a neutral environment.
Stress
Stress is defined as a state of mental or emotional strain caused by a pressurized situation. At one point or another, most people deal with feelings of stress and we react differently. A small amount of stress can be motivating but a prolonged amount can be damaging to both physical, psychological and emotional health. Our coping mechanism is different, some may be motivated while some may be overwhelmed by stress. Some might consider it healthy and a useful driver to fix and sort out certain situations in their life, while others might experience a standstill in their lives.
Look out for the signs, such as:
- Snapping
- Trouble sleeping
- Headaches
- Indigestion
- Muscle tension
- Exhaustion
- Changes in appetite
- Teeth grinding.
These are by no means all the list, if you noticed any other symptoms that you have not experienced before, please get in touch with your doctor.
Whatever the cause of the stress might be, it could be family or work-related stress. if it begins to affect your life in a negative and damaging way, then it is time to seek help as prolonged exposure to stress could trigger other mental health issues.
Action:
When you feel that your stress is becoming overwhelming or affecting your life in a damaging way please contact your GP or a trained therapist.
Anger
Anger could come in many forms and can be triggered by internal or external situations, People or events. When the feeling of anger is demonstrated in an inappropriate manner and has a damaging effect on you and/or the people around you, it is a course for concern. You night have tried to contain and control yourself but realised that are not able help keep it under control. Knowing the difference between having a bad temper and having issues with controlling one’s anger is important. Knowing that anger is the emotion and temper is the expression of it. Action: Speaking to a therapist or counsellor will help you identify any underlying causes that might be fueling these feelings. Are you feeling emotionally trapped, unsure of how what to do about the situation that they’re in, are you feeling overwhelmed and you feel like lashing out in anger, Speak with a therapy. Remember that learning to control to control one’s anger is a proactive action but if the anger is not controlled, it could escalate and cause more damage to oneself.
Symptoms of anger attacks can include:
- Increased heart rate or racing heart
- Chest pain
- Wanting to attack others or attacking them
- Hitting, punching, or destroying things
These looks draining, intense and difficult situation to experience, it can have a huge impact of one’s life.
Grief
Grief is a natural response to a loss, as human, our experiences of grief is an individual process that affect in a different ways. There are process of grief which therapy could support, talking to a professional counsellor will benefit you. Are you experiencing intense emotions of not been able to go on, or you can not cope with your day-to-day life, are you struggling with your work and unable to socialise, it is important that you reach out to get support. Individual grieving process is different and is unique to them. The impact sometimes depend on the way the deceased died, the relationship to the diseased, feelings of responsibility , guilt or regret. While everyone grieves differently, psychologists came up with various stages of grief that are commonly experienced by people. Here is the most common five-stage model (also known as the Kübler-Ross model): Denial – It is seen as a protective mechanism that is used by individual as a shield not to deal with the terrible news of a loved one’s death. In the case of denial, it is important that the individual work through it in order for the healing process to begin. Anger – It is a stage of reality setting in, the situation cold no longer be denial and this feeling of anger set in. This stage depends on the individual and the nature of the death and the relationship with the deceased. There are some questions about what happened that the individual would need an answer to but could not get. Such as ‘why now’, ‘why him/ her’, ‘Is it fair’, ‘Is there God’. This process of anger should not be seen as a bad thing as it is a process that helps t reconnect the individual to the reality of the loss.
Bargaining – it is seen as a common approach to grief in that it is motivated by feelings of guilt and regret. It is a process that individaul wish to go back in time if possible to improved their relationship with the deceased, or a desire that if they have intervene much earlier, they would have prevented the death. We want to negotiate our way out of the hurt, but we must move past the feelings of regret to truly heal. Depression – feelings of emptiness or numbness will occur when we loss a loved one, Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan called it a “hole in the real,” It is a painfull experience crated by the sudden absence of the loved one. It is entirely natural to feel depressed as part of the grieving process, and it can help us move toward acceptance.
Acceptance – This should be seen as process of accepting the new normal, not that the individual with forget the loss but just accepting that they could not reverse the situation. Our loved ones still remains in our heart and though it is a sad situation and we do feel the intense sadness but we accept the new life. It is vital to remember that this is simply a model that may prove useful for helping us understand how people commonly experience grief. Everyone is different, and there are no rules to how severely one may be affected by grief or for how long. Grief is a natural response to a loss, as human, our experiences of grief is an individual process that affect in a different ways.
There are process of grief which therapy could support, talking to a professional counsellor will benefit you. Are you experiencing intense emotions of not been able to go on, or you can not cope with your day-to-day life, are you struggling with your work and unable to socialise, it is important that you reach out to get support. Individual grieving process is different and is unique to them. The impact sometimes depend on the way the deceased died, the relationship to th deseased, feelings of resposibility , guilt or regret.