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Problems

Common Problems

Anxiety

Do you feel as if worry is taking over your life? Do you have a fear of "impending doom"? Do you have a strong urge to avoid situations where you might feel anxious? Do you have more tension in your muscles than you used to, or have stress related tightness in the chest or nausea. If the answer is yes, you may have anxiety.

Treatment for Anxiety

We provide treatment and therapy for a wide range of anxiety concerns, including excessive worry, fear of public speaking, performance anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, work worries, health anxiety and generalised anxiety. Janine often explains the phenomena of anxiety (and panic attacks) using easy to understand stories and metaphors. Treatment often includes a combination of cognitive and mindfulness approaches, but will always be modified to fit within your model of the world. We strongly believe that "one size fits all" doesn't fit many people!

Depression

Depression is now so common it is often referred to the "psychological common cold"! It often hits when a persons psychological resources are low, and can be hard to shake off. Depression can have a variety of symptoms. For example, some people have predominant feelings of sadness, or feeling "down". Others may feel, predominantly, worthless or hopeless - and others may experience feelings of guilt or failure. Then some people have physical symptoms, such as feeling like they just can't pull themselves out of bed in the morning, or that they are so tired they lack the energy to complete day to day tasks (like doing the dishes or putting the washing out). It can negatively effect your work or study commitments, your social interactions and your personal relationships. The symptoms and intensity of symptoms can vary from person to person, and treatment needs to vary between people too.

Treatment for Depression

Our approach is to evidence based psychological treatment for depression. This may include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Motivational Interviewing and Mindfulness, and may be combined with clinical hypnotherapy. The approach that is right for you will depend on your own experience of depression, what caused the episode (or episodes) and what keeps it going. You will set the priorities in treatment (e.g. I want to improve my relationship with my husband, or I want to improve my functioning at work). The treatment will also aim to equip you with skills to build your resilience (your ability to bounce back) and improve your long term mental health and well-being.

Stress

If you find that you over react to events, people and situations, or if your body is in a constant state of tension and you feel as if you are preparing to go into battle, then you are probably suffering from stress. Unfortunately, stress can become a habit, and like all habits, it may not just "switch itself off". If that's the case, and you are constantly operating from 'emergency mode', then your mind, and your body, will pay the price. It's time to take some action and bring your nervous system (and your mind) back into balance!

Stress Management

At Skills 4 Life we can help you overcome the stress response and switch off the stress switch. You will learn how to neutralise the underlying causes and you will probably learn new replacement habits or new behaviours which are healthy and adaptive. You may learn how to relax, naturally, when you need it most, and most likely, you will learn techniques to free up your energy to have more enjoyment in your life.