Anxiety Treatment and Counselling
On a positive note: Anxiety, in all its forms, is treatable and Permanently resolvable.
However, sadly, the vast majority of Counsellors, (Counsellors, Psychotherapists and Therapists), have no idea how to do it. Thus a significant percentage of Counsellors, suffer from Anxiety themselves… Physician, heal thyself’ – springs to mind, and yet they are unable to do so. Their suffering becomes your suffering because, if they cannot help themselves, they have no hope of helping you.
It is therefore imperative that you find a therapist that has the skills and experience you need so that they can actually help you!
Not all Anxiety Counsellors are created Equal!
As with all professions, there are the Good, the Bad and the Dangerous.
Anxiety Counselling and Psychotherapy are no different.
Can ‘incompetent’ Anxiety Counsellors offer Help and Relief? YES – Temporarily.
Many people seek help from Counsellors and believe that they have been ‘helped’ by them. However, in the long term, they have not or worse, they see their therapist for years believing that it is their own fault that they cannot sustain or convert the short term relief into a Long term solution, becoming dependent on the therapist. It is not your fault that your therapist cannot help you but deceives you. Controversially, an inability to resolve issues is often a financial boon for the psychotherapist, so long as the client does not catch on. This attitude can be seen within the ‘Medical Model’ propagated by the pharmaceutical Industry. A single pill that cures a problem is not as profitable as a lifetime of medication ‘Managing’ a chronic condition.
Many counsellors and especially psychotherapists function in the same way as the pharmaceutical industry telling Anxiety sufferers or implying that perhaps they, the Anxiety Sufferer, needs to work harder by attending more weekly appointments. We have helped many Anxiety sufferers who had been previously under the care of a psychotherapist for years or even decades visiting them multiple times a week. Only eventually seeking alternative help once the psychotherapist had either retired or died. One would think that this would be saddleless, but actually it is common place.
How are such Anxiety Therapists able to offer Help and Relief, albeit, temporary?
Most Anxiety Counsellors who are unable to help you permanently resolve your anxiety issue will, unbeknown to you, offer temporary relief in the form of catharsis and or tools.
Catharsis – Catharsis is merely the release of strong pent-up emotions. When working with an Anxiety Sufferer, a cathartic release of the emotions surrounding their Anxiety often feels like resolution or a move foreword in the right direction. But it is not. While relieving such emotional pressure’ is useful, it does not resolve the issue itself or its causes. It only provides temporary relief from symptoms and thus can create a dependency upon the Anxiety Counsellor.
We, however, do not create such dependencies and actively discourage them. Our goal is to help you overcome you Anxiety permanently and we have the skills and experience to do it. There is no need to live with Anxiety when you can, with guidance and work, resolve it.
Tools – Tools are often utilised by therapists who have no idea of how to sustainably resolve Anxiety and instead treat it as a chronic condition and utilise things like ‘breath work’, Meditation, Yoga, Exercise, and Medication. These tools, except medication, can be useful and can offer some relief, but they do not resolve the underlying causes of Anxiety.