I can help calm your social anxiety and performance anxiety

March 6, 2023 By admin

Fear of being judged

Do you have a fear of being judged? Fear of judgment is common and many people can relate to feeling shy, at least a little bit. But people with social anxiety disorder tend to have an overblown fear of other people thinking badly of them. I provide evidence-based therapy for social anxiety disorder, in adolescents and adults.

What is Social Anxiety ?

‘The fear of being judged or being the centre of attention’.

Many people can relate to feeling shy, nervous or awkward in social situations from time to time. However, for people with social anxiety disorder, the fear of judgement or criticism by others is much more intense and intrusive. The anxiety causes a lot of distress. It can get so bad that it’s difficult for people to stay in feared social situations, and they may avoid these situations altogether. Some may suffer through them by using alcohol, drugs or other coping strategies such as avoiding eye contact. It can have a negative impact on important areas of life such as relationships and work.

Many people with social anxiety disorder will avoid (or attempt to avoid) social situations such as:

catching up with friends
meeting new people
doing the shopping
answering the phone
eating in public: cafes, the staff room at work, or at lunchtime at school
being the centre of attention or performing in front of others: giving a speech or talk, or speaking up in a meeting or answering a question in class, music, drama, or sporting performances
going to a party

For some people, their social anxiety only pops up in situations where they are expected to perform in some way, such as giving a speech or speaking to their boss or teacher.

Either way, the distress and the avoidance of situations can really impact a person’s functioning and quality of life. The anxiety can get in the way of attending events they care about, going to work or school, connecting with others, or doing practical tasks like going grocery shopping.

When a diagnosis of social anxiety disorder is made, it means a person has been struggling with these symptoms for about 6 months or more, but often by the time people come to get help with social anxiety they’ve been feeling that way for many years.

What is performance anxiety?

Performance anxiety is considered a type of social anxiety. Often called ‘stage fright’, this anxiety appears when a person is in a performance situation:

on stage
an exam
a meeting
in class,
on the sporting field

When in a performance situation and others are watching us, our body can react as if we’re under attack; the flight or fight response is activated and we can experience severe anxiety symptoms. Performance anxiety can impact your performance, your enjoyment of valued activities, your self-confidence and self-esteem.

How common is social anxiety disorder?

About 12% of adults experience social anxiety disorder at some point in their life. The rates in children are thought to be around 5-10%.

How I can help with Social Anxiety and Performance Anxiety:

The good news is that social anxiety disorder and performance anxiety tend to respond well to cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). CBT teaches people to understand their anxious thoughts, to tolerate experiencing some anxiety, and to gradually face situations they’ve been avoiding to overcome their fears and regain their life.

Hypnotherapy works well because we focus on the subconscious program which is like our auto-pilot that we are running on 90% of our day. We work together to recognised and bring in to conscious awareness those triggers and sensitising events that have caused our unwanted heightened levels of anxiety. Then we focus together on overcoming those restrictions from our past and shift to new levels of calm and confident as we step in to our new empowered future.

So…I believe…Combining Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Hypnotherapy, is key for success.
Cognitive Hypnotherapy to work consciously and subconsciously together as a team for the best results.

Also Counselling Support is very important in the therapy process, which is part of the service I provide.

Typical socially anxious thoughts that we would help people with in therapy include:

What I say sounds stupid
I’m boring, weird, or unlikeable
I will make a fool of myself
Everyone will see I’m anxious
I’ll be rejected or criticised
I can’t cope if I’m anxious
I have nothing to say
People will think badly of me
I must perform at a high-level
Others expect too much of me
Mistakes are unacceptable
I must prove myself

Therapy typically involves developing a trusting relationship with your therapist who can help you to:

develop self-compassion and helpful thinking styles
plan for entering social situations in a graded way (easiest to hardest)
practice (imagery and role-play) social interactions to help you feel more ready to build social connections
gradually let go of any crutches that you use to cope with your anxiety (e.g. avoiding eye contact, withdrawing from social situations, or speaking quietly)
increase your tolerance for feeling anxious, helping you to accept and cope with some anxiety, rather than feeling that you must get rid of it

Research studies suggest that acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) may also be effective in managing social anxiety and performance anxiety.

Give me a call, txt or email now and let me help you shift from where you are to where you want to be. The best you that you can be.

The Psychology of Anger

June 2, 2022 By admin

Anger is a natural emotion that we all experience as a response to disagreements, difficult situations and frustration.
Anger can be healthy or unhealthy depending on the type of threat and the way anger is communicated.
Our Anger is one of our basic human emotions tied to survival.
It can help us survive (healthy) or cause us regret (unhealthy).
Anger management can help with the way we communicate.

Responding rather than reacting.
Managing anger doesn’t mean never getting angry.
Instead it involves learning how to recognise triggers, cope with and express yourself in a healthy, more productive way.
Anger is an emotion that can range from mild irritation to intense rage.

Autonomic Nervous System ANS
The two parts of your ANS are sympathetic and Para-sympathetic.
The Para-sympathetic nervous system is when we are calm, in rest, digest and recovery.
Sympathetic nervous system is fight, flight, freeze response and is where we are, when we are experiencing anger.
Think of the Sympathetic nervous system like boiling a jug of water.

Mild irritation – frustration – anger – rage – intense rage.

A more healthy way of dealing with anger is, if you think of an analogue clock slowly moving from one minute or hour to the next, where the person has had time to recognise a boiling up of their anger emotion and have time to…

consciously identify triggers
evaluate their anger
recognise warning signs
step away
go for a walk to calm down
and then step back in to the situation in a more calm, more controlled way

Whereas, some people, sometimes react more like a digital clock, instantly firing from 0 – 100 into rage where their thinking shifts from the rational frontal lobe, neo-cortex to reptilian react to danger part of the brain where they often react by hitting, breaking, yelling and screaming !
Then later when they calm down and the blood flows back to the rational brain they think “oh no, what have I done ? ”.
Now it’s time to face consequences, apologise, fix things or pay for things to be fixed or worse…

Assertiveness styles.
Aggressive
Assertive
Passive aggressive
Manipulative
Passive

Someone who is aggressive is getting their needs met but at the expense of someone being passive who then feels hurt, unheard, victimised or abused.
Assertive is where you focus on getting your wants and needs meet but also in line with the other person getting their wants and needs meet.
Statements for example, I think we should do this. What do you think? (Assertive style)
vs statements for example, you need to do this for me NOW (Aggressive style)

Focus on I statements rather than you statements.

Anger is sometimes triggered by “perceived threats”

Our experiences + our perceptions = our reality
When we are in certain situations we can feel threats to our physical or emotional wellbeing.
Different people respond differently to situations.
Physical threats such as feeling unsafe based on past experience when they did get assaulted.
Emotional threats are problems or stressors that threaten something important to a person such as financial stability, emotional security or integrity.

Automatic thoughts

Every thought we have has a chemical and electrical reaction and we feel a certain way emotionally based on that thought.
Our brain has 100 billion neurons (brain cells) which communicate together through synapses, sending messages to our body chemically and electrically with the use of hormones and neuro-transmitters.
We have a situation, we think automatic thoughts (and sometimes conscious thoughts) about that situation. Our brain’s limbic system controls the experience and expression of emotions and decides which emotion to attach to that experience. Then the brain sends a message to the body, for example “anger” and the person experiences that emotion and the physical sensations to match that emotion.
Physical sensations related to anger can be –
fight response from the fight/flight/freeze response
increased level of adrenaline and cortisol
blood flow to the muscles
heart racing
tightening of muscles
clenching of fists.

Depending on how we feel, we are going to act or behave a certain way, depending on how we behave we are going to have a certain outcome.

By being in a different situation, thinking differently and behaving differently is going to have a different result or outcome and you are going to experience a different emotional experience or a milder version of anger, for example, irritated or frustrated, which of course is much easier to work with than trying to talk yourself or someone you care about out a rage.

Past programming

We store information in our sub-conscious as programming from past experience.
You could think of our sub-conscious mind like a sponge that has been absorbing information from experience in the external world. The things our parents told us and what we observed (good and bad), teachers, friends, family, human behaviour.
This creates our belief system, which includes self-sabotaging beliefs, limiting beliefs, dis-empowering beliefs and some good stuff as well.

We also add to the sub-conscious our habits, personality traits, values, memory, cognitive distortions and thinking patterns in to this program.

Then when we are confronted with situations, we are going to react or respond in a certain way based on our program.
If we grew up watching dad hit mum or from an angry environment with lots of yelling as the way to deal with situations.
Or you were bought up to be nice and polite and do as you are told.
So your experience within the external world plus your perception of that experience or how you were told you should perceive an experience will become your reality or your program.
Then you respond based on your program.

How I can help you

I can help you to identify and become aware of your negative cognitive thinking patterns and maladaptive schemas (negative core beliefs), challenge those bad habits and create new response habits, positive thinking patterns and a calmer nervous system resulting in a more balanced life style moving forward.
New skills to increase assertiveness and solution focused thinking.

Very important

If you are still reading that is great because here is a very important fact.
ANGER IS AN EMOTION
ABUSE IS AN ACTION
KEEP THEM SEPARATE

Abuse is an action. Violence is an action.
Forms of abuse – Verbal abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse.

We all experience emotions automatically.
It is the action we want to gain more control over.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) – What is it like ?

May 14, 2021 By admin

What is BPD like ?

Those with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have extremely negative, distorted views of themselves, characterized by low feelings of self-worth. This leads to problems creating and maintaining relationships with others. Though their beliefs and behaviours stem from feelings of inadequacy, people with the BPD may offend and ostracize others or make inappropriate comments, while exerting moodiness, and experiencing occasional outbursts of anger.

A person with a borderline personality disorder will not know that how they feel, and think is atypical, maladaptive, or potentially destructive, until someone sits down with them and explains it all thoroughly.

What therapy is best for BPD?

Dialectical Behaviour therapy (DBT) is designed specifically to treat borderline personality disorder.

What Does Borderline Personality Disorder Look Like in Teens and Young Adults?

Teens with borderline personality disorder may be aware and feel guilt over the effects of their behaviour on others, and yet, may be unable to change or behave differently on their own.
The aftermath of their compulsive behaviour and the resulting guilt can ultimately lead to even more negative feelings about themselves, and even depression.
A teen with borderline personality disorder exhibits inflexible and maladaptive (destructive) personality traits, with chronically bad behaviour leading to impairment in everyday life.

Different Types of Teen Borderline Personality Disorder

Discouraged Borderline – characterized by depression, a grave or serious demeanor, outbursts of anger, and reckless, harmful behaviour.

Impulsive Borderline – characterized by risk-taking and thrill-seeking, flirtatiousness, extreme need and desire for attention, and dangerous and risky social behaviour.

Petulant Borderline – characterized by difficulty maintaining relationships, moodiness and gloominess, fear of disappointing others, a bad temper, and anxiety and fear about being unloved.

Self-Destructive Borderline – characterized by people turning their negative outlook about life onto themselves, carried out in punishing, harmful behaviours such as eating disorders, substance abuse, and other reckless behaviour.

What Are The Causes Of Teen Borderline Personality Disorder?

It’s important to understand that personality disorders in general are quite rare, and while they are triggered mostly through forms of stress, there is no way of concretely knowing whether a teen will develop a personality disorder in response to stress or not. It isn’t known what exactly in the brain causes borderline personality disorders in teens, but there are various risk factors that contribute to one happening:

Genetics – The biggest indication of a potential personality disorder is a family history of personality disorders, particularly if a close relative also struggled with a borderline personality disorder.

Trauma and abuse – a single highly traumatic event or series of events early on in a teen’s formative years can be severely psychologically scarring, creating deep-seated issues, and potentially leading to self-esteem issues, post-traumatic stress and anxiety, dissociation, and personality disorders.

Stress at home or in school – chronic, unaddressed stress, relationship issues coming to a dramatic end, unstable and invalidating relationships and interpersonal conflict are a few possible forms of stress severe enough

Phone today: 027 2731191