Still Reeling:
Anxiety and Trauma
- Continually suffering from being anxious
- Type A personalities
- Panic attacks
- Coping with traumatic experiences
Skills to de-stress are learnable
A certain amount of stress is healthy and good. Stress is often an endorsement, a push for full engagement and occupation with one's internal resources, what makes you get your projects out, get the work done. You are "in the zone." Full engagement, all senses working together. Some thrive on stress the way most of us know just how much caffeine we can tolerate in a day. The emergency room worker, the war reporter, the finance person in 'the pit', the news broadcaster, the mountain climber, the sports car racer, the skier, and the sailor are all examples of this. But people often push themselves, or let themselves be pushed, past the point of just enough. The body begins to complain. Sleep becomes an issue—too much or too little—and bad habits flare. Instead of being super-focused, you're unable to focus at all; your world is a blur. You begin to forget details. Your mind wanders. You notice a pounding in your chest, and you wonder if you are having a heart attack, panic attack or the like. Your physician says you're healthy, but have strong anxiety.
You don't have to have post-traumatic syndrome to get signals from your body that your ongoing anxiety is impeding your everyday functioning. First order of business: Don't despair. Don't assume severe or continual anxiety is the inevitable price of living in our competitive world, having a certain kind of job or being a parent. Denial is sometimes a good coping strategy. But if your symptoms persist, it's time to investigate.
After a medical exam to rule out any underlying medical conditions, I will work with you to understand what triggers your symptoms, whether they resulted from one traumatic event or have been creeping up in the course of a busy life. Everyone sees the world and their place in it a little differently, and therapy is the best tool for understanding how your own perspective may be making things worse, turning ordinary challenges into overwhelming ones, or keeping you stuck in the painful aftermath of a disturbing event. While understanding the causes of your reactions to stress, you can learn skills that have proven to be helpful to others to gain mastery over their lives once again.
Some tools which can be taught in individual therapy or in workshops
- Mindfulness meditation
- Relaxation Techniques
- Sensorimotor Therapy