What is anxiety?
Anxiety is a natural human response to stress or perceived threat. It becomes a difficulty when it is persistent, intense, or begins to interfere with daily life, relationships, work, sleep, or wellbeing.
Anxiety can affect the body, thoughts, and emotions. While it can feel overwhelming, it is also something that can be understood and worked with effectively in therapy.
TYPES OF ANXIETY DIFFICULTIES
Anxiety can present in different ways, including:
- Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) – ongoing and excessive worry about many different areas of life, often hard to control
- Panic Disorder – sudden and intense episodes of fear or panic, often with physical symptoms such as a racing heart, dizziness, or breathlessness
- Social Anxiety – intense fear of judgement, embarrassment, or negative evaluation in social situations
- Health Anxiety – persistent worry about having or developing a serious illness, often despite reassurance
- Phobias – intense fear of specific objects, situations, or activities (e.g. flying, heights, injections)
- Obsessive-related anxiety – anxiety linked to intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviours, often associated with OCD
- Performance anxiety – anxiety related to work, exams, speaking, or being observed by others
- Post-traumatic anxiety – anxiety linked to traumatic or distressing experiences, sometimes associated with PTSD
Common signs and symptoms
- Excessive worry or overthinking
- Feeling on edge, restless, or unable to relax
- Racing thoughts or difficulty concentrating
- Sleep difficulties
- Physical symptoms such as tight chest, rapid heartbeat, sweating, trembling, or nausea
- Avoidance of situations that trigger anxiety
- Feeling overwhelmed or “stuck in your head”
- Irritability or emotional fatigue
How I work
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a well-established, evidence-based approach for treating anxiety. It focuses on understanding the links between thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and behaviours, and how these patterns can maintain anxiety over time.
In therapy, we work collaboratively to identify what is keeping anxiety going and develop practical strategies to reduce its impact. This may include:
- Understanding the anxiety cycle (thoughts, feelings, body sensations, behaviour)
- Identifying and challenging unhelpful or catastrophic thinking patterns
- Gradual exposure to feared situations to reduce avoidance
- Developing grounding and relaxation strategies
- Building tolerance for uncertainty
- Improving problem-solving and coping skills
- Reducing safety behaviours that maintain anxiety
- Strengthening confidence and emotional resilience
As an Integrative Counsellor and Art Psychotherapist, I also recognise that anxiety can be linked to past experiences, emotional needs, relationships, and wider life circumstances. Where helpful, creative approaches can support expression of feelings that are difficult to verbalise, alongside talking therapy and CBT-based techniques.
The aim is not to eliminate all anxiety, but to reduce its intensity and impact so that it no longer limits your life, and to help you feel more in control and confident in managing it.
Areas I may support with
- Generalised anxiety (GAD)
- Panic attacks and panic disorder
- Social anxiety
- Health anxiety
- Phobias
- Work and performance anxiety
- Trauma-related anxiety
- OCD-related anxiety
- Stress and overwhelm
