Su Campbell - counsellor and psychotherapist in Sheffield logo Brisish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy

Anxiety Therapy Sheffield

Stress & Anxiety Therapy

Treatment: Counselling / CBT / Hypnotherapy

Are you ‘A Worrier’, Stressed out’, ‘Tense and nervous’, ‘Unable to relax’? These are words describing someone who is having difficulties with anxiety.

Anxiety is something everyone experiences as a normal reaction to frightening or worrying events such as going to hospital or the dentist for an operation, having an interview or test. Anxiety is a normal reaction to stressful events and it helps us to perform well or cope with an emergency. But some anxiety is not helpful such as:

  • Prolonged exposure to anxiety can result in feelings of depression
  • When it goes on for a long time it can stop people doing things
  • The symptoms can be frightening, especially if you do not know what the symptoms are for anxiety
  • People who are anxious worry and then worry about worrying, which can become disabling.
  • Anxiety can produce physical symptoms, which may make people think there is something wrong with them which then produces more worry

Anxiety affects us in different ways

  • the way we think
  • the way we feel
  • the way we behave
  • the way our body works

It is basically our reaction to a perceived threat and we go into what is known as a "fight or flight" response. Your body thinks it is being threatened and it prepares itself to either defend or run away. It is a basic reaction that goes back to cave man days when the threats were usually from an animal.  We don’t live in such physically threatening times but the response is similar whether we are being chased by a dog or some unseen fear.

What happens? You change our breathing, your heart beats faster getting the muscles ready for action, you may get a dry mouth and you might get ‘butterflies’ in your stomach.

The causes of anxiety

  • Stressful life events such as redundancy, bereavement, divorce or a series of stressful events.
  • Pressure at work, money worries, illness or being pressurised at work.
  • Some people are more naturally inclined to worry and have an anxious personality.

In Counselling we work with helping you understand your anxiety better, adjusting or altering the way you think about anxiety, changing your anxious behaviour and helping you to reduce your physical symptoms, this may be in the form of relaxation techniques, or Hypnosis if you would like it.  We may do some problem solving in regard to problems that need sorting out.