Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for anxiety and panic attacks
Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment to help with anxiety and panic attacks. Feelings such as worry, anxiousness, fear or panic can be mild, moderate or severe. The emotions of panic and anxiety can be constant, long term and can affect people’s daily life.
Anxiety
Everyone feels a normal degree of anxiety in life when faced with such challenges as a job interview or a visit to the dentist. However, when people feel anxious a lot of the time about many different situations it can be that anxiety is developing . This may lead to general anxiety disorder. Feelings of anxiety can be accompanied by other symptoms and issues such as –
- Confidence
- Concentration
- Eating
- Insomnia
Panic attacks
A panic attack is a severe feeling of anxiety or fear. Panic attacks often occur without warning and start for no apparent reason or be triggered by something specific such as a large social event. They are usually accompanied by other symptoms such as -
- Palpitations
- Shortness of breath or choking
- Sweating, trembling, feeling sick, dizzy or faint
- Numbness or pins and needles
- Chest pains
- Fear of dying or going mad, seeming unreal or detached
- Hyperventilating
Hyperventilating is a typical response which can lead to new symptoms, such as confusion or cramps, as well as more of the same symptoms, making them worse and making you hyperventilate even more and become more panicky. They usually last for five or 10 minutes though some come in waves over an hour or so.
Our approach to cognitive behaviour therapy for anxiety and panic attacks
We take an holistic approach when treating anxiety and panic attacks – often blending therapies together – so that each client receives what works best for them. This is called integrative counselling. When clients come to us with an idea of what they need, we always recommend that we discuss the options first so we can reach a joint decision about what would be most effective.
With therapy for anxiety and panic attacks, it is important that the client realises there is a problem or - more than one problem. Anxiety is often a symptom of other or more severe psychological disorders, such as panic attacks.
Some issues are more severe than others. And some are more complex than they seem at first. We are flexible and will recommend changes to any agreed programme if we think that would be better for you.
It may be that we recommend Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – CBT for anxiety and panic attacks.
Applying CBT for anxiety can alleviate the symptoms and return people to a more balanced way of life.
Applying CBT for panic attacks includes understanding why an attack has occurred and showing learning techniques to deal with it so you can reduce its impact on your life.
Whatever we agree, our service is confidential and discreet. We never disclose the names of our clients or talk about them to third parties. Although we have included on this website comments from clients, none of them includes the client’s full name or exact location.
We help individuals, couples and groups of any age, including children and young adults. Many of our clients are in their 30s and 40s, when life can be especially difficult to cope with, but our emotions can be challenging at any age and stage of life.
With CBT for anxiety and panic attacks, private one-to-one counselling is usually what happens. On occasions, we may have an counselling group of adults or a counselling group of young people.
If you would like to find out if we could help you, we invite you to contact us.
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