This Manual is both a guide to treatment and a workbook for persons who suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder. During treatment, it is a workbook in which individuals can record their own experience of their disorder, together with the additional advice for their particular case given by their clinician. After treatment has concluded, this Manual will serve as a self-help resource enabling those who have recovered, but who encounter further stressors or difficulties, to read the appropriate section and, by putting the content into action, stay well. Experience of a traumatic event can shatter a person’s life, leaving him or her feeling vulnerable and frightened. It is very important to remember that recovery is possible and that you can lead a normal, happy life again. This does not mean that you will forget what happened to you or that you will never again be distressed by memories and reminders of the event. A certain amount of distress when you think about what happened is part of being a normal, caring human being and we certainly do not want you to have no feelings. However, the distress Read more [...]
Depression Symptoms Treatment
Archive for August, 2011
The next step is to help you to feel more in control of your reactions. We will do this in several parts. First, there are many simple things you can do in your day-to-day life that will make you feel more in control and less distressed. There is nothing magical about these “Hints for coping” – most are simply common sense – but they can make a real difference. The second part involves more specific strategies that your therapist will teach you to control your anxiety and distress. Some of these are useful in lowering your overall level of tension and stress – the more relaxed you are in general, the better you will cope when the memories return or you are confronted with other unexpected difficulties. Everyone experiences increases in anxiety and distress at those times. If your overall level of stress is high, these escalations will take you up into the level of high anxiety and panic (the top graph in the figure above). If your overall level is lower, the shape will be the same – you will still react to negative events, but your anxiety and distress will not reach the same heights (the lower Read more [...]
The next part of treatment is the most difficult and painful – confronting the feared situations and traumatic memories. It is also the most important. Your therapist will not start this process until you are ready and will take you through at a pace that you can manage. Most people find that it is not nearly as difficult as they expect it to be and there is often a tremendous sense of relief and achievement as the feared situations and painful memories are confronted and dealt with. Not surprisingly, anxiety frequently causes people to stay away from frightening situations. It is quite normal for people to want to escape or avoid situations, thoughts, memories, or feelings that are painful or distressing. However, this is one of the major impediments to recovery. Avoidance and escape provide temporary relief – the anxiety reduces – but the next time the person encounters that situation again, he or she is likely to become anxious long before it is planned to occur. We call this “anticipatory anxiety”. The more the situation is avoided, the more the person continues to believe that it is dangerous. Read more [...]
A form of exposure therapy is also used to treat distressing memories of the trauma. We call it “imaginal exposure”. In Section 5, we talked about confronting feared situations such as places, people, and activities. In cases of Posttraumatic stress disorder, however, the most “feared situation” is actually the painful memories of your experience. These memories are so frightening, and cause so much distress, that the person tries to avoid or escape from them by blocking them out. Imaginal exposure treatments are used to assist in confronting the memories. Exposure is only one term used to describe this process. Some people talk about “trauma focus work”, “working through the trauma”, “coming to terms with the experience” or simply “confronting the memories”. What is imaginal exposure? There are many analogies used to explain this process to Posttraumatic stress disorder sufferers before treatment commences. The following examples from our clinical practice may help you to understand what will happen and why it is important. After a trauma, we often try to file away our memory of what happened, Read more [...]
This Manual is both a guide to treatment and a workbook for people who suffer from generalized anxiety disorder. During treatment, it is a workbook in which individuals can record their own experience of generalized anxiety disorder, together with the additional advice for their particular case given by their clinician. After treatment has concluded, this Manual can serve as a self-help resource when challenges or difficulties are faced. This program will aim to teach you to manage your worry and anxiety by learning to change the way you think and the way you react to your thinking and other events. In essence you will be learning new methods of control. It is important to realize that achieving control of worry and anxiety is a skill that has to be learnt. To be effective, the skill must be practiced regularly and you will need to take responsibility for change. The more you put into the program, the more you will get out of it. It is not the severity of your anxiety, or how long you have been anxious, or how old you are that predicts the success of this program, but rather it is your motivation Read more [...]
What is relaxation training? Relaxation is the voluntary letting go of tension. This tension can be physical tension in the muscles or it can be mental, or psychological, tension. When we physically relax, the impulses arising in the various nerves in the muscles change the nature of the signals that are sent to the brain. This change brings about a general feeling of calm, both physically and mentally. Muscle relaxation has a widespread effect on the nervous system and therefore should be seen as a physical treatment, as well as a psychological one. You will need to be an active participant in relaxation, committed to daily practice for 2 months or longer. Importance of relaxation training Part of the fight or flight response involves the activation of muscle tension, which helps us to perform many tasks in a more alert and efficient manner. In normal circumstances, the muscles do not remain at a high level of tension all the time but become activated and deactivated according to a person’s needs. Thus a person may show fluctuating patterns of tension and relaxation over a single day, according Read more [...]
Humans are thinking, feeling, and behaving beings. These three aspects of our make-up interact with each other. However, thoughts can often go unrecognized and we fail to realize the important role they play in the way we feel and behave. People often presume that events lead directly to feelings. A Situation, Event or Interaction Noticing a mistake in a report you have written for work Сemotional Response and Behavior Anxiety, annoyance; hiding from the boss This presumption is important because it may lead people to believe that they have no influence over the way they think, feel or behave. But thoughts intervene between A and C, so the true association is: A Situation, Event or Interaction Noticing a mistake in a report you have written for work Вrhoughts or Beliefs “I must be really stupid. The boss will be really annoyed. I’ll lose my job.” Cemotional Response and Behavior Anxiety, annoyance; hiding from the boss Another important point is that different people will often have very different thoughts, and therefore very different reactions, in response to the same event. Consider Read more [...]
Individuals with generalized anxiety worry a lot. These worries tend to center on everyday things; we all worry to some extent about problems that might arise at home or at work, about illness or injury afflicting ourselves or our family, about difficulties in our relationships with others, or even financial pressures. Individuals with generalized anxiety will recognize that they worry excessively about these things, that the worries are often unrealistic, and that the worry takes up a large part of their typical day. Unfortunately, it is this type of worry that can interfere with daily functioning, and can increase anxiety and tension levels. Excessive worry or ruminating about events that are unlikely to happen can make you feel worse than you need to and may even increase feelings that you cannot cope. It may feel as though by worrying about things you might be able to anticipate and avoid future catastrophes, but in reality the worry does not lead to productive or constructive action. Instead, problems remain unsolved, fears are not confronted, and the unhelpful beliefs about events or situations Read more [...]
Our lives are full of problems to be solved, ranging from major life crises to the more mundane hassles of our day-to-day lives. However, no matter how small or trivial the matter, if problems remain unsolved, or if the way they are resolved is unsatisfactory, they can lead to feelings of uncontrollability or the perception of threat, which are major contributors to anxiety. Structured problem solving is a useful strategy for anyone with problems, whether those problems are related to anxiety, or other personal matters, such as dealing with a difficult colleague at work. The approach can also be used by groups of people, such as families, friends, and workmates. For example, your family may be facing financial difficulties and may need to cut expenses, or they may have a problem in that nobody is prepared to do the dishes in the evening. Problem solving can also be applied to achieving goals, such as getting a job, planning a social activity, or improving one’s fitness. There are no perfect or ideal solutions to problems, but the structured problem-solving approach aims to lead you to the most Read more [...]
This Manual is both a guide to treatment and a workbook for persons who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. During treatment, it is a workbook in which individuals can record their own experience of their disorder, together with the additional advice for their particular case given by their clinician. After treatment has concluded, this Manual will serve as a self-help resource enabling those who have recovered, but who encounter further stressors or difficulties, to read the appropriate section and, by putting the content into action, stay well. The nature of obsessive-compulsive disorder Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder that, until quite recently, was regarded as a rare condition. Recent studies have shown that Obsessive-compulsive disorder is considerably more common than was previously thought and as many as 2 in every 100 people may suffer from the condition. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is characterized by persistent, intrusive, unwanted thoughts that the sufferer is unable to control. Such thoughts are often very distressing and result in discomfort. Many Obsessive-compulsive Read more [...]