Frequently Asked Questions
What is Anxiety or Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)?
Anxiety is easily explained as stressful feelings of worry or fear that occur to interfere in a person’s daily activities. It is normal to feel stressed, for example, when sitting an exam but when you have anxiety you can experience intense, persistent, and reoccurring symptoms to the point where the anxious state can consume your every thought. These thoughts are often associated with a feeling of impending doom, loss of control or a fear of being in trouble. Symptoms include headaches, muscle pains, sweating, itching, sleep problems or self-doubt. Anxiety thoughts become intrusive and so are emotive based, not logical. Sometimes anxiety thoughts are based on a past experience that have become part of your current belief system. Other times, anxiety thoughts can come from nowhere. Anxiety can be situationally caused, genetic or a combination.
There are many types of anxiety disorders. If you are experiencing anxiety, please seek support to address the symptoms.
What is Depression?
Depression is a mental health disorder where a person suffers from a lowering or elevation of mood. There are different depressive disorders and as depression negatively impacts on a person’s identity, beliefs and value of life in general, it is important to seek support. Depression can be environmentally influenced or caused, it can be genetic, or it can be a mixture of both. Symptoms can include a lack of interest in anything or the things a person usually enjoys, withdrawing from family or friends, inability to concentrate, over or under-sleeping, over or under-eating, a loss of sex drive, a sense of being overwhelmed, irritable or frustrated, a loss of self-worth or feeling miserable or sad. Physical symptoms include ongoing headaches and muscle pains or stomach pains.
Please seek support if you are experiencing any or many of these symptoms.
What is Trauma?
Trauma is an emotional response to distressing situations or events that can affect a person’s ability to cope and function normally. There is a range of diagnoses surrounding trauma which are based on the duration of the symptoms, through to the severity and range of the symptoms. Trauma can cause an acute stress disorder, through to complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
There are different types of trauma;
Acute Trauma stems from a single incident such as a car crash.
Chronic Trauma stems from repeated exposure to dramatic events such domestic violence.
Complex Trauma results from exposure to multiple traumatic events of an invasive nature such as childhood sexual abuse.
What is PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)?
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is when a person has not recovered from experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event, and so it is experienced well after the event. This condition can last for years with triggering events bringing back memories of the event which can be accompanied by intense physical and emotional responses. Symptoms can include flashbacks and extreme reactions to certain stimuli.
What is EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing)?
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing is a process designed to help a person process traumatic memories and reduce the affect that these memories have. While briefly focusing on the intrusive memory, a practitioner will use simple methods to move the patients eyes specific ways or use a machine to provide pulses of light or sound as a method of altering a patient’s brain waves so that the memory is stored differently in the mind, reducing its emotive impact.
What is ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)?
ADHD is a medical condition where a person has different brain development and activity that affect the ability to self-regulate and control their thoughts, words, emotions and actions. Generally starting in childhood a person with ADHD can be easily distracted, impulsive and hyperactive or all of these. Signs of ADHD include lack of focus, inability to follow instructions, daydreaming, fidgeting, talking constantly or the inability to do things quietly.
What is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?
Autism is a developmental disability. A person with Autism (often referred to as neuro-divergent) may learn, communicate and behave in different ways to most other people. There can be a range, or spectrum, of abilities of people with ASD. Those with severe autism may need constant help while those with mild autism can lead independent lives, similar to non-neuro divergent people.
Symptoms generally occur before the age of 3, where the child does not gain new skills or reach developmental milestones or lose the skills that they had.
People with Autism may have difficulty understanding how to act in social or work situations and can have restrictive or repetitive behaviours.
What is Asperger’s?
Asperger’s syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by challenges in social interaction, repetitive behaviours, and a narrow range of interests. It is now considered part of the broader autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Individuals with Asperger’s often exhibit average to above-average intelligence but may struggle with nonverbal communication and social cues. The condition was previously diagnosed separately but has now been integrated into the Autism Spectrum Disorder.
What is Relationship Couples / Family Therapy?
Relationship Counselling aims to provide skills to partners experiencing difficulties, enabling them to resolve their issues and develop a more intimate relationship. These skills may include anger management, problem solving skills and conflict resolution skills.
It is a method of addressing areas of conflict within partnerships and giving them skills designed to improve the relationship.
Similarly, Family therapy aims to provide the family unit or parent/child relationship with skills to resolve their issues and strengthen the important bonds of family.
What is Hypnosis?
Hypnosis therapy is provided by psychologists Jo, Anna and Sue.
Hypnosis is a therapeutic technique involving the practitioners’ making suggestions to patients when they are in a relaxed and focused state.
Hypnotherapy is used to treat disorders such as anxiety, depression, PTSD. It can also be used to help in behavioural change such as losing weight, quitting smoking and pain management.