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Edmonton Anxiety Counselling
Anxiety disorders are characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, unease, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with your daily activities. Symptoms include stress that logically seems out of proportion to your emotional reaction, an inability to set aside a worry, and feeling restless.
There are a number of different disorders associated with anxiety. Here is a list of the anxiety disorders that we offer counselling for.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: a psychological disorder characterized by excessive or disproportionate anxiety about several aspects of life, such as work, social relationships, or financial matters.
Social Anxiety Disorder: an anxiety disorder in which a person has an excessive and unreasonable fear of social situations. Also described as intense nervousness, anxiety and self-consciousness arise from a fear of being closely watched, judged, and criticized by others.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): OCD involves unwanted and disturbing thoughts, images, or urges (obsessions) that intrude into a person’s mind and cause a great deal of anxiety or discomfort, which the person then tries to reduce by engaging in repetitive behaviors or mental acts (compulsions).
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event, or learning that a traumatic event has happened to a loved one. DSM5 defines a traumatic event as exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence.
Phobias: Phobias can be divided into specific phobias, social phobia, and agoraphobia. Types of specific phobias include to certain animals, natural environment situations, blood or injury, and specific situations. The most common are fear of spiders, fear of snakes, and fear of heights.
Some of the symptoms associated with anxiety disorders include:
- Fatigue
- Restlessness
- Sweating
- Hypervigilance
- Irritability
- Racing Thoughts
- Worry
- Fear
- Insomnia
- Nausea/Constipation/Diarrhea
- Poor Concentration
- Increased Heart Rate
- Trembling
Treatment regarding anxiety involves us first identifying the impact your symptoms are having on your life by doing an anxiety assessment. The key for anxiety counselling is to work on teaching you skills and strategies to help ease and regulate your mental and physical responses to anxiety. In doing so, you will learn to feel more confident in being able to handle anxiety-provoking situations and react less to them.