a prevalent mental health issue, impacts countless individuals worldwide. Can Psychologists Diagnose Depression … As a Certified Scientific Social Worker (LCSW), I have seen the impact of stress and anxiety on numerous lives. In this article, I will share a thorough exploration of anxiety through the lens of a recent therapy session with a client, highlighting symptoms, treatment strategies, and my personal journey as a therapist with my own experiences of stress and anxiety Furthermore, we will go over a term paper by Harvard University that clarifies the diverse nature of stress and anxiety.|Stress and anxiety, a common mental health concern, affects millions of individuals worldwide. As a Licensed Scientific Social Employee (LCSW), I have witnessed the impact of anxiety on many lives.}
presentation on strengths-based biopsychosocial approaches to dealing with stress and anxiety and while those are fantastic you know I thought maybe we should take a look at you understand what’s some of the existing research so I entered into PubMed which is I do not understand it’s play ground for me it’s where you discover a great deal of the journal short articles and you can sort and I sorted by short articles that were done and meta-analyses that were done within the past five years so that offers us an idea about present research study I imply there’s a lot of stuff that is still the very same like some of the medications that were known to work ten years earlier are still understood to be you understand good first-line treatments but there are also some newcomers that we’ll talk about and there are also some changes that we’re going to discuss so we’re going to check out some common causes for anxiety symptoms in order to treat it we actually need to and obviously this does play into the biopsychosocial element we actually require to comprehend type of what causes it since stress and anxiety that’s caused by for instance somebody having a racing heart may be various than anxiety that’s triggered for someone who has desertion issues so we’re gon na deal with the two things in a different way so we wish to look at some of the common causes we’re gon na look at some common triggers for stress and anxiety you know what are some of these common themes that we see in practice and I will ask you to share some of the themes that you see that highlight or underlie a lot of your customers anxiety and recognize current best practices for stress and anxiety management including counseling interventions medications physical interventions and helpful treatments so we care since stress and anxiety.
can be crippling and a lot of our clients have anxiety a lot of our customers have stress and anxiety comorbid with depression and they’re looking at us going how can I feel anxious and stressed and like I can’t sit still and depressed at the same time you understand when you’re depressed you’re supposed to wish to sleep well a great deal of times people who are have both concerns actually wish to sleep but they can’t so I want to assist customers understand that also in some cases anxiety when individuals are anxious for enough time the body begins kind of hanging on to the cortisol the body actually recognizes at a particular point this is a losing battle I’m not going to put energy into this any longer so it begins with drawing some of its excitatory neurotransmitter so to speak and individuals will begin to feel depressed basically the brain has actually currently said this is hopeless this is you’re you’re defenseless to alter the situation so then individuals begin feeling helpless and defenseless which is sort of the meaning if you will of depression low-grade persistent tension and anxiety occurred energy and individuals’s ability to focus so if we’re going to help them become their uber selves we require to help them determine how to address anxiety not simply generalized overwhelming debilitating anxiety however likewise panic social stress and anxiety and those small stress and anxiety triggers that occurred that may not fulfill the limit for a medical diagnosis anxiety is a major trigger for dependency relapse if you have a client who is self
medicated before or had an addiction for some reason anxiety is a significant trigger increased physical pain when stress and anxiety increases people tend to tense their muscles when they tense their muscles they tend to feel more discomfort I mean consider when you’re stressed you tend to have more discomfort like in your neck in your back and things that currently hurt may harm more why due to the fact that serotonin which is among our major anti-anxiety neurotransmitters is also one of our major pain modulators so when serotonin levels are too low due to the fact that anxiety is high then our pain understanding is going to be more acute and people can have sleep issues if you’re stressed your body believes there’s a hazard you’re not going to be able to get into that deep peaceful sleep you may have you might sleep you may sleep a lot but it’s most likely not quality sleep which implies your neurotransmitters may leave whack your hormonal agents make it out of whack and your body is going to start viewing your itself in a consistent state of stress when we’re exhausted the body understands that we might be the weakest link in the herd so it continues to secrete cortisol to keep keep you on alert a bit so you might once again you might be resting type of like when you have a brand-new child in your home those very first number of months that my kids were home from the health center I slept however I didn’t sleep well I imply the smallest little sound and I was awake and I was looking around and you understand I felt it I felt exhausted and a great deal of new moms and dads do so sets off for stress and anxiety abandonment and rejection and we’re going to talk about methods we might wish to handle these things however a few of the underlying styles that I have actually seen in a great deal of clients and when I do the research study what a lot of what styles that come out consist of low self-confidence
if somebody has low self-confidence they’re seeming externally confirmed often they’re trying to find someone else to tell them you’re lovable you’re alright so that can result in anxiety about not having people to tell them you’re fine that makes their relationships rare and can make them inefficient unreasonable thoughts and cognitive distortions might lead individuals to think that if I’m not best for example I am not lovable so we’re going to take a look at some irrational ideas and cognitive distortions unhealthy social supports and relationships when you’re in a relationship it takes two to tango and even if your client is fairly mentally and physically healthy if they remain in a dysfunctional relationship they can fear desertion and rejection if that other individual is always saying if you don’t do X I’m going to leave you or if that other individual is constantly cheating on them or whatever so relationships can set off desertion anxiety and inadequate interpersonal skills can lead to relationship chaos and social exile if our clients remain in relationships even if they’re not totally dysfunctional if our clients are not able to request what they need and set proper borders and handle conflict effectively due to the fact that dispute happens in every relationship then they might start to argue more which may lead to fearing might result in relationships ending in the past and them working out every relationship I enter into ends which means I should not be lovable so they begin fearing desertion and rejection so these are four locations that we can look at another evaluating customers another issue is the unknown and loss of control a great deal of times negative self-talk and cognitive distortions can contribute to that if I don’t have control of whatever then it’s all going to be a catastrophe unfavorable others when customers hang out or when individuals socialize with unfavorable individuals it sort of endures you after a while you notice that individuals who are tend to be more unfavorable cynical conspiracy minded tend to hang out with individuals who are likewise unfavorable cynical and conspiracy minded so if you’re hanging out with someone who tends to be distressed then the anxiety can be palpable and it can sort of permeate physical grievances can lead individuals to be nervous due to the fact that they don’t understand what’s causing it like I stated previously sometimes if your heart starts to race if you don’t know what’s triggering it you can begin believing I’m having a heart attack or I’m gon na pass away when individuals have anxiety attack for instance they genuinely think they’re having a cardiovascular disease and
it’s I’ve had them they are very really unpleasant experiences however when individuals begin having physical grievances and it can be you understand they have an odd rash that they can’t get to go away or it whatever but when they don’t know what it is and they can’t manage it they can’t make it disappear they begin considering all the worst-case situations and browsing the web and getting on WebMD which typically offers you all the worst-case scenarios um so physical complaints are important we need to normalize the fact that nobody’s pain-free all the time and you know the reality that you might have an ache or a discomfort or a lump or a bump or you know a cough probably you understand when we look at possibility the probability of it being something significant is quite little now do you wish to get it had a look at probably but you understand the probability that is anything to be fretted about is is reasonably little and a sense of powerlessness can trigger fear of the unknown and loss of control for someone who doesn’t feel like they have any company in their life if they have an external locus of control or if they felt taken advantage of all of their life then they might fear not being in control they may be holding on and stating fine this is the one location of my life I can control when I matured you understand I grew up in an extremely disorderly environment I had no control I was bounced around in the foster system yadda yadda yadda now that I’m an adult you understand I can control these things and I am going to hold on with white knuckles and if I can’t manage everything then that terrifies me death and loss are other triggers for anxiety and it can be pets or people and family pets are important I do not want to lessen pets due to the fact that you know they are little parts of a great deal of our families so making sure we check that my child’s pet for example is it’s getting old she’s aging she’s 14 now I think and you know she’s in decent health we took her to the vet and the vet said yeah she’s got a little heart whispering however that’s expected for a 14 year old pet dog and but when she goes out if she does not come back when I call her I have this rush of stress and anxiety for a second oh my gosh I hope this wasn’t the day so anxiety around losing individuals and you know if she when she crosses the bridge she will and and you understand
I’m alright with that I’m I have a more difficult time handling my child’s psychological turmoil when that occurs and due to the fact that she’s grown up with this pet so you understand those are the types of things that we want to discuss with our customers what things are weighing on you that you might not even be thinking of because I know in the back of my mind there’s constantly that worry about one of our donkeys and her pet tasks and promotions can trigger anxiety if individuals are afraid they’re gon na lose their job if they’re always scared that you understand they’re gon na walk in and get or get a pink slip fired you understand we want to help them take a look at how practical is that are you doing what you require to do in order to achieve and keep your task and often it’s hard to answer I suggest the very first idea that a great deal of us have is well you understand if you’re doing the right thing so simply do it but there are those employers out there and I have actually had some truly fantastic managers a great deal of them and I have actually had two actually horrendous managers and those 2 managers I could never I never felt like I was able to do anything right and so going to those jobs there was always this stress and anxiety about what I’m what am I going to get in trouble for today so you want to talk with individuals about does your job cause stress and anxiety what can you do to moderate that anxiety the same thing with promotions people may get nervous about whether they’re going to get promoted safety and security you know when you lose safety and security you can feel really distressed so if there’s a break-in at your house next door or a shooting down the road or you start viewing the news you can feel very risky and unsecure actually rapidly so we want to assist individuals find out how safe and safe and secure are you really and a great deal of it returns to actually taking a look at facts when individuals lose their dreams and hopes or fear that they’re going to lose their dreams and hopes they can begin to get nervous you understand they have this dream that they’re going to be a physician or I simply completed the discussion on assisting high school students shift to college and a great deal of high school trainees for example start college with these wide eyes and wants to save the world and they wish to be medical professionals and engineers and this and that and they enter it and they understand that it’s a lot harder than they thought or they understand that you know what I actually don’t like this however I’ve currently committed to it so what do I do or I wish to assist individuals however I can’t I can’t cut it doing this you know for me I found out in my 2nd year that I wasn’t going to medical school due to the fact that I wasn’t going to pass calculus which caused a great deal of anxiety it was like fine what am I gon na do now you understand what profession should I choose so helping people figure out do you have dreams that have perhaps kind of crashed and burned and you have to discover new ones you understand fine that one we have actually got to accept it find out that it’s not going to be and what can you do now people
may likewise have dreams about relationships they get into relationships and they see themselves with this person forever and then this relationship ends and or starts to get rocky and they’re like however that’s my dream what takes place if my that’s got to occur because it’s my dream I don’t know how to work if that goes away we wish to assist individuals have the ability to rewrite their narrative and then sickness spiders and other fears type of goes in with death a lot of times when individuals get sick they start getting distressed that oh my gosh what if this is terminal oh my gosh what if this is you know incurable if I get bit by a spider it’s gon na kill me and which is unusual you understand there are really few spiders that are actually that poisonous same thing with snakes going over bridges I have actually shown you all that is not one of my illogical fears you understand I am just terrified that you know something’s going to occur and I’m going to get pushed off the side of the bridge which is totally illogical however we need to help individuals look at those and determine the thoughts that they’re telling themself about those fears and handle that anxiety failure is another trigger for anxiety especially in this culture our culture American culture in in large part puts a high premium on success and perfectionism so when individuals realize that they’re not perfect they may begin to get nervous because they seem like if I’m not perfect then I’m a failure you know those cognitive distortions of all-or-nothing thinking and they start with that unfavorable self-talk you understand you can’t do anything right so those are a few of the concerns that you understand we typically see in therapy sessions so what do we do you understand someone comes in and it like I can’t live this way doc anxiety depression and compound conditions along with a range of physical conditions are typically comorbid so this is the first thing we need to recognize we require to recognize that we’re extremely seldom dealing with a very simple medical diagnosis you understand when someone can be found in we need to determine you understand if they come in and they’re presenting with anxiety all right let’s talk about that and
Understanding Stress And Anxiety: A Patient’s Experience:
In my current session with Emma (name changed for privacy), a 32-year-old female, I had the opportunity to delve into the complex layers of anxiety. Emma explained experiencing relentless worry, a racing heart, and intrusive ideas. She found it challenging to focus at work and frequently felt a sense of impending doom. These symptoms were interfering with her daily life, relationships, and total wellness.
Emma’s Treatment Strategy:
To address Emma’s anxiety, we established a thorough treatment plan customized to her unique requirements. Here are some key elements of her strategy:
Psychoeducation: Educating Emma about stress and anxiety and its physiological and mental manifestations assisted her gain a deeper understanding of her symptoms. This knowledge empowered her to acknowledge and validate her experiences.
Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment (CBT): CBT is an evidence-based approach that concentrates on recognizing and challenging illogical ideas and beliefs. Emma found out to reframe unfavorable ideas and develop a more well balanced perspective, gradually minimizing anxiety-triggering cognitions.
Relaxation Methods: Incorporating relaxation techniques such as deep breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, and mindfulness meditation helped Emma control her stress reaction and promote a sense of calm.
Exposure Treatment: As Emma expressed avoidance habits related to certain triggers, we gradually exposed her to those scenarios in a controlled manner. This exposure enabled her to face her fears and develop durability against anxiety-provoking stimuli.
Self-Care and Way Of Life Modifications: Emma recognized the significance of self-care practices in managing her stress and anxiety. She prioritized routine workout, healthy consuming, quality sleep, and engaging in activities she delighted in to promote total well-being.
My Journey as a Therapist:
My choice to end up being a therapist was deeply influenced by my own struggles with stress and anxiety. My personal journey has actually supplied me with special insights and compassion when working with clients facing similar difficulties. Having actually experienced stress and anxiety firsthand, I have the ability to associate with my clients’ fears, concerns, and the impact anxiety can have on different aspects of life.
Harvard’s Research study on Stress and anxiety:
An influential term paper entitled “Understanding the Complexity of Stress And Anxiety: Insights from a Longitudinal Research Study” by Harvard University offers important insights into the complexity of anxiety disorders. The research study followed an associate of individuals over a period of ten years and examined numerous elements adding to the development, maintenance, and treatment of anxiety.
The paper stressed that anxiety conditions occur from a mix of genetic, ecological, and psychological elements. It highlighted the significance of early intervention, evidence-based treatments, and holistic techniques in managing stress and anxiety effectively. The findings further underscored the significance of a healing alliance and customized treatment strategies in resolving anxiety. Can Psychologists Diagnose Depression
Conclusion:
Stress and anxiety is a deeply individual and multifaceted experience that impacts individuals in profound methods. Through healing interventions like psychoeducation, CBT, relaxation methods, direct exposure therapy, and self-care practices, people like Emma can gain control over their anxiety and lead fulfilling lives.