Depression

According to the World Health Organisation an estimated 3.8% of the population experience depression, including 5% of adults (4% among men and 6% among women), and 5.7% of adults older than 60 years. Approximately 280 million people in the world have depression (1). Depression is about 50% more common among women than among men. Worldwide, more than 10% of pregnant women and women who have just given birth experience depression (2). More than 700 000 people die due to suicide every year. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death in 15–29-year-olds.

Depression is still misunderstood, with many myths still existing myths for example depression is a chemical or biological imbalance which there is no definitive evidence or that depression is caused by adverse life experiences.  Stressful events do not affect us all the same as we all respond differently. Anti-depressant medication may work for some people, but much controversy is reported on their effectiveness, side effects and risks regarding long term use. Exercise and the right type of counselling is often quicker and more effective for dealing with some levels of Anxiety and depression and greatly reduces the chances of later episodes. 

Therapists working from the human givens will integrate behavioural, cognitive and interpersonal approaches with relaxation and visualisation techniques, to motivate people to widen their life view, raise their self-esteem and solve problems.

Criteria for major depressive episode         

• Depressed or low mood and lack of motivation
• Difficulties in thinking
• Recurrent thought of death or suicide
• Insomnia or disturbed sleep - sleeping too much or poor-quality sleep, waking up exhausted.
• Loss of pleasure or interest in usual activities
• Disturbance of appetite, or eating too much
• Psychomotor retardation or agitation
• Loss of energy, constant fatigue and exhaustion
• Lower back pain, inflammation and general aches and pains.
• Feelings of guilt and worthlessness

The symptoms are similar in post-natal depression, where there has been a massive lifestyle change, possibly traumatic birth (not always the case) and emotional needs not being met.  While it may appear that you are exhausted and flat in fact raised levels of cortisol leaves us in a highly emotional state inhibits our rational thinking with even the simplest of decisions feeling overwhelming.

I can help you deal with depression by:

• Help you to understand the depression cycle and how it relates to sleep and motivation.
• Help you to control worrying, sleep better, prevent brain exhaustion and rebuild your energy and self-confidence.
• Help to reframe thinking styles using humour, stories and metaphor to see things differently that help clients out of black and white (all or nothing thinking) making change possible by widening perspectives and possibilities.
• Agree and set tasks between sessions which help you engage in activities that you enjoy or help others which focuses attention outwards.
• Help you to overcome whatever difficulties are preventing you from getting your emotional needs met.
• Help you to focus on solutions to problems and set realistic small achievable goals so that you feel in control.

Teach you deep relaxation exercises which replenish and revitalise and help to use imagination to visualise overcoming problems and bring about the necessary changes, which happens by working on the principle that the brain brings about what it focuses on.

Anxiety

Anxiety is experienced by everyone at some time, and it can be down to genetics with 30-40% of it being passed as a family trait. People respond differently to stressful situations, what may be stressful for one person may not be stressful for another. Feeling nervous when giving presentations, finding social situations challenging, especially if you tend to be more introverted, having plans change at the last minute can all escalate anxiety.  Busy lives which take our complete attention can lead to stress overload. When this stress does not abate ( or there are too many of them) it can lead to an anxious state of mind. We are primed to react in situations which are threatening, or we perceive them to be. When this happens our stress levels can elevate leading to chronic stress symptoms which include nausea, sweating, dry mouth, tightness in your chest or throat, difficulty breathing, feeling overwhelmed or confused, further symptoms such as high blood pressure migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, anger disorders can be experienced.  This can lead to drug and alcohol abuse in an attempt to relieve the symptoms. Anxious thinking can trick us in to misusing our imagination leading to a cycle of worrying. In my sessions I help clients using various measure to recognise and manage their symptoms effectively.  

• Learn how to recognise the rising level of anxiety and warning signs.
• Understand you are not your anxiety; you experience anxious feelings but can learn to manage them effectively and regain control over your life.
• Help clients to calm down and relax using breathing techniques and challenge and control negative and anxious thinking.
• Improve your sleep
  Help you to navigate effectively through each situation so your brain expects success in other situations.
• Help you to use your imagination in more helpful ways and recognise how not to misuse your imagination to escalate anxiety.
• Improve your self-esteem.

Addictions

Any behaviour which gives us pleasure has the potential to become an addiction. These vary from the obvious alcoholism and substance abuse to eating disorders, food, compulsive shopping, compulsive sexual behaviour, internet pornography or even compulsive exercising. From a brain perspective, any activity that brings us pleasure helps us meet our needs and is rewarded by the dopamine and opioid systems in the brain. However, the brain does not give you the same amount of pleasurable experience each time.

In the early stages of addictive behaviour, feelings of pleasure are increased, and the behaviour progressively becomes more a part of the person's life. The “high” or elation they experience creates a pleasure surge which can often dominate the psychic life even when the addiction is not being indulged in. A lot of time is spent thinking about “acting out” or avoiding “acting out”. The person begins to think that the only pleasure or real satisfaction in life is those highs experienced, leading to disastrous consequences for relationships and the person.  

The emotional intensity of these feelings often dominates the intimacy and closeness they feel to others. This mechanism is what drives us to learn new things, seek new experiences and carry out activities to get our needs met. However, the brain withdraws the pleasurable experience so that more of the substance is needed to achieve the same highs, or we wouldn’t move on or feel motivated, which feeds the addictive process.  

Not having our emotional needs met in other ways or having a setback in life, a stressful event, isolation or loneliness makes us vulnerable to addictions.

How can I help you to overcome your addiction?

• Help you to set realistic goals.
• Using guided imagery helps you recognise the negative consequences of the addiction and the pleasure associated with good things happening in your life.
• Help you identify triggers in your life and devise coping strategies and problem-solving abilities.
• Help you deal with traumatic memories associated with the addiction.
• Help you relax and work with you to get your emotional needs met and build confidence.
• Devise strategies which guard against relapse and the risk of destructive behaviour.
• Help you to relax and manage your emotions.

PTSD, Trauma and Phobias

When we experience a traumatic or threatening event such as an attack, child abuse, domestic violence, a difficult childbirth, car accidents or living with conflict,  either to ourselves or witnessed by us, we can feel helpless, intense fear and a threat to our integrity. This can lead to a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Exposure or reminders of such places and people, or a constant recollection of the details, can arouse us, causing us to feel like we are almost reliving the event.   Also, those close to us may have heard the stories and often can feel frightened, tearful or upset and experience similar symptoms. Unconscious pattern matches to the experience can trigger the following symptoms.

• Flashbacks, intrusive, unwanted thoughts or images
• Nightmares and sleep disturbance, excessive dreaming,
• Intense fear, exaggerated startle response
• Inability to relax, hypervigilance and avoidance.
• Feeling emotionally numb, detached or estranged.
• Overwhelming feelings of sadness, anger, guilt or shame
• Irritability stressed and/or angry.
• Avoidance
• Difficulty concentrating
• Feeling unable to move on, experiencing unwanted and upsetting thoughts even many years after the event, can be extremely distressing.

As an experienced Human Givens practitioner, having worked with clients who have presented with many of the symptom I can:

• Help you understand how the brain processes traumatic memories and why.
• Understand how emotions and thoughts are processed in the brain and what needs to be done to reprocess as a normal memory without the emotional overload.
• Help clients relax and bring down emotional arousal so that they can get back to normality.
• Help them to focus their attention outwards, stop ruminating, set goals and plan.
• Help loved ones and those close to them who may have developed secondary PTSD symptoms because of living with a traumatised individual.
• Help others who work daily with trauma-related situations to understand and deal with their exposure to related issues.

The Rewind Therapeutic protocol is a safe, fast, evidence-based therapy intervention. It is a non-invasive or intrusive method, meaning the client does not have to describe in detail the event or events making it a very good treatment where shame, guilt or painful details do not need to be discussed and can be a great relief to those who do not wish to relive the pain by describing situations such as extreme violence, rape, or sexual abuse.

The Rewind technique works for many other experiences also, such as OCD, Phobias and Trauma where recurring disturbing memories can continue to cause distress symptoms long after the event, having detrimental effects on the sufferer and those around them, leaving them stuck and unable to move on. Sometimes finding relief through drug, alcohol or substance misuse.  Sub-threshold trauma may not be life-threatening, but it still impacts greatly. Bullying, for example, whether in school or in work, can have severe long-term effects.  

We know from Neuroscience that our amygdala, which is a small structure within the limbic region and near the hippocampus, plays an extremely important role in alerting us to danger and stimulates the body's 'fight or flight' reaction. It also plays a part in emotional control, behaviour and learning. Normally, all initial sensations associated with a threatening experience are passed to the amygdala and formed into a sensory memory, which in turn is passed on to the hippocampus and from there to the neocortex translates into a verbal or narrative memory and is stored. When an event appears life-threatening, there can be sudden information overload and the sensory memories that stay trapped in the amygdala instead of being passed on to, and made sense of by, the neocortex, resulting in a reliving or experiencing the emotional arousal. While trapped in the amygdala, the trauma memory has no identifiable meaning. It cannot be described, only re-experienced in some sensory form, such as panic attacks or flashbacks. The rewind technique allows that sensory memory to be converted into narrative and put into perspective.

Simply described, the technique works by allowing the traumatised individual, whilst in a safe, relaxed state, to reprocess the traumatic memory so that it becomes stored as an 'ordinary', albeit unpleasant, and non- threatening memory rather than one that continually activates a terror response. This is achieved by enabling the memory to be shifted in the brain from the amygdala to the neocortex.  

You can find evidence of its effectiveness here.

Relationship difficulties

All relationships undergo change at some time. Healthy relationships are at the heart of emotional health and well-being for both adults and children.  As individuals, we follow our  own path in life, parallel to each other and strive to get our emotional needs met. When we come together in a relationship, we continue to do so, but also get those needs met through the relationship.  Change within a relationship is inevitable, and life events such as loss of a job, jealousy, boredom, infidelity, sexual difficulties, loss of a child, anger, violence, loss of love or ageing can often change the relationship and ourselves.  With the constant pressure of life, relationships can feel more stressful than enjoyable. When conflict and disagreements arise, it is not what can be changed but how it can be managed that will help to identify what is needed to move forward, focusing on what works well, fundamental values which we share helps us to identify what is working well and bring hope for the future. In my sessions with couples, I help them to focus on what they need in the here and now.

I help them agree a strategy which changes behaviour enabling them to meet their own and each other’s emotional needs. Those who are genuinely want to work past their issues can achieve this. Couples often ask for help when they are on the brink of separation, communication has broken down or is not effective as one or both may not be listening.  Blame, hurt, and anger are often the recurring patterns of emotional arousal.  Establishing a goal early in the session can be helpful, but helping to lower emotional arousal is vital and helping them to engage in real communication.

At times, it may be necessary for couples to have individual sessions to deal with their issues.  Reassuring them and giving hope that it is possible to get back to being happy as it once was, and helping them to identify the positives, cultivate new growth and reframing their experiences. Identifying an opportunity for change and rehearsing success in each session can bring a positive perspective and new hope for a future of happiness.

Anger

When we get angry, we are activating the “fight or flight” part of our brain just as effectively as anxiety. This process of stress hormones being released, heart rate rising, blood pressure shooting up including a rise in cholesterol can have detrimental effects on our mental and physical health and can result in:

• High blood pressure
• High Cholesterol which can result in damaged or blocked arteries.
• Heart problems
• Higher risk of infections
• Reduced recovery time after surgery
• Anger can lead to depression.

Those at most risk are quick to anger and harbour feelings of hostility. Anger can be an addictive process leading to the heart pumping less efficiently. Anger can lead to depression which can suppress the immune system increasing the risk of disease.  In flight or flight the anger can quickly shut down the logical thinking part of our brain the neocortex. The more intense the anger the more neural pathways are shut down increasing our black and white thinking (all or nothing thinking). It is only when we calm down and find balance that we can see things more clearly and become more objective by widening our view.

When either our physical needs for example  sleep or food are not met, or emotional needs such as security (feeling threatened) or disrespected we find ourselves defensive protecting our home, territory or people we care about, and we can be quick to anger. I work with clients to help them understand the connection between this very mechanism which when misused can have a detrimental effect.

How I can help with anger.

• Understand and identify when anger is an issue.
• Understand the brain/body connection of anger.
• Understand anger is neither wrong nor right it is a necessary emotion.
• Learn how to identify when anger is escalating, triggers and prevent outburst.
• Teach you how to calm down quickly and manage emotions.
• Teach you how to communicate effectively and assertively.
• Help you to understand your emotional needs and get them met.
• Understand the effects of trauma experience has a reaction.