Your Therapy Space

Accredited CBT and counselling Leamington Spa, Warwickshire and online

Low Self-Esteem

CBT Therapist in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire to help with depression

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Understanding Depression

Depression is more than just feeling low, sad or flat.  Depression can affect all areas of your life and make it hard to function effectively.  It can impact on work, sleep, relationships and your overall enjoyment of life.  It can make it hard to get up in the mornings and difficult to keep up with basic self-care activities.  Everything can feel like too much trouble.

Fortunately, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) may help to overcome depression and is recommended by the NHS and NICE guidelines.   CBT may help you to change patterns of thinking and behaviour over time that maintain low mood and start to live in a more fulfilling way.

How CBT Helps with Depression

CBT is concerned with the links between thoughts, behaviours and emotions.   You may recognise the following:

Experiencing negative thinking patterns (“I’m not good enough”, “I can’t change”).

Withdrawing from hobbies, work, family and friends, or responsibilities.

Losing interest in looking after yourself, for example, not eating properly, failing to maintain personal hygiene.

Struggling with sleep and appetite and concentration.

CBT may help by:

Challenging unhelpful thinking styles, for example being self-critical or having a negative filter.

Encouraging behavioural change by planning a range of necessary, routine and pleasurable activities at a manageable pace.  It is important to have a balance of activities to gain a sense of achievement, purpose and enjoyment.

Breaking the cycle of avoidance, for example, by reintroducing hobbies and social connections.

Reducing rumination.  It may be helpful to process some past experiences and learn how to be more present.

Increasing self-awareness and understanding how early experiences influence responses to triggers.  This may help you to become more self-compassionate.

Developing a relapse prevention plan to maintain wellbeing post therapy.  CBT is a collaborative short to medium-term therapy and does not encourage dependence on the therapist.  It is important to help you to learn how to deal with any problems you may encounter after therapy has ended.

How to get in touch

If you are finding it hard to improve your mood and feel stuck, maybe CBT could help you.  Please get in touch if you wish to make an appointment by emailing info@yourtherapyspace.co.uk or ringing 07950064086.  You can read more about my credentials here.

CBT therapist in Leamington Spa: How Cognitive Behavioural Therapy may help with anxiety

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Finding a CBT Therapist in Leamington Spa for Anxiety

If you are experiencing anxiety, you are not alone.  Anxiety is a significant problem which causes many people to seek therapy.  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is recommended by the NHS and NICE guidelines as being effective in helping people overcome anxiety.

CBT is a practical, collaborative and evidence-based approach to therapy and it may help you to understand how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours maintain anxiety.  CBT may help you to learn about alternative ways of thinking and responding.  It may help you to understand yourself and your triggers and learn how to reduce worry, panic, and avoidance so that you could start feeling more in control of your life.  Anxiety can make your life feel very small.  CBT may help you to live in a more fulfilled way.

How CBT Works for Anxiety

Anxiety can feel overwhelming and unpleasant.  You may experience racing thoughts, a pounding heart, muscle tension, or a sense of dread that something terrible will happen.

CBT may help by:

  • Identifying anxious thought patterns and thinking styles (e.g. “I can’t do this,” “Something terrible will happen”).
  • Challenging unhelpful beliefs that make you feel anxious.
  • Gradually face fears in a safe, structured way if relevant so that you can learn to handle situations.
  • Introducing relaxation and grounding techniques to help to calm the nervous system.
  • Developing a relapse prevention plan to help you after therapy has ended.

Common Anxiety Problems Treated with CBT

  • Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD): Persistent worry; muscle tension; difficulty relaxing; “what if” thinking.
  • Panic Disorder: Repeated panic attacks; fear of losing control; avoidance of situations.
  • Social Anxiety: Fear of being judged negatively, blushing, being embarrassed or public speaking.
  • Phobias: Intense fear of specific things (e.g. small spaces, spiders, heights).
  • Health Anxiety: Worrying constantly about illness or physical symptoms.
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD): Unwanted intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviours.

What to Expect in CBT Sessions

  • Assessment — Explore anxiety triggers & patterns and goals.
  • Formulation — Build a “picture” of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours (identify how anxiety is maintained) including how early experiences inform this map if relevant.
  • Skill Building — Learn tools to challenge thoughts & reduce avoidance
  • Practice — Apply CBT skills in between sessions (complete homework tasks).
  • Review — Consolidate gains and develop a relapse prevention plan.

Practical CBT Tools for Anxiety

Therapy may include the following:

  • Thought Records: Record thoughts, examine evidence for/against, and reframe them.
  • Behavioural Experiments: Test fears and beliefs in real life (e.g. going to a crowded place) to see if worst-case scenarios happen.
  • Exposure Therapy: Gradually face feared situations in a structured way with the aim of reducing avoidance and generating new learning.
  • Breathing & Grounding Techniques: To help to calm your body’s stress response when you feel overwhelmed.
  • Problem-Solving Skills: Break challenges into manageable steps.

Take the Next Step

If anxiety is affecting your life, CBT may help you to overcome your anxiety. If you are searching for a qualified and experienced and fully accredited CBT therapist in Leamington Spa.  I would be happy to talk with you about how CBT might help your situation.  I offer online sessions which can be arranged at a mutually convenient time to fit in with your schedule.  Please contact me by emailing info@yourtherapyspace.co.uk or ringing 07950064086.  I look forward to helping you.

Being wrong again

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“I feel like I never get things right.  I’ll do my best but I’m always left with the feeling that I did something wrong or that I should have kept quiet or that people don’t like me.  It’s always there.  I can go for a walk and that’s the thing that swirls around the whole time.  I can go to a social situation and see how happy other people seem to be and, again, those thoughts are there.  I can be at a meeting at work and the thoughts pop up again.  The idea that other people are better than me.  The idea that everyone else knows how to ‘win’ at life and I don’t.  I do my best to disguise this and it sometimes works but it’s not working for me.  I feel sad and anxious and that I can’t tell anyone about how I feel because they would really think I’m just a loser.”

If the above resonates with you, then I am really sorry to hear this.  It sounds very painful and lonely to live this way.  It can lead to symptoms and feelings associated with depression and anxiety and create a vicious cycle which seems impossible to break.  It would be understandable that you would not want to talk about this with other people.  Imagine that you did talk to others about these thoughts and feelings.  Imagine how you would feel to discover that others sometimes feel like this too.  Imagine that you could find ways to challenge some of your thoughts and behaviours and feel more accepting and at ease with yourself.

For those who do not want to talk to family and friends about how they feel, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can be helpful to understand what is maintaining your emotional states by developing a clear understanding of the problems you are facing and increasing your self-awareness.  This enables you to consider the choices you are making and the changes you could make to live a more fulfilled life.  If this sounds like something you would like to do, please get in touch.  Learn how to enjoy your walks, social gatherings and meetings.  Learn to value yourself.

It’s all my fault

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“It’s all my fault.  I couldn’t make you happy.  Everything I tried ended up with a ‘yes but…’.  Whatever I did was never enough.  It was all up to me.  You wouldn’t even meet me halfway.  It’s as though I was a thing and my experience didn’t matter.  It was all about you and always was.  I spent so much time trying to help you, I’m the one who has now ended feeling low and anxious and not good enough.”

I hope the above does not resonate with you and you have loving relationships in your life.  I hope you have relationships with other people where you matter too and where mutuality and respect and boundaries exist.  I hope that you have a great relationship with yourself and that you like yourself and accept the human condition and don’t expect yourself to achieve perfection endlessly.

We can be so self-critical of ourselves.  Always shouldering the blame and beating ourselves up to be better and do more and try harder.  Think about how you speak to yourself when you make a mistake.  Do the phrases ‘I’m an idiot’, ‘I’m a loser’, ‘I always mess up’ or ‘I’m stupid’ seem familiar?  If so, I wonder how you see these thoughts as helping you?  How is  having a cruel voice in your mind working out for you?  Is this self-criticism consistent with developing resilience in your life?

If you are struggling with self-criticism or perfectionism and want to make some changes but can’t break out of the cycle you are stuck in, please get in touch.

 

Feeling lost

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It is so easy to feel lost at times in life.  You might feel like everyone else seems to know what they are doing.  Other people may seem to be busy with interesting jobs or hobbies or travels or family and friends or all of these things.  And you might feel as though you are making it all up as you go along.  You might be wearing a mask and pretending everything is fine while wondering if you are messing up one thing after another at times.  You might tell yourself that you can’t speak to anyone about how you feel because you don’t want to worry anyone.  You might be the one who makes sure everyone else is ok and you might think that you don’t want to be a burden or to come across as self-absorbed.

It can feel very lonely when you are being self-critical or when you are comparing yourself to others in a negative way.  It can lead to sleepless nights, anxiety and low mood and depression.  It can lead to finding unhelpful coping strategies and you might even notice that you are eating more or drinking more.  You might have stopped doing the very things that might help you to feel better and have started to withdraw from others and/or your hobbies.

We can all feel lost at times.  Hopefully, it will pass soon.  If it doesn’t, it may be useful to reach out for some help to try and work out what you would like your life to look like and how you could make some changes to move towards this.  CBT and counselling can help you to do this.

Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

The Importance of friendship and feeling supported

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Mental health and friendships

There are many articles written about the importance of friendship so I would just like to focus on how friendship can help us if we are feeling down or anxious.  Feeling lonely or socially isolated can create stress and exacerbate any problems we may be facing.  Some people claim to have hundreds of friends and I often wonder about the quality of these relationships.

Friendship is hard work.  To be there for someone, to share experiences and to keep in touch takes time and energy, and these things are in short supply when we are feeling down.

Being supported by friends

When we feel low we tend to focus on ourselves and our thoughts and feelings.  It can feel like there is no space for anyone else.  Our friends can sustain and nurture us at times like this.  It can be so validating to spend time with someone who cares for us and listens to us and helps us to feel good about ourselves.

A true friend will accept how we are and allow us to voice our fears without laughing at us.  Often there is a moment in a relationship when we realise that someone is a genuine friend.  Maybe they stick up for us when everyone else stays quiet or maybe they just seem to know how we are feeling.  If you have someone like this in your life it’s great.

Explore barriers to friendship with CBT Therapy or counselling

If you don’t then maybe therapy could help you to explore ways of developing a support network or what is getting in the way of you feeling able to have friends.