Overcoming Anxious Feelings & Thoughts with Psychotherapy 

Have you ever felt a bad case of butterflies in your stomach before an examination or a job interview? Or have you experienced racing heart and sweaty palms before your first date or any other important events? Or perhaps you have had situations where your breaths were shallow and quick and it was hard for you to catch your breath?

These are some common reactions our body signal to tell us we are stressful. Most of us might be able to contain these feelings of discomfort. However, for some, these feelings might become overwhelming and persistent, leading to anxiety. 

Everyone is well aware of this term, but Anxiety is a difficult word to describe as it is a normal human emotion, like love, happiness or sadness, that affects everyone differently. Everyone experiences anxiety occasionally, as it helps us respond to potential fears, situations and challenges. But when it becomes excessive and interferes with daily life, it may indicate an anxiety disorder. 

Here, counselling and psychotherapy is an effective way to manage these symptoms of anxiety. You can find counsellors and psychotherapists in your area by searching Anxiety Counselling in (your city’s name), e.g. Anxiety Counselling in Singapore or Anxiety Therapy in Singapore to find the relevant support you are looking for.

The term “anxiety disorders” refers to a cluster of different mental conditions that cause chronic or constant anxiety and fear. The different types of anxiety disorders include Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Phobia Related Disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). 

Let us try to understand the concept of each in slight detail.

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

GAD, or Generalised Anxiety Disorder, can be defined as a persistent feeling of excessive anxiety, stress and unrealistic worry for no logical reason. People with GAD may worry uncontrollably about normal or common situations as well. This irrational worry can interfere with daily life, friendships and relationships. 

Panic Disorder

Panic disorder can cause panic attacks. These are caused by sudden, intense fear and may occur at any given time for no apparent reason. Some common symptoms of panic attacks are chest tightening, quicken heartbeat, sweating, hyperventilation, dry lips and giddiness

Social Anxiety Disorder

As the term signifies, people with social anxiety disorder fear public gatherings, meetings, and public speaking. They are excessively self-conscious and avoid meeting new people. For some, this phobia or fear may get in the way of their daily routine activities.

Phobia Related Disorder

A phobia is a persistent, unrealistic, intense fear of specific objects or situations. People with specific phobias, such as a phobia of heights (acrophobia), fear of tight enclosed spaces (claustrophobia), or fear of certain insects or animals, suffer from intense fear and dreadful reaction when encountered with any fearful situation or object. This might lead to avoidance of common everyday situations, causing much disruptions to day to day routine. 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

PTSD develops after witnessing or experiencing something traumatic. The symptoms may appear immediately or may be delayed for years. The condition largely common found in victims of an assault, war survivors, survivors of natural disasters, and someone who witnessed the assault, murder or accident and watched their loved one suffer and being harmed. People with Post Traumatic Symptoms (PTS) might experience flashbacks and nightmares, have difficulty sleeping and may avoid places related to the trauma. 

While there are some of us who may experience Complex PTSD, also known as CPTSD. It is common for people who had experienced developmental trauma, abuse, neglect and those experiencing ongoing threat in their lives. 

How Can Anxiety Be Treated?

Anxiety leaves a person feeling drained and might lower their self-confidence. But Nothing Lasts Forever, Warrior, not even Anxiety. 

You can overcome anxiety through Anxiety Therapy. This includes various approaches

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is an approach for treating anxiety disorders. Psychotherapy sessions can be conducted with a mental health professional like –  psychologist, psychiatrist or psychotherapist.

Psychotherapy provides a safe space for people to process the different emotions, thoughts and behaviours that might bring up anxiety or affect their mood. Psychotherapy can help the person to cope with challenging situations and to bounce back from adversity

Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy or body-oriented therapy is a form of approach in psychotherapy that integrate the use of the body or the nervous system. The heart of Somatic Therapy is to regulate the mind using the body, providing a more holistic approach in psychotherapy by finding balance between the cognition (mind) and soma (body). 

There are many ways to work with the body. Some common approaches in somatic therapy may include movement and breath, though the list is inexhaustive. At team Soulmatics, our therapists are trained in somatic-oriented approaches such as Somatic Experiencing and NeuroAffective Touch. This is to support clients who come to us by allowing them to experience a more holistic and embodied therapeutic process. 

Medication

Medication is a way to relieve anxiety symptoms but does not necessarily cure the disorder. Speak with a trusted psychiatrist to learn how pharmacological interventions can support you in your anxiety recovery journey.  

Exercise

During anxiety, the body produces adrenaline (flight and fight hormone) under stressful conditions. The adrenaline that the body releases can be utilised by doing something active. Going for a walk, doing some stretching, engaging in gentle movements can help alleviate anxiety. Activities such as, Yoga, pilates or even Tension Release Exercises (TRE) can be great alternative options for people with anxiety.

The Science Behind Anxiety

Simply put, during an anxiety response, the brain releases two hormones – adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline is a hormone that is released during a fight or flight response. Cortisol is also released as a stress response but has other bodily functions as well. Both of these hormones prepare the body to fight stressful situations. Once the stressful situation is over, the brain secretes more hormones to help achieve a calm state. But in some cases, this ability of the brain to reach a calm state is hampered, leading to the body to remain stuck in an anxious state.

Final Thoughts

Anxiety is a prevalent mental health issue. Experiencing anxiety is extremely common, although the causes may vary drastically from person to person. If you feel anxious frequently, you can always seek help from a psychiatrist, psychologist or psychotherapy. 

Get in touch with Soulmatics today at +65 8851 0439 or soulmatics.info@gmail.com to learn how psychotherapy can support you and your concerns with anxiety. 

EMDR Therapy

Have you ever wonder what is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy? Learn more from the comic below:

About the contributor

Im May is a psychotherapist at Soulmatics. She uses a combination of mind-body

therapeutic approaches to support her clients through their journeys of healing and

recovery. She is an EMDR International Association certified EMDR therapist. She is

presently working on her certification to be Neuro Affective Touch therapist as she

keenly believes that attuned and intentional mindfl touches are part of the

therapeutic processes. It is a privilege and honor for Im May to journey with her clients.

De-stigmatising Mental Health

We pay so much attention to support our physical health when we are ill, however, when it comes to mental health we cower in shame. Unlike physical health, we often feel ashamed to speak about mental health, we stigmatise this topic as if it is a plague.

http://undefined

Majority may not have as extreme way of viewing mental health as how our Africans counterparts do as how Sangu Delle shared. However, the stigma is real. In a society where emotions are often invalidated, we have much difficulty to be vulnerable (even to closed ones) about our feelings and struggles. We tend to think seeing a counsellor, psychiatrist or any other mental health professionals as “crazy”, “mad”, “siao” (expression of “crazy” in Hokkien).

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological and social well-being. Indeed, it is not wrong to care for these aspects of ourselves. I must say there has been more effort recently after some tragic events that happened in the past years. We don’t need to wait for more tragedies before we care for our mental health. It’s OK not to be OK and it’s definitely OK to seek help.

About the contributor

Dominica is a psychotherapist at Soulmatics. She is also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and a certified TRE Provider. She enjoys integrating body-oriented approaches in the therapeutic process to help those who come to her to have a more holistic and experiential process. In her free time, she enjoys reading and playing with her pet dogs – Kopi & Xiaobai.

Trauma? What’s that?

About the contributor

Im May is a psychotherapist at Soulmatics. She uses a combination of mind-body

therapeutic approaches to support her clients through their journeys of healing and

recovery. She is an EMDR International Association certified EMDR therapist. She is

presently working on her certification to be Neuro Affective Touch therapist as she

keenly believes that attuned and intentional mindful touches are part of the

therapeutic processes. It is a privilege and honor for Im May to journey with her clients.

Trauma

It is common to perceive trauma as an event that happened to us or a situation which overwhelmed us. We failed to recognise that trauma is the effect of how our body was impacted after certain undesirable event(s). With our body being affected, generally our mind is affected as well and our mental health deteriorates, resulting in symptoms of common mental illnesses (i.e: depression, anxiety, panic, etc).

In fact, many times, trauma is relational. The shame and fear (and many other emotions) held in the physiology prevents us from moving forward or to make choices which are healthy for ourselves and the people around us. Indeed, it is difficult for us to process trauma without involving the body-mind connection and without the support of a trauma professional.

Yes, citing from Dr. Peter Levine again, trauma is a fact of life but it doesn’t have to be a life sentence. Trauma can have a transformative effects too. 🙂

About the contributor

Dominica is a psychotherapist at Soulmatics. She is also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and a certified TRE Provider. She enjoys integrating body-oriented approaches in the therapeutic process to help those who come to her to have a more holistic and experiential process. In her free time, she enjoys reading and playing with her pet dogs – Kopi & Xiaobai.

Stress Nuggets 2: Stress & Body

We learned about how stress can affect our brain in Stress Nuggets 1: Stress & Brain. Today, we are going learn how stress can also affect our body. We often think “it’s all in our mind” when we feel overwhelmed. However, stress can take a toll on our bodies. It can cause diseases, lower our immune system, disrupt our appetite and have adverse effects on our health overall.

Interestingly, stress can cause psycho-somatic symptoms. Often times, these symptoms are mistaken as physical ailments which led to many individuals medicating without treating the root cause of the issue.

So, how can we support our bodies to cope with daily life stresses? If you are curious to learn how to manage day-to-day stresses using body-mind approaches, get in touch with us. Body-mind approaches integrate body work and talk therapy to provide a more holistic psychotherapeutic process.

About the contributor

Dominica is a psychotherapist at Soulmatics. She is also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and a certified TRE Provider. She enjoys integrating body-oriented approaches in the therapeutic process to help those who come to her to have a more holistic and experiential process. In her free time, she enjoys reading and playing with her pet dogs – Kopi & Xiaobai.

Stress Nuggets 1: Stress & Brain

Recently we learnt about how emotions affect our brain. How about stress? Did you know that chronic stress can have long term adverse effects on you and it can be inherited by your future generation?

An optimal amount of stress can actually be beneficial for us actually. But how can we strike the balance? In the video, it says that exercise and meditation can aid us in managing the effects of stress on our brain.

Have you ever thought of exploring something beyond exercise and meditation? At Soulmatics, we provide body-mind approaches, integrating body work and talk therapy for a more holistic psychotherapeutic process. Get in touch with us to learn more.

Stay tune for more stress nuggets!

About the contributor

Dominica is a psychotherapist at Soulmatics. She is also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and a certified TRE Provider. She enjoys integrating body-oriented approaches in the therapeutic process to help those who come to her to have a more holistic and experiential process. In her free time, she enjoys reading and playing with her pet dogs – Kopi & Xiaobai.

Emotion & Brain

Curious about how our emotion brain (a.k.a limbic brain) affects our thoughts, behaviours and stress responses? Watch this short video to learn more!

http://undefined

Keen to learn how you can regulate your stress and emotions? At Soulmatics, we provide a body-mind approach for a more holistic mental health service. Get in touch with us to learn more today.

About the contributor

Dominica is a psychotherapist at Soulmatics. She is also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and a certified TRE Provider. She enjoys integrating body-oriented approaches in the therapeutic process to help those who come to her to have a more holistic and experiential process. In her free time, she enjoys reading and playing with her pet dogs – Kopi & Xiaobai.

About Somatic Experiencing…(part 2)

Hi everyone, here is the part 2 insert of understanding Somatic Experiencing (SE). Enjoy!

  • What does somatic experiencing encompass, and are there any (scientific?) principles that it’s based on? Who is it for (or not for)?

Yes, as the founder of SE – Dr. Peter Levine is a scientist, a lot of the concepts used in SE have a strong scientific basis from ethology, neurobiology, psychology, physiology and biology. SE consists of theory and practical tools to help individuals renegotiate their stress and trauma in a naturalistic manner. The content is extensively trauma focused.

Two commonly heard concepts of SE are “pendulation” and “titration”. Dr. Peter Levine coined the term “pendulation” to explain the biological rhythm of the nervous system to shift between expansion and contraction, from chaos to order, from disorganisation to organisation. While the term “titration” comes from Chemistry, in SE it is about working with minimal perturbation – renegotiating arousal energy using small amount of activation that is in the nervous system. In addition, SE draws a lot of concepts from the Polyvagal Theory developed by Dr. Stephen Porges.

I would say SE is for anyone as long as we have a living body. SE is an approach that work with the human body and occasionally, the discharge that is release in the process can be taxing for the body. Some of the clients I see are individuals who had sought talk therapy for a long time and decided to explore somatic work. Some categories of trauma which SE can be helpful in processing are: developmental trauma, motor vehicle accident, medical trauma, falls, pre & peri natal and birth trauma.

I would refrained from using SE for individuals who are still recovering from physical injuries or receiving any form of treatments which could take a toll on the body (i.e: chemotherapy, dialysis, surgery). As the body is focused in recuperating during such times, we do not want to process any stress or trauma related issues. However, resourcing could be explored to help individuals heal better. Resourcing in SE can help the individual in feeling calmer and less activated and create greater capacity for self-regulation. It would be wonderful for these individuals to explore using SE after their treatment, so as to support their bodies to discharge any residual stresses from the treatments.

Stay tune for more!

About the contributor

Dominica is a psychotherapist at Soulmatics. She is also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and a certified TRE Provider. She enjoys integrating body-oriented approaches in the therapeutic process to help those who come to her to have a more holistic and experiential process. In her free time, she enjoys reading and playing with her pet dogs – Kopi & Xiaobai.

About Somatic Experiencing…

Hi readers, I know it has been a (long) while since I posted any blogs. I thought of sharing about what Somatic Experiencing is in brief and easily understood manner in a series of posts. The posts would come in very simple question and answer format. So no worries, no long-winded posts!

The first is shared below, have fun reading & learning!

How would you describe somatic experiencing? Is there a difference between somatic therapy and somatic experiencing?

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is actually a naturalistic approach to healing trauma and stress related disorders. It is the culmination of the life’s work of Dr. Peter Levine. He combined his knowledge as a biophysicist and psychologist as well as many other multidisciplinary studies to help the body to release trauma and restore goodness.

The term “soma” basically means “body” in Greek. While “experiencing” is a verb. Hence, SE is the process of working with the body in the experience of the here and now. There are various ways to work with the body using SE, some examples may include tracking of body sensations, movement, breath and touch work.

SE is a specific approach amidst the various somatic therapeutic approaches (i.e: Feldenkrais Method, Rolfing, Alexander Technique, etc) that have been created over the years.

To learn more about SE, you may want to try reading “Waking the Tiger” or “Unspoken Voice” by Dr. Peter Levine.

Thank you for reading! Stay tune for more!

About the contributor

Dominica is a psychotherapist at Soulmatics. She is also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and a certified TRE Provider. She enjoys integrating body-oriented approaches in the therapeutic process to help those who come to her to have a more holistic and experiential process. In her free time, she enjoys reading and playing with her pet dogs – Kopi & Xiaobai.