Anxiety can be difficult to understand. You might find yourself worrying more than usual. You may be thinking about what could go wrong, or feeling tense and overwhelmed without knowing exactly why.
Sometimes there is a clear reason for feeling anxious. It could be a difficult situation, a relationship, work, or something that has happened recently. At other times, anxiety can seem to come from nowhere.
There are different ways of managing anxiety, including talking therapies, medication and self-help. What works best will depend on the individual.
In this article, I want to focus on how talking counselling can help with anxiety and what you might explore with a counsellor.
1. Having a safe space to talk
One of the things counselling can offer is a confidential and non-judgemental space where you can talk about what is happening for you.
Talking about anxiety is not always easy. You might worry about burdening your friends or family. You may feel embarrassed about what you are experiencing, or worry that other people will not understand.
With a counsellor, you have time that is specifically set aside for you. A counsellor will listen to what you are experiencing and help you explore it. They are not there to tell you how you should feel or to give you all the answers.
Sometimes, simply having the space to slow down and put your experience into words can help you understand what is going on.
2. Understanding your anxiety
Anxiety does not always have one simple cause. It can be influenced by many things, including stress, relationships, current circumstances, our beliefs about ourselves and experiences from earlier in life.
Counselling can help you notice the connection between your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and behaviours.
For example, you might notice that when something uncertain happens, you immediately start thinking about the worst possible outcome. You then feel anxious, your body becomes tense, and you might avoid the situation or look for reassurance. This may make you feel better for a short time, but the anxiety can return later.
Once you start to recognise a pattern, you have more opportunity to understand what is happening and consider whether you want to respond differently.
Putting an experience into words can also make it feel less confusing. What once felt like a sudden wave of anxiety may start to make more sense when you understand what happened before it.
3. Looking at the past and the present
You might wonder why counselling sometimes involves talking about the past when the anxiety is happening now.
The present is important. We can look at what is happening in your life now, what tends to trigger your anxiety, what thoughts come up and how you respond when you feel anxious.
At the same time, earlier experiences can sometimes help us understand why certain situations feel particularly difficult today.
This does not mean that counselling has to involve going over your entire childhood or finding one event that “caused” your anxiety. For some people, the past may be relevant. For others, the focus may be much more on what is happening in their lives now.
I sometimes think of it like looking at a map. The present shows us where you are. Looking at the past can sometimes help us understand how you arrived there.
4. Recognising your triggers
Anxiety can be triggered by many different things. It could be a particular situation, environment, person, thought or uncertainty.
In counselling, you can start to notice what tends to happen before you become anxious. You might also explore what you do when the anxiety appears.
For example, you may avoid certain situations because they make you anxious. You might repeatedly ask other people for reassurance. You may spend a lot of time overthinking or trying to predict what will happen next.
Understanding these patterns can be an important first step. Once you know what is happening, you can begin to explore other ways of responding.
Depending on the type of counselling or therapy you are having, this might include learning practical coping strategies, exploring difficult emotions, looking at unhelpful thinking patterns or gradually approaching situations that you have been avoiding.
5. Learning new ways of responding
When we have responded to anxiety in the same way for a long time, those responses can become familiar. This is one reason why changing them can take time.
It is not always as simple as telling yourself to “stop worrying”. You may understand your pattern but still find yourself doing the same thing when you are under stress.
This does not mean that you have failed. Change often involves noticing what happened, understanding it and practising a different response over time.
Counselling can give you a space to do this with support.
The aim is not necessarily to get rid of anxiety completely. Anxiety is a normal human emotion, and we will all experience it at different points in our lives. The aim may instead be to understand your anxiety better and find ways of responding to it that are more helpful for you.
When might counselling be helpful?
You do not have to wait until your anxiety becomes unbearable before seeking support.
If anxiety is persistent or difficult to manage, or if it is affecting your sleep, relationships, work or everyday life, it may be worth speaking to a qualified mental health professional.
Counselling is not about finding something wrong with you. It can give you the opportunity to slow down and understand what you are experiencing. It can also help you explore patterns that may be difficult to see on your own.
If you have been finding anxiety difficult to manage, getting in touch with a counsellor could be a first step towards understanding what is happening and exploring what kind of support might be helpful for you.
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