Central London counselling for anxiety
Therapy that helps you become less anxious
Friendly and constructive support for all types of anxiety, conveniently located in Kings Cross, Oxford Circus or online. A life free of anxiety is possible - make it your reality.
At the level of the individual episode, the answer is a firm yes. Anxiety is self-limiting. A full-blown panic attack typically lasts 5-20 minutes. Less intense feelings of anxiety may hang around for longer, but they will pass with time.
If the question is “Will I ever stop being an anxious person?” then the answer is that’s is possible, but it takes a little work. You can become both less prone to anxiety and also better able to manage any blips of anxiety that do still arise.
A key factor in problematic anxiety is that people become anxious about being anxious. Developing the confidence that you can tolerate and manage your anxiety makes a huge difference.
We all feel anxious sometimes. It’s a natural and healthy response to triggers like exams, job interviews and health scares. Feeling anxious in those situations is different from having an anxiety disorder.
Some people suffer from high levels of anxiety which interferes with their daily life. They may be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.
It’s helpful to distinguish between the causes of underlying anxiety and the triggers of anxious episodes - in other words, separating what makes you prone to anxiety from what sets off an anxious episode.
The underlying causes of anxiety are complex. Mind identifies common factors including:
stressful past experiences, such as bullying or abuse
high stress in your current living situation, eg being out of work, isolated or recently bereaved
a family history of anxiety, which can be passed down through genes and parenting
significant physical or mental health issues
some prescription medications
use of recreational drugs, or withdrawal from them.
Triggers will be individual to you, but examples include:
meeting new people
speaking in meetings
going to the doctor
dating
performing in front of others.
What triggers anxiety?
Does anxiety ever go away?
If you are someone who gets angry more than most people, there can be a number of reasons for this:
genetic predisposition - studies such as Mick et al (2014) have suggested some genetic markers are linked to a tendency to become angry more easily
a frustrating life - you may have a lot of things to feel angry about in your life
cognitive distortions - you may perceive situations more negatively than other people
emotional avoidance - you may use anger as a way to avoid feeling the more vulnerable emotions that often lie beneath anger.
Your genes can’t be changed, but they only create a tendency, they don’t mean you’re destined to be angry. The other causes can be addressed with the support of an anger management therapist.
Should I push through my anxiety?
What emotion is behind anger?
Anger is sometimes referred to as a secondary emotion because it often arises as a way of protecting us from a painful primary emotion. For example, if your partner says something that hurts your feelings, rather than experiencing the pain of that, you may pivot to anger and respond by saying something hurtful back.
There isn’t just one emotion that underlies anger - it can be any of many possible emotions including:
hurt
fear
anxiety
grief
stress
disgust.
Why do I get so angry over little things?
It’s not the little things themselves that anger you; it’s what they represent. For example:
if your partner leaves the kitchen in a mess, you may interpret that as them thinking you should clean up after them and feel angry about the inequity of that
if a friend is late meeting up with you, you may feel angry about them not valuing your time and, by extension, not valuing you
if your dad teases you in front of the rest of the family for the hundredth time, you may think it’s never going to stop and feel angry about your powerlessness to put an end to it.
In anger therapy, I help my clients to uncover these underlying meanings and understand where they come from. That reduces the power that the underlying meanings have over my clients, thus taking some of the heat out of their anger.
Anger alone isn’t a mental illness - indeed, feeling angry is a normal, healthy response to some situations. However, DSM-V (the diagnostic manual for mental health) lists aspects of anger such as disproportionate outbursts and frequent irritability as symptoms of mental health conditions including:
intermittent explosive disorder
oppositional defiant disorder
disruptive mood dysregulation disorder
borderline personality disorder
bipolar disorder.
Is anger a mental illness?
As anger isn’t a disease, my work as an anger therapist is not to cure it. It is inevitable and healthy to feel angry sometimes, and we wouldn’t want that to be repressed. What we can do in anger management counselling is:
reduce disproportionate anger by changing cognitive distortions
explore ways to change any circumstances and relationships that anger you
develop new, less problematic ways to behave when you are feeling angry
work on strategies to acknowledge and repair any damage caused by your angry behaviour.
Can anger be cured?
How do I calm down when I’m angry?
When people come for counselling for anger, they often ask how to calm down, how to stop being so angry all the time or how to stop shouting when angry. They’re not straightforward questions to answer, because the strategies and techniques need to be tailored to you.
Together we’ll work on recognising the signals that your anger is building up and identifying strategies to de-escalate the situation before it reaches boiling point.
We’ll also think about techniques to take the heat down if things are already at boiling point, such as a carefully structured time out process.
As your anger counsellor, I will help you with self control and how you can exercise it more widely. There are probably situations in which you wouldn’t lose your temper - in a client meeting, with your in-laws or at a funeral perhaps? That shows that you have self control, but that at some level you choose not to exercise in all situations. So we work on broadening the range of situations in which you exercise self control.
What is anger management?
Anger management is the process of understanding, and learning to control, your anger. It may be delivered as classes, group sessions or individual therapy. I offer the individual therapy variety, which provides more space for getting to the bottom of your specific issues. I also provide anger management for couples, to manage problematic anger in their relationships.
In practice, I don’t separate anger management from psychotherapy, so if you want to address other issues that’s absolutely fine. In other words, anger management can be the complete focus of your therapy or just one component of it, as you prefer.
How does anger management therapy work?
We have weekly individual or couples therapy sessions, each 50 minutes long, either in person in Kings Cross or Oxford Circus, or online. In those sessions, we discuss your anger triggers, cognitive distortions and problematic angry behaviours. I may give you exercises to do between sessions, but only if you want them.
As the anger management therapy progresses, you can expect to:
understand your anger better
feel angry less often and less intensely
develop better control over your behaviour when you are angry.
Why choose me?
I’m a knowledgeable and skilled therapist, with over 15 years’ experience seeing many (less angry now!) clients. My approach is friendly, understanding and warm, but with a backbone! My therapy practices are conveniently located near Oxford Circus and Kings Cross, and I also offer online therapy.
I offer free introductory chats and half price initial consultations so that you don’t have to spend a lot to get a feel for whether I’m a good fit for you. Most clients who come for an initial consultation with me choose to continue with me, but if I’m not the right fit for you I will be happy to refer you to a colleague. I manage a large team of therapists so if I’m not the perfect fit for you there’s a good chance I know someone who is!
Next steps
If that sounds good to you, it’s easy to book an initial consultation or a free introductory phone call here…
If you want to find out more first, feel free to contact me and I’ll get back to you promptly.