Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Lantzville, BC.

Anxiety can be debilitating. Uncovering the underlying causes for the worries and fears then learning how to relax will help control your anxiety levels, stop worrisome thoughts, and conquer your fears. Developing more positive coping and problem solving skills will provide you with life long tools for managing unexpected situations. Realizing it is your thoughts and their perceptions, not the external event, that affects the way you feel and react, will allow you to replace the negative reaction with positive ones. Stress can be managed by taking control. Prioritize, identify the major source then each additional one then follow through with changes remembering you are in control.

I approach anxiety counseling with a professional and evidence-based methodology, ensuring that you receive the utmost quality of care. Drawing from a robust background in psychology, education, and therapy, I am well-prepared to navigate the intricacies of anxiety and its impact on your life. While anxiety is a natural response to stress, I recognize that, for some, it can become overwhelming and disruptive. It may manifest in various forms, such as generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, panic disorder, or specific phobias. Together we will implement proved techniques to relieve you of the anxiety that is impacting your well-being.

Anxiety and stress are something everyone faces at times. When worry becomes overwhelming, however, it can affect the quality of your life. I offer simple easy-to-follow strategies for dealing with anxiety in the moment, and I can help you explore its deeper roots--childhood experiences, trauma, relationship issues, career problems, unexplored life-meaning, and others. I have advanced certification with the Anxiety Disorder Association of BC (AnxietyBC, through the UBC Psychology Department) and years of experience helping people. Cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and psychotherapy are some of the tools I can use to help you feel in control of your worries.

It is my view that each client comes to my door with a unique combination of gifts, strengths and challenges. My primary focus is to help you remember and connect with your innate wisdom and your innate strength and resiliency. Then find your unique way of entering in conversation with it so you may connect with what you intrinsically know, with the aim of connecting with, strengthening and activating your emotional immune system, that can then activate the healing of the wounds you may have suffered. Taking into account your most pressing needs and concerns, we will design and create together the kind of therapy that works best for you at The Centre For Expressive Therapy.

Prolonged stress and anxiety can result in impairment to our mental and physical health. We may experience high blood pressure, significant weight loss or gain, inability to concentrate or sleep, panic attacks, agitation and irritability. Overtime, these ailments can not only decrease our life satisfaction, but reduced our overall health. Don’t ignore the symptoms. Get help. Counselling can help you learn ways to cope, identify the underlying causes of your stress and explore ways to reduce stress and anxiety in your life.

We live in stressful times and often the day-to-day demands of dealing with challenges at home and in the workplace begin to overwhelm us. Counselling can help to prevent problems with mental health by providing a place to talk through the stressors that bother us, resolve internal conflicts, and develop the skills to set limits and create boundaries with others. I use a variety of approaches in therapy to help you manage stress and resolve the symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety is a disorder that comes in many forms. I specialize in helping people resolve Generalized Anxiety (GAD); Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD); Phobias and medical procedure anxiety.

Anxiety and stress are universal human experiences to which we can all relate. Though they may present in a myriad of ways being equipped with tools and strategies will improve your confidence in our ability to manage your own stress and anxiety. Our therapists are here to help you build out your toolbox so that you can gain a greater sense of control and balance.

Feelings of anxiety can become so intense that it becomes overwhelming. Often individuals struggling with anxiety express constant intruding thoughts that focus on fears of events of the future. Anxiety can create physical feelings of distress like a tight chest that makes it difficult to breath, an upset or tight feeling in the stomach, and general fatigue from constantly trying to control their thoughts and actions. Some people have battled anxiety for so long that they begin to believe it is just who they are and accept the restrictions it causes in their life. Through counselling we will work to break the cycle of anxiety controlling your inner world. Bringing a sense of relief, control and freedom that has been absent for so long.

Everyone reacts differently to stress and there can be variance depending on what the stress stimulus is! Knowing how you respond can be helpful when learning to cope with stress or anxiety. Fight, flight, freeze, and appease are types of responses that are reactive to stress and anxiety. Flight response includes avoiding situations, people, or thoughts. Those who react with fight tend to feel frustrated and irritable. This can look like bursts of anger or resistance to situations and people. Those who freeze tend to shut down, feel like they are disconnected from themselves or the world, or feel stuck in the stressful situation. Therapy can help mitigate some of these responses.

Often people will tell others to stop worrying and lower your stress because of the serious health problems it can cause, but despite our best attempts to do this, most often people are simply unsuccessful -- the more we try to "control" these problem areas, the worse the worry cycle usually gets. Mindfulness and self-compassion can help us break this cycle by learning to accept our feelings and stop getting hooked into the stress, anxiety and worry. What if these attempts to "control" the anxiety is actually part of the problem that keeps us stuck in it and leads us away from the meaningful life we desire? These are ways we begin to unwind the challenges that come with anxiety and stress.

Anxiety as a result of stress is one of, if not the major contributing factor to poor health in most areas of people lives. If you have ever been tense before an exam or a visit to the dentist, you have a felt anxiety. Increased heart rate, sweating, rapid breathing, dry mouth, & a sense of dread are common. Changing this involves cognitive & behavioural approaches. Cognitive change is understanding how thoughts contribute to symptoms and how to change thought patterns to reduce the intensity of your anxiety. And behavioral changes involve using techniques to reduce or stop any undesired behaviors that are a result of the anxiety you have been experiencing.

Everyone has anxiety and stress in their life! It is important to evaluate where the majority of it comes from and discover ways to cope at times that are difficult and challenging. It is also critical to recognize when anxiety and stress is past a point that is manageable. Some treatment methods I would use would be grounding techniques, meditation, and Socratic questioning. These techniques would be used to figure out the root cause of the anxiety and stress and also to help determine the cause. Other strategies that may be applied include journalling, incorporating exercise, and other activities to help manage both the anxiety and stress.

While most treatment approaches for anxiety and stress are effective on the surface, they don’t treat the real problem. Mantras, deep breathing, and rational dialogues about your fear being irrational rarely work---for most people don’t believe it or you! Imagine if you can trick the brain into changing without you telling your conscious mind that you are changing it? Problem with anxiety and stress is that the brain in this state knows you want to change it and it resists. Contact Kevin@kevinfleminphd.com for the ultimate stress and anxiety solution that will literally change your brain's autonomic nervous system patterns while you sit on your butt. 877-606-6161.