Freedom from fear © Martyn Carruthers

Online Help: Coaching, Counseling & Therapy

Do you often feel anxious? Are you sometimes scared?
Do you worry unduly? Do you want to manage anxiety, fear or worry?

Anxiety, Fear & Worry

Anxiety, fear & worry are unpleasant emotions that motivate people to avoid certain situations; but these emotions can also cause adults to feel powerless and act like children. We help people manage and change emotions that prevent adult decisions, mature behavior and healthy relationships.

If you worry or feel anxious without apparent cause, you may be reliving childish memories. Many people are stuck in leftover emotions from childh¸ood trauma, abuse and relationship disappointments. Other people learned to be anxious, fearful or worrying simply by copying their parents.

Whatever the cause, we can probably help you reduce your fears or resolve your anxiety without psychoactive medications.

Nervousness, Anxiety & Panic Attacks

Do you worry even when nothing is wrong?
Can you relax? Do you constantly expect the worst?

Anxiety is always a choice …. and rarely a useful choice.

If you worry a lot, your muscles may get tense and sore. You will likely feel tired and people may call you irritable or grouchy. It may be harder for you to concentrate, to relax or even to sleep. You may have a sense of dread or doom yet not know what you are worrying about. Do you feel that life is moving on without you?

“Are these shadows of things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be?”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Anxiety often begins in childhood or adolescence. More women seem to suffer from anxiety than men, and anxiety seems to run in families. Some anxiety problems are due to food allergies; but most seem to reflect relationship problems. Anxiety may lessen with age … if you want to wait that long.

Health Anxiety

If you are anxious about your health, you probably wish that you weren’t. You may have health anxiety. Although many health professionals and drug salespeople are obsessed with solving health problems, few medical professionals seem to relate to people with health anxiety. They may accuse you of exaggerating – they may call you a hypochondriac, a malingerer … or a liar.

Obsessions and Compulsions . Addictions

Some people interpret body sensations as signs of serious disease (hypochondria). Some people invent or exaggerate medical symptoms to avoid work, to qualify for disability payments or to evade military service (malingering). Some people lie about their health to manipulate others.

Do you invent or inflate medical symptoms to help you get what you want? Do you enjoy deceiving medical professionals? Health anxieties may also be associated with trauma, PTSD, eating disorders and occasionally with phobias.

Hypochondria: Are you worried sick?

Hypochondria is a persistent irrational fear that you are suffering, or will suffer, from a serious medical condition. You may believe that you have heart problems, cancer or some serious disease – and that your doctor is not trying hard enough to cure you.

You may feel dizziness, swelling, palpitations or pain. If you misread these symptoms, you may distrust medical professionals. You may interpret normal signs (like headache or fatigue etc) as dangerous. Such behavior often follows loneliness, depression, guilt or a preoccupation with death.

If you believe that your body is defective or deformed or if you are using phantom defects to justify your depression or loneliness, then endless reassurance or even plastic surgery are unlikely to ease your unpleasant feelings about your body.

Most hypochondriac people will never go to a psychiatrist, they’ll say, ‘I don’t
want to talk about this, I want another biopsy, I want that CAT scan repeated.
Dr Arthur Barsky (Harvard Medical School)

Depression . Stress . Nervousness

Social Phobia – Social Anxiety

Do you dread being judged, criticized, and evaluated. You may think that your fear is irrational, and you may be diagnosed with social phobia or social anxiety.

If you have social phobia you find it difficult to be with people (“What are they thinking about me; maybe they don’t like me“). You may attract attention to yourself or even try to be the center of attention (“They don’t like what I’m doing; am I making a fool of myself?“). If you feel insecure and self-conscious in social settings, we can help you manage your emotions and thoughts.

GAD – Generalized Anxiety

You are constantly worried or afraid. You complain of non-stop anxiety! You may even worry in your dreams. You may have muscle pains and headaches, you may feel constantly tired and yet you cannot seem to relax. You may sweat a lot, even at night. You may feel that you might vomit.

If you have generalized anxiety you may find it difficult to leave your home. (“What will happen? Maybe something terrible”). You may be afraid of losing it in public. If you feel insecure in all parts of your life, you may be diagnosed as agoraphobic.

Solutions for Anxious Children

About 10 – 20% of pediatric patients suffer from anxiety disorders, and many frightened children grow up to become anxious adults. We often coach parents to sort out their own relationship problems and emotions as a way to help their children. Healthy, happy parents are much better role models.

Solutions for Anxieties and Phobias

Doctors often treat anxiety with antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs (benzodiazepines & beta-blockers) rather than solving relationship issues.

A male client was involved with a cult. His teenage son was assumed to have an anxiety disorder – yet the son’s symptoms vanished after a few sessions of our online help with his father, who decided to love his family more than he loved his cult.

A female client lived in a state of constant anxiety. As we worked with her, she said that her sister had been a prostitute who supported her family. The family claimed that a rich relative was sending them money. The client had identified with her sister and expressed her sister’s hidden fears. (It remained resolved two years later).

Do you want to stop feeling anxious and enjoy more calmness? We offer individual coaching, couple counseling, and therapy. Contact us to change anxious thoughts, manage compulsions and improve difficult relationships.

Please consult your physician about medical conditions.

Do you want to manage negative emotions or solve relationship problems?