Beyond Talking

Common to all new and unfamiliar experiences is the symptom of 'stress'.

Stress may be described as residing in your mind or in your body or both.

'Healthy' stress is a normal and necessary response to life challenging experiences. However, at times we cannot get to grips with the challenges we face and this is when we move from 'stressed' to 'distressed'.

Distress may be chronic (you don’t know yourself any other way) or temporary (a disruption to your usual self). It may be experienced specifically (in response to a particular person, time, place or event) or generally (all the time and everywhere with everyone).

Distress affects mood and our moods change in response to circumstances and beliefs.

Experiences such as world events, grief, new relationships, work changes, divorce, redundancy, moving location, menopause, older age, illness, surgery, disability, convalescence, parenting, caring for family and pets and so on can be both stressing and distressing at different times, both personally or by association.

Happily therapeutic treatment is usually a relief and helps to downsize unmanageable distress to manageable, healthy stress and mood.

If deciding whether to consider therapy is distressing, you may wish to consult your GP for diagnosis and medical treatment prior to seeing me or in conjunction with therapy.