Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Ottawa, ON.

Stress management starts with identifying sources of stress. Your true sources of stress aren’t always obvious, and it’s all too easy to overlook your own stress-inducing thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Together we look at your thought patterns that may keep you stuck in your stress cycle. Anxiety is a natural bodily response to a stressful or dangerous situation. Your body reacts and you experience a racing heart, sweaty palms and shortness of breath. For some people this reaction is more intense and can last hours. Anxiety can be overwhelming and take control of your life. Anxiety may coexist with depression. Call today at 613 287 3799 to learn how you can take control of your stress.

Helping client's understand what the difference is between stress and anxiety. Helping them identify what is causing them anxiety and what stressors they may be able to eliminate from their lives. Offering clients a variety of strategies to cope with stress and anxiety --- exploring healthy lifestyle habits, work-life balance possibilities, learning to say no and setting appropriate boundaries, self-care, CBT strategies (such as using a thought record), mindfulness strategies (deep breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation), etc.

My cross-training in counselling, conflict resolution, mediation and hypnotherapy can be very empowering for clients who come to my practice suffering from anxiety and stress. Unfortunately most people attempt to reduce their stress by choosing a form of pleasure that only leads them into more stress. I remind my clients that they can choose to utilize stress reducing techniques rather than stress increasing choices. Another common symptom is anxiety about becoming anxious again. I teach clients that if they focus on the present moment that this anxiety can be markedly reduced. I teach clients the techniques of getting a good sleep....the most important stress reducing factor.

Anxiety and its cousins, fear and panic, have cognitive and emotional components and behavioural manifestations. Clients become skilled in recognizing this negative spiral, where negative thinking reinforces emotional dis-regulation, by challenging this unconscious mechanism with conscious and healthy replacement tools. Clients are ultimately able to live a life of conscious choice in the present.

Learning how to manage anxiety & deal with the irrational thoughts or distressing behaviours associated with anxiety is an essential first step to recovery. Processing the deeper emotions & meanings associated with past & present day difficult life situations is also important to build a more secure, resilient self that is capable of facing the challenges of everyday life without becoming overwhelmed.

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.

Anxiety and excessive worry can present in a variety of forms; however, when these experiences begin to act as roadblocks in our lives, Counselling support can help alleviate these challenging feelings while fostering a sense of mastery over these pesky worries and feelings of anxiety. Using a gentle, understanding, and compassionate approach to Counselling, the client can begin to feel confident in utilizing new and effective coping strategies in the face of anxiety-provoking situations.

Everyone feels anxiety at some point in their lives but when it starts to interfere with your life, counseling can help. Although anxiety can feel debilitating, it is treatable. People with anxiety don’t always share the same symptoms, they vary from person to person. Therapy will help you to reclaim your life and function in a chronically stressful world.

Anxiety and Stress are both life and living challenges. They are part of the normal obstacles we face in our lifetime, be it in health, in illness, in marriage, in couple and relationship issues, in aging and with our children. The thoughts, feelings and behaviors associated with them can often overwhelm and even paralyze us when they occur. In a supportive and empathic environment I help people understand and demystify these feelings and find coping strategies so that they can overcome these crippling experiences in order to live productively again.

Dealing with anxiety and stress involves some understanding of the situation and what might be causing or contributing to a problem. Often it will be the unique way in which we think about something said to be our automatic thoughts and from there we learn to evaluate them for any sign of distortion. Our thoughts for example, may come across as catastrophizing or seeing only the worst in an event which will naturally lead to anxiety/stress. In counselling we can gain some valuable insight and achieve greater awareness learning to step back examining with a different lens and therefore expanding our perspective. This serves to allow for a more enlightened thought or mood to emerge.

Anxiety disorders commonly coexist with addiction tendencies. Anxiety can severely inhibit a person's life, causing them to feel an irrational amount of panic, fear and other negative emotions in any given circumstance. Severe anxiety may influence a person to avoid leaving their house, or to become paralyzed in situations they interpret as stressful. Many people who struggle with anxiety will try to self medicate with alcohol or drugs, which ultimately makes their symptoms worse. A dual diagnosis of addiction and anxiety requires special treatment considerations; the kind that Valiant Recovery provides.

Anxiety and stress are normal aspects of life, however, when these two become excessive due to serious life challenges then one is required to seek for professional support immediately. In therapy, I will help you identify the cause of your stressors and your anxiety. I will also work with you to identify how the anxiety is affecting your emotions, your behavior, your thinking style, and your relationships, together we will work out strategies to strengthen your coping abilities to deal with your life stressors and the cause of your anxiety. I will teach you techniques and strategies to help you cope with your particular situation, you will build up your motivation and your social skills.

For many years I have taught Relaxation and Imagery for anxiety and Stress issues. I have found Mindfulness meditation to be particularly useful to those clients who commit themselves to the process. EMDR [eye movement desensitizing and reprocessing] can also be useful in reducing Anxiety. I work with Generalized Anxiety as well as Social Anxiety. Cognitive/ Behavioral therapy is useful with clients suffering from these issues.