Huon Counselling
Services
Stress, Anxiety, Depression
Stress, anxiety, and depression are relatively common experiences, each with their own distinctive features.
Stress is a physical and psychological response to changing conditions, a normal part of day to day life that can in fact be positive – generating energy, alertness, and motivation to complete a range of tasks. Difficulties arise when too much stress is experienced at once; or smaller but significant amounts are experienced over a prolonged period of time. Ongoing stress can be detrimental to physical and mental health.
Anxiety is a strong sense of unease or worry in response to a perceived threat. In most situations stress and feelings of anxiety lessen when a stressful or threatening situation is removed. However sometimes the sense of uneasiness is not easily controlled and continues in the absence of any real threat, interfering with a person’s day to day functioning. Clinical anxiety is the most common mental health concern in Australia, with one in three women and one in five men experiencing some form in any twelve month period.
Depression, much more than simply ‘feeling down’, is a serious condition that will affect one in six Australians at some point in our lives. It is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Intense feelings of sadness for extended periods of time impact on the ability to function day to day, impairing the ability to enjoy activities that once gave pleasure, and people may experience social withdrawal and isolation. Early treatment for depression is vital to ensure the best long-term outcome.
The good news is that as these conditions are so common, there is a vast body of research into effective treatments. As well as support and understanding, Huon Counselling can provide you with techniques to reduce external stress, calm and regulate emotions, improve your sense of self-worth, and re-engage with living a vital life.
Parenting - Support and Encouragement
- Parenting is one of the most challenging responsibilities many of us will ever face. A process of constant adaptation as we meet the needs of dependent others, there’s good reason that we sometimes (or even often) feel overwhelmed and frustrated. In spite of its many struggles, and even in very challenging circumstances, it is possible to have positive relationships with your children that nurture and guide their developing capabilities, and reward you with an increased sense of closeness and achievement.
The importance of feeling supported, confident, and calm in your role as a parent cannot be overstated. Finding ways to nurture yourself and avoid burnout is a vital part of this process, but with most of us living busy lives it’s not always easy to know how and where to start. Particular stages in your child’s development, individual temperaments, and life circumstances, all contribute to different challenges that we meet while parenting.
Counselling can support you as a parent in a number of ways. First and foremost, a kind, listening ear can help to relieve some of the burden felt by many who are ‘always there for others’. It can also help you to find ways and means to care for yourself (even when time and money are limited), clarify your strengths and goals as a parent, and provide strategies for resolving behavioural issues and conflicts with children of all ages.
Resolving Trauma
Any experience that can damage a person’s sense of trust that the world is a safe place has the potential to result in trauma. The types of events that may result in trauma may be one-off occurrences such as experiencing theft, physical assault, flood, or fire; or ongoing experiences such as being subjected to bullying, domestic abuse, living in war-zones, or experiencing life-threatening illness.
Not all potentially traumatic events result in trauma. People react in different ways, depending on such things as the duration of the experience, whether it was of an interpersonal nature, and how much support was received at the time. For some, the resulting feelings of confusion, betrayal, and insecurity may be ongoing and severe. Trauma of an ongoing nature, especially if experienced during childhood, can have long term consequences that affect a person’s feelings of self-worth, and can be linked to anxiety, anger, depression, shame, alcohol and drug abuse, and difficulties relating to others.
Counselling can help you to find ways to alleviate the severity of many of these symptoms; to cope with and lessen unwanted thoughts, develop a greater sense of safety, self-worth, and inner harmony, and live life more fully.
Anger and Difficult Emotions
- Happiness, curiosity, excitement, love, contentment – positive emotions that we generally welcome with open arms. However some emotions can be much less welcome – experienced as painful, and in some circumstances can be harmful for ourselves and others.
Emotions such as anger, fear, self-criticism, sadness, loneliness, and jealousy, can feel particularly overwhelming; and many people have troubles understanding, tolerating, and responding effectively when they arise.
These emotions are an important part of life, and serve valuable functions as part of the complete experience of being human. It is important that we understand them; learning to accept and acknowledge, to allow them the space to be felt; and at the same time keep our sense of self and self-control intact. We can do this by learning more about what emotions are and why we have them, how they relate to bodily processes, thought processes, and social relationships. Perhaps most importantly, we can learn techniques to help us feel soothed and calm, and respond in the best way possible when these feelings arise.
Grief and Loss
- Grief is a normal response to loss. It can affect all aspects of a person’s life, and includes physical responses such as trouble with appetite, sleep, and illness; and emotional responses such as sadness, guilt, and despair. Any sort of loss can result in grief; for example the loss of a job, the end of a relationship, or sense of identity when we experience chronic illness or injury.
Perhaps the most difficult form of grief we can experience is that from the death of a loved one. There is no set pattern to grief, and no ‘correct’ way to grieve. Counselling can provide gentle support as you find your own way to work through this process. It can help you to explore and express your feelings, and to find a sense of meaning in your loss. If somebody you love has died, counselling can help you adjust to a world in which they are physically absent, while honouring your enduring connection and relationship.
