Common mental health issues
Abuse
Abuse is where your treatment by others becomes harmful to you. Abuse can be demonstrated in many forms including emotionally, physically or sexually. Getting involved with therapy can help you address how this has made you feel and work through these feelings so that you feel better about yourself.
Addictions
Addiction happens when you become abnormally dependent on something, often when you’re trying to escape from other problems you are experiencing. You can be addicted to many things including: alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, the internet, and shopping. Therapy can help you address the causes of addiction to help you stop your addictive behaviour.
Adoption
Being adopted can directly affect you in many ways. You may possibly feel in turmoil: feel loss, rejection, confusion, frustration or disappointment; feel depressed and experience a split loyalty. In therapy you can talk through how this affects you, clarify how you think, and explore the issues that you are experiencing.
Anxiety
Most of people in modern day life tend to suffer from stress levels. Sometimes it can get too much to control anxiety and help is need. Therapy could help you to alleviate the symptoms but also assist you to start exploring and understanding the reasons why you are feeling anxious on a regular basis.
The physical symptoms of anxiety can be: sleeplessness, rapid heartbeat, palpitations, dizziness and irritability. These signs can often accompany feelings of intense apprehension or worry. These can be common in mental illness or after extreme or distressing experiences.
Anger Management
Anger is a normal emotion, but it can become unbearable and eventually lead to problems for you, your family and your personal relationships. Anger can show itself as aggression if you become violent and threatening to others. This type of anger can quickly lead to trouble for you and can sometimes cause a breakdown in relationships. Anger can disrupt your ability to think and act clearly and can lead you to behave impulsively. Anger is sometimes used as a defence barrier against hurt or embarrassment. When anger is suppressed or turned inwards, it can lead to other problems such as eating disorders, self-harm, drugs, alcohol and other addictions. You may suppress the anger if you find it difficult to talk about how you feel. Therapy can often help with finding the root of your anger and providing ways to control and change your behaviour patterns.
Bereavement
The experience of bereavement or loss can be very varied and your response to it is unique to you. It is quite normal to feel angry or sad when a loved one dies or leaves. Even the loss of a pet can have a major psychological effect, as they are often like a family member. You may feel grief, anger, loneliness or denial as a result of loss and bereavement. Working through these feelings with a therapist could help you come to terms with your loss.
Bullying
Bullying occurs when a person or a group of people are able to affect you seriously, causing you pain and distress. It not only happens in the playground but can happen in many workplaces, education facilities and families. It operates at all levels of society, within all age groups and can be both emotional and physical. Once acknowledged, therapy can be helpful for the victim and the bully.
Cultural Issues
Britain has become an increasingly multi-cultural and a multi-racial society. First, second and third generations are bringing their own unique language, cultures, beliefs and traditions into other cultures. Experiencing ‘culture shock’ may mean you need help adjusting to your own and other cultures. Personal and professional relationships between two sets of cultures challenge and put pressure on people to maintain their own identity and values which can be traumatic at times.
These issues may cause: anger, anxiety, isolation, low self-esteem, negative self-image, and feelings of being different. Counselling will support you to acknowledge the impact these issues can have on your wellbeing and help you to cope with them.
Dementia
Living with dementia can raise many difficult feelings and thoughts. You may find it hard to make sense of what is happening to you and how your life is changing. There are feelings of anger, confusion, fear and anxiety. Concerns about your family and friends may be tied to how you are feeling and you may find it difficult to discuss your feelings frankly with those who are close to you. If you are faced with dementia yourself, or for a close family member, you may find therapy gives you the opportunity to speak honestly about your feelings and work out ways to live with the condition.
Depression
Depression can affect the way a person functions, thinks, sleeps, eats, and feels. These symptoms can be mild, with a low mood that soon picks up, or it can be a consistent low mood that lasts for several weeks or more. This often prevents a person from functioning to their full ability. This is not something that can be changed overnight; it is not a sign of weakness or failure. Depression can be a particularly devastating illness that affects your body, mood, behaviour and thoughts. If treatment does not occur, symptoms can be present for years. Particularly concerning is the potential for suicidal thoughts. A range of psychological interventions are recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) for the treatment of depression including: counselling and psychotherapy.
Drugs and Alcohol
Addiction to substances can have a very negative impact in your life. Getting professional health with someone that has vast experience on the issue can make a big difference. The first step is wanting to change your addictive behaviour and understanding the reasons and patterns will also help to clarify the way forward. It is definitely possible to increase your quality of life even if you are not too sure how to cut it down or even stop completely your substance misuse.
Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are extremely common and can be serious or maybe even life threatening if they are not treated appropriately. The main characteristic of an eating disorder is an obsession with weight. These thoughts can lead to severe consequences concerning health and behaviour. People with eating disorders often use food, and the control of food intake, in an attempt to compensate for feelings and emotions that may otherwise seem overwhelming. For some, dieting, bingeing, and purging, may begin as a way to cope with painful emotions and to take control. If these behaviours continue, they will ultimately damage your physical and emotional health and self-esteem. Therapy can be helpful in changing thoughts and expectations and by providing support and encouragement.
Health-related issues
Therapy can help anyone who is generally worried about their health, or who needs help in coming to terms with being diagnosed with illness. Often there can be a feeling of ‘Why Me’? Working through the feelings that may accompany such a diagnosis can be beneficial to your quality of life.
Life Crisis
Life crisis is an important part of anyone’s development. Professional help may navigate you through this difficult period of crisis in order to start making sense of your life and real changes towards better existence.
Loneliness
Loneliness can be imposed and very damaging to our existence. Talking to someone and re-establishing your sense of connection could be an important step towards a greater movement away from isolation.
Loss
Losing someone or something you love is very painful. After a loss of any kind, you may experience all kinds of difficult and surprising emotions, such as shock, anger, and guilt. Grief is a natural response to loss. It is the emotional suffering you feel when something or someone you love is taken away. Loss is not just about death; you could also lose a relationship, a job or your health. Therapy can be used to help and provide support through this difficult period of your life.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
If you have OCD, you may have repeated obsessions and/or compulsions that make you feel anxious. Obsessions can be defined as thoughts, pictures or impulses which are usually unpleasant and come into mind when we do not want them. Compulsions describe the behaviours used in order to ‘put right’ or act on the obsession. It is most common to have both obsessions and compulsions, but you can have them on their own. You could also have more than one obsession and/or compulsion. Looking at patterns of behaviour with a therapist can be helpful.
Phobias
A phobia is an irrational, intense, persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things or people. The main symptom is the excessive and unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. Therapy can help you manage these thoughts and put them into perspective.
Post-traumatic stress (PTSD)
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a psychological and physical condition that is caused by a very frightening or distressing event. If you have PTSD, you may often re-live the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks. You may also have problems concentrating and sleeping, and feel isolated and detached. These symptoms are often persistent and can be severe enough to have a significant impact on your day-to-day life. Therapy can provide you with a space in which to process the traumatic event and your own individual reaction.
Pregnancy-related issues
The experience of pregnancy, whether it was planned for or unplanned, can be confusing and stressful, and can cause you to have mixed feelings. For example, you may have concerns about how it may change your relationships. Therapy can help you understand your feelings towards your pregnancy, or explore difficult emotions following the loss of a pregnancy through a miscarriage, stillbirth or an abortion.
Redundancy
Redundancy is a form of dismissal. It happens when you are dismissed because the work you do is no longer needed. This can lead to many different issues including a concern about how to pay your bills, or a feeling of loss and confusion. Working on the practicalities of redundancy through therapy, as well as your self-esteem and confidence, can help.
Relationships
More and more relationships tend to be difficult to form, maintain and enjoy face our vast possibilities. Discussion or relationships issues with another professional, caring professionals could allow you to start understand their real meaning. You will then have more possibilities to decide what is important and hopefully prioritise accordingly.
Talking therapy can help improve the way you relate to those people around you, and allow you to break free from old patterns. This can cover all areas including families, couples and friendships.
Self-esteem
If you have low self-esteem, you may tend to view life in a very negative way which can make things seem hopeless or pointless. You might see yourself as being worthless, and think other people are better than you. You may have difficulty in saying what you really feel and want, or you may lack confidence and find it difficult to be assertive. Consequently, you may feel that people take advantage of you and treat you badly. Therapy can enable you to explore the way you feel and help you to change your view of yourself and others.
Self Harm
For some people, self harm is a way of coping with painful and difficult feelings and distress. You may harm yourself because you feel overwhelmed and don’t know how else to deal with things. It is usually a very private issue and the motivations and methods used will differ from person to person. Some forms of self harm can carry a serious risk, but this does not mean that if you self harm you always intend to cause yourself serious injury. Therapy may help you discover and deal with the feelings that are causing you to self-harm.
Sex related issues
Sexual difficulties can occur at any time, especially during times of stress and change. If sex used to be exciting, but no longer seems so, therapy can help you look at why the change happened. In a good relationship, getting help should give you an opportunity to find some answers.
Sexual abuse
When you are pressured to do something sexual against your will, it is sexual abuse. This can include unwanted touching, photographing and rape. You may have suffered abuse and it may be that you blame yourself and did not report it. You may have been influenced to trust your abusers or feel you will be punished for reporting the abuse. Childhood abuse is not always addressed until sexual problems emerge in adulthood. Talking to a therapist could help you.
Sexual identity
Sexuality, gender, desire, sex are words that sometimes need more clarification when you may be struggling with your identity.
Part of our sexual identity is to work out whether we are more comfortable in same sex or opposite sex relationships, or both. You may feel really sure about your sexual identity or it can feel more fluid and changeable, but neither is wrong. Talking to a therapist helps to explore these feelings.
Stress
Daily life can be stressful. Stress can be a positive thing and help you achieve your goals. However, too much stress can put your health at risk and leave you unable to function. Everyone reacts differently to stress. Some people may have a higher threshold than others. Too much stress can often lead to physical, mental and emotional problems. You may seek therapy in order to manage your life differently or support you in developing coping strategies for your day-to-day life.
Suicidal feelings
Many kinds of emotional pain can lead to thoughts of suicide. Your responses to pain are unique. You may reach a point at which you feel you can no longer cope. You may not truly wish to die, but you may need help to cope at that moment. Therapy could help by sharing your thoughts and feelings and working on ways to transform negative thoughts into more positive ones.
Trauma
Emotional and psychological trauma can be the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, which can make you feel helpless and vulnerable in a dangerous world. Emotional and psychological trauma can be caused by a one-time event, such as a horrible accident, a natural disaster, or a violent attack. It can also stem from ongoing, relentless stress, such as living in a crime-ridden neighbourhood or struggling with major health issues.
Trauma can affect anyone on different levels and some professional work might be needed to release the symptoms. It can be sometimes a painful process but the goal is to lessen the impact of the traumatic memories on your present or future.
Talking to a therapist could help you.
Work-related issues
The average person spends almost a quarter of their adult life at work. It can give people a sense of purpose, structure and satisfaction whilst also providing the means to finance daily life. It can, however, also cause, stress, frustration, poor health and self-esteem issues. If you have started to lose sleep, constantly dread work, drink heavily, or you notice any repeating patterns, it may be useful to seek help from a therapist.