Counselling for Stress Management

Counselling for Stress

Stress is a pressure that we cannot cope with or that is overwhelming us. Stress has an impact on every aspect of our lives; it disrupts our thinking patterns making it harder for us to consider things in a calm, clear and measured way, it affects how we feel leaving us physically tense and emotionally volatile, intolerant and exhausted and it interferes with normal patterns of behaviours including sleeping, eating and sex drive.

Who Can Counselling for Stress Help?

Do you experience regular headaches, stomach pains/upset stomach, chest pains, elevated blood pressure? Do you have trouble sleeping? Do you worry a lot? Do you become easily agitated, frustrated and moody? Do you often feel overwhelmed like you are losing control? Do you have trouble relaxing? Do you have trouble quieting your mind?

If you have answered yes to one or more of these questions you may be suffering from stress and may benefit from a course of counselling to help you to alleviate your symptoms.

A Recent Testimonial

“I cannot comment positively enough on the psychologist that I saw at The Harley Psychology & Therapy Group. She provided a structured yet flexible framework for discussing my issues. She was insightful and at times necessarily firm and challenging which was exactly the sort of counsellor I had hoped to be paired with. I do not know if this is her natural style or she was perceptive enough to realise that such an approach would suit my personality. But either way, I was delighted to discover she wasn’t just full platitudes. I found her to be helpful, a great listener, perceptive and broad minded. She was able to draw accurate insights into my troubles and pinpoint key issues which were manifesting themselves in a number of ways in many areas of my life. She was able to direct me to helpful books and teach me key skills for overcoming problems. I would very highly recommend The Harley Psychology & Therapy Group to anyone seeking help.”.
Sophie - Richmond

What Does Therapy for Stress Involve?

Step 1

To start with you will meet with one with our Therapists who will ask you about your symptoms of stress and how they impact your life. They will then work with you to understand the sources of your stress, so that they can select the most effective treatment programme to alleviate your symptoms and help you to move forward with your life in a calmer more centred way.

Step 2

Your Therapist will then work with you to develop a range of stress reduction techniques that will focus on eliminating the thoughts and behaviours that exacerbate stress and replacing them with alternatives that will promote balance in your life and leave you feeling less overwhelmed and more in control.

Step 3

You will then also be taught how to induce a state of body and mind relaxation for yourself to manage high levels of stress when they occur and if you are comfortable doing so, mindfulness meditation techniques to reduce your baseline level of stress and to minimise the occurrence of future episodes of stress.

Step 4

To future proof your therapy, in the final phase of treatment your Therapist will help you to understand the factors that have made you vulnerable to stress in the first place and then help you the develop strategies to limit their influence on you in the future.

Fees

Prices can be found on our Fees Page. If you have any questions then please do not hesitate to call 0203 504 9300 or fill out a contact form.

Locations

We have clinics in Richmond, Liverpool Street, Clapham, Marylebone, Fulham, Islington, Twickenham, Chiswick, East Dulwich and Nottingham. We also offer Online Counselling via Video.

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Therapists

All of our Therapists offer Stress counselling, click here to view the team.

What are the causes of Stress?

Any number of challenging life experiences that involve adjusting to some kind of change can lead to stress if we are not adequately equipped to deal with it.

In order to prevent external pressures becoming sources of stress we need a comprehensive set of coping strategies to enable us to tolerate, manage and most importantly not exaggerate or enhance the impact that pressure has on us. If we are lucky we may have developed these skills in our childhood and adolescence with the help of our parents and other significant adults. However, if not as adults we must learn these skills.

Stress is not an illness in itself but it is a contributory factor in the development of many physical and emotional problems including high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, headaches, chronic fatigue, stomach problems, back pain, anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa) and relationship problems. It can also exacerbate existing conditions including asthma, overeating and alcoholism.

What treatment is available for Stress?

A good stress management programme will help you to tackle stress in the following ways:

By identifying sources of stress
By identifying unhelpful ways in which you currently deal with stress (including thinking, feeling and behaving)
By developing alternative and more helpful ways of responding to stress that do not undermine your physical and emotional well being.
By anticipating future potential sources of stress and developing coping strategies in advance.

The best stress management therapies include the key principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) as this approach targets thinking, feeling and behaviour in a comprehensive, accessible and evidence based way.