Record Numbers of Students Seek Emotional Support for Anxiety and Depression
The emotional health and well-being of students is being tested since COVID-19 arrived. The pandemic has impacted many factors of their educational experience leaving some students feeling stressed, anxious, lonely and depressed.
Ordinarily, students embrace the new experience of living and studying away from home with great enthusiasm and excitement. Students enjoy growing and developing as they find their feet in a whole new world of education. They learn to budget and cook as well as many other life skills.
The unexpected challenges students are experiencing with online studies, lack of normal supports as well as financial pressures are immense. Not only that, they too are afraid of contracting the virus or being in quarantine.
The shine has certainly been taken off the experience of going to college. It should be about new opportunities, new friends and positive experiences not distance learning and isolation, leaving them feeling emotional, alone and vulnerable.
Many student quit college or university because they do not get off to the best start. This academic year, it is more important than ever that students understand themselves and how they respond to stress and pressure. They need to know that many others are feeling the same way. The pandemic is triggering intense emotional experiences for many of us. Students are not alone.
Self care is essential; sleep, exercise and routine have never been more important. Keeping in touch with friends and family is important. Engaging in hobbies and online social gatherings can help.
Colleges and universities may provide support services which you can access. If not, please do not hesitate to contact me. I may not be in your area, however we can use video calling facilities or I can put you in touch with a qualified and registered therapist in your local area.
How OCD Interferes with Daily Living
If you suffer with obsessive compulsive disorder, you are familiar with intrusive anxiety causing thoughts. What is most disturbing about these unwanted thoughts is the lack of control you have over them. These negative automatic thoughts create anxiety, which in turn compels a behaviour to relieve that anxiety. Unfortunately the relief gained from the behaviour is short-lived and so the cycle continues as shown in the diagram below.
Obsessions generally begin with intrusive thoughts that cause anxiety and in order for the person to feel a sense of safety or relief they are compelled to perform a behaviour i.e. a compulsion.
About 1 in 50 people or 2-3% of the population suffer with OCD. It affects men and women equally and usually begins before the age of 25.
Many celebrities have helped people seek treatment by discussing the implications of living with OCD and how it can interfere with everyday activities, commitments and relationships.
From Obsessive Hoarding to Compulsive Hand Washing
OCD is characterised by obsessions or compulsions or both. OCD can take many different forms and are broadly categorised into obsessions and compulsions as follows:
Categories of Obsessions:
- Aggressive obsessions – unwanted urges of causing harm
- Contaminations obsessions – fears that people or objects may be contaminated
- Sexual obsessions – unwanted sexual thoughts or fears about sexual orientation
- Hoarding/saving – obsessive collection and retention of materials
- Religious obsessions – intrusive religious blasphemous thoughts or compulsive praying
- Need for symmetry or exactness
- Somatic obsessions – including hypochondria or body appearance
Categories of Compulsions:
- Washing and cleaning – excessive hand washing, showering, cleaning
- Checking – preventing dangers, checking and rechecking locks and appliances
- Repeating rituals – unwanted urges to repeat specific behaviours
- Counting – doing something or checking something a specific number of times
- Ordering and arranging – having specific rules about the way things should be
- Mental rituals or other forms of counting and checking
Hypnotherapy and psychotherapy is an effective treatment available for those suffering with the debilitating effects of anxiety related OCD. The aim of the approach used in hypno-psychotherapy is to address the cause of the anxiety and to interrupt the continual looping that is overriding the brain’s frontal thinking cortex. This looping referred to is shown in the circular diagram. For more information and booking contact me, Sinead Duffy, Clinical Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist at my clinic in Monaghan town.
Phobias: How to Easily Overcome Excessive Fears and Phobias with Hypnotherapy
A phobia is an irrational fear of a particular thing or situation which can have devastating and debilitating consequences for the person involved. The physical reactions vary from mild to intense and include sweaty palms, erratic heartbeat, nausea, increased muscle tension, shortness of breath, blurred vision and fainting. Fears and phobias may be the product of past traumas, accumulated stresses or a series of negative experiences.
Some phobias are Simple Phobias and others are considered to be Complex Phobias. Simple phobias are usually isolated and tend to be specific e.g. fear of flying. These phobias are often fully resolved very quickly with hypnotherapy.
In the case of complex phobias, often the presenting phobia is not the real concern, its the underlying unresolved issues that must be addressed. The interesting thing about phobias is that the relationship of the phobia and the cause may not seem logical. For example, who would think that if a brother locked a sister in a cuppord that he she would grow up and present with fear of flying. The cause of the phobia is usually unconscious, therefore only an intervention which operates at an unconscious level can solve it i.e. therapy that is conducted hypnosis.
Top 10 Phobias
Here are a list of the top 10 most frequently experienced phobias listed on the ABC Newspage.
- Social phobias: excessive fear of social situations
- Agoraphobia: fear of open spaces
- Acrophobia: fear of heights
- Pteromerhanophobia: fear of flying
- Claustrophobia: fear of enclosed spaces
- Entomophobia: fear of insects
- Ophidiophobia: fear of snakes
- Cynophobia: fear of dogs
- Astraphobia: fear of storms
- Trypanophobia: fear of needles
The most commonly treated phobias in my therapy room are social phobia, fear of flying, fear of enclosed spaces and fear of needles, Although not listed on the top ten I have treated people with driving phobia. Thankfully fear of snakes is not a problem here in Ireland, however I have treated excessive fears and phobias of spiders, mice and birds.
Regardless of what phobia affects your life, there is no need to suffer. Hypno-psychotherapy is highly successful in treating irrational fears and phobias. If you want to find out more, please contact me today.