Worry
UNDERSTANDING YOUR WORRY PROCESS THROUGH THE LENS OF CBT IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO GET TO GRIPS WITH IT, REGARDLESS OF HOW MANY YEARS YOU HAVE BEEN A 'WORRIER'.
BURN OUT? WORRIED SICK? JUST NOT COPING?
Is the relentlessness of your worry getting in the way of you enjoying your life?
Perhaps you've always identified as "a bit of a worrier" but recently something has changed and you're finding that it's getting harder and harder to dismiss those worries, or to put them to the back of your mind.
Or perhaps this is something which is really new for you and you've never experienced worry before in the way it is showing up for you now, which is really worrying in itself - so then you find that you're worrying about the worrying!
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The relentlessness of the worry is sucking the pleasure out of life and depriving you of the enjoyment of everything you have worked hard for and deserve to find satisfaction in.
It feels like you’re stuck and can’t move on until you can get rid of this constant worry, but it just keeps showing up and ruining everything!
It feels like you're out of sync
with the world
How exactly will CBT help?
Worry is a bit of a crafty customer and it likes to hog the limelight in therapy.
When we first start working together on your worry I’ll start by helping you to increase your awareness of your worrying.
That might seem like a strange thing to say and you’re probably thinking that you’re perfectly aware that you’re worrying else you wouldn’t be looking for help.
But the reality is that we have different ways of worrying and sometimes it can fly under the radar!
It’s important to understand and be aware of all the ways in which we worry, so it can all be addressed.
Step by step, with each session, we will start to map out the process of your worry and learn appropriate tools along the way, adapted to your individual experience.
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As we work together we will identify all the different ways in which worry is impacting your daily life:
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perhaps you're finding you're not able to enjoy being with your loved ones because you're so worried that something bad might happen to them;
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or there's that one "worst case scenario" that keeps going round, and round, and round, in your head - it crowds out everything else and makes it impossible for you to focus and concentrate;
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or you wake up feeling more exhausted than when you went to bed because you've been tossing and turning all night as your mind rakes over one thing after another;
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or you can’t focus on anything that you are doing because one ‘what if?’ follows another, and another and another…
It may feel impossible at the moment, but you can understand your worry process and develop concrete tools and effective strategies to that you can use every day to manage your worry and reclaim your joy in life.
Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but it gets you nowhere
If you can relate to anything I have been talking about above, I can help you...
What it's like to work with me...
CBT is a very collaborative therapy.
It isn’t something that I do to you, it’s something we do together, so I’m sorry if it’s disappointing to hear, but I’m afraid that I can’t make you stop worrying – my aim is to empower you to help yourself…you will learn practical steps to manage your worry and help yourself feel better with my support every step of the way!
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The point of CBT is for us to form a supportive and trusting team together, in which you bring your knowledge and expertise of your worry and the difficulties that it brings you, and I bring my knowledge and expertise in the skills and techniques that you can learn to apply.
Think of me as being like a ‘sat nav’ in the car…you tell me where you want to go and I assist you in getting there, but at the end of the day you are the one in the driving seat deciding on where you want to go and how you want to get there.
Our sessions together are yours and the time is for you to spend in the way that you feel will most benefit you in overcoming your problems with worry.​
Working together to conquer worry - stronger as a team!
the next phases
Phase One
In this part of the treatment we will spend time understanding the nuts and bolts of your difficulties. Experience has shown me that having a good understanding of how you are internally processing you distress provides an invaluable foundation for the future work. You might find this phase a little frustrating if you are keen to crack on with learning skills and strategies, but it is worth the investment as it allows us to really individualise and personally tailor the future tools that we will learn. I could metaphorically throw the kitchen sink at you but many of the tools wouldn’t be relevant, they certainly wouldn’t be individualised, and they likely wouldn’t stick. I would much rather you go away with just a couple of skills that you have learned deeply and that will stay with you for life, than taking away a massive box of tools that you don’t have a good understanding of, and will have mostly forgotten in a few months. At this stage it is good to meet weekly so that we can gain momentum and traction in the work we are doing together.
Phase Two
Once we have a clear understanding and have mapped out the processes involved in your difficulties, we will start to work on the specific tools and strategies to help you overcome them. This is a very proactive stage of the therapy and it’s important to be aware that a key part is to undertake homework tasks between the sessions. After all, it is in your day to day life that we want to make a difference, so it is important to practice things and experiment so that we can work out what is most effective for you – again, this is all part and parcel of personalising the process to your individual circumstances.
Phase Three
As we move into this phase we will start to consolidate all the learning from the previous two phases and build in some additional tools and strategies to help you not only maintain the gains that you have made but also continue to develop the skills you have, and to learn new ones. We are working on empowering you to become your own therapist. At this stage some people like to start tapering the sessions and meeting on a fortnightly to monthly basis to help them with the transition into flying solo.
Phase Four
Some people like to periodically come back for a check-in and perhaps a little course correction if they feel that they are in danger of going off track. I am of course more than happy to meet on an ad hoc basis to provide ongoing support.
The First Step...
We meet for a free 15 minute chat to give you the opportunity to ask me any questions that you may have about me and the way I work.
This is a great opportunity to see if I am your kind of person or not.
We can’t possibly all get along with everybody, and the therapeutic relationship is such a key part of the treatment that it is vital that you feel that I am a good fit for you before we start working together.
If you decide that I’m not your person, then I am more than happy to reach out to my network to find some alternative therapists for you to meet with.
NOT QUITE READY TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP IN STARTING THERAPY?
Some resources for you to keep going…
Blog
How about having a read of some of my recent blog posts?
I write about common themes that come up whilst I am working with clients and as well as giving you some ideas for self-help strategies, it will also hopefully give you a better sense of my style of working to help you decide if I will be a good fit for you as your therapist.

If you enjoy any of the articles you read and find them useful then please do share them with anyone else you know who may also benefit from reading them.
Learn to calm your mind with effective techniques proven to help with worry management…
You can get started today on learning practical coping skills to help yourself.
Everyone worries at times but if your worry is starting to spiral out of control and take over your life, then it’s time to take action.
Some people will identify with having been worriers all their lives and think that it’s not possible to change after all this time – but that is just another worry!
The good news is that there are effective strategies that you can start using straight away to immediately make a difference to your worrying.
So many aspects of our daily lives can be impacted by worry: sleep, moods, work, home-life, and in extreme cases even basic day to day functioning can seem like an insurmountable task.
My Workbook for managing worry is available to download for free and will introduce you to two proven techniques that will give you a good start towards stepping off the worry rollercoaster and learning to calm your mind.
Got some questions?
Fire away - nothing is too small...
CBT and Anxiety
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CBT helps you to cultivate effective tools to manage Anxiety when it shows up – whatever the flavour (Social Anxiety, Health Anxiety, OCD, Panic Attacks)
Stop fear getting the way of living
CBT and Worry
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CBT equips you with proven strategies and skills for overcoming debilitating worry.
Worry is the thief of joy, but learning to embrace the present is the gateway to a brighter future.
eMail: coswaycbt@pm.me
Tel: 07713 954 847