PERSONAL STRESS PROBLEMS: PSYCHELPSYDNEY COUNSELLING ACROSS THE LIFESPAN:
It is never too early or too late for individual or dyadic developmental therapy to improve the quality of our emotional attachments and our cognitive functioning.

Therapy aims to free the inner self from destructive learned patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving to enable change in the way we relate to others and to ourself.

FEELINGS
THINKING
BEHAVIOURS
 
The goal of counselling is awareness of our emotional arousal in response to stress triggers that may be both internal (e.g. memories or thoughts) and external (e.g. other people or events). Early psychological intervention is the key to overcoming emotional distress and will usually make medication unnecessary. For example
Thinking and belief patterns that are destructive have been learnt early and may need to change when they cause feelings of anxiety, anger or low self-esteem. Psychological therapy empowers an individual to question their own values and change their self-defeating thoughts.
For example
If left unchecked disturbed beliefs and emotions can lead to behavioural disturbances, which tend to emerge in periods of high personal internal or external stress. When this keeps happening repeatedly Psychelp’s experienced clinical psychologists can offer effective interventions for personal or at work problems. For example
  
DESPRESSION
OBSESSIVE WORRY
SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR DISTURBANCES
  
Despression can be a normal reaction to the loss of an important attachment in family, friendship or work. Grief counselling would only be necessary if natural healing does not lead to closure and letting go. Non-reactive depression may originate in the personality or in bipolar mood swings that may be severe enough to require medication which should however, be combined with psychological counselling to improve self-esteem and acquire coping skills to express suppressed underlying emotions.
Obsessive Worry about past failures or future threats can absorb all the mental energy we need to enjoy life and solve current problems. Psychological counselling helps individuals break out of these fixations by challenging the worldview underlying their insecurity and their lack of confidence. Medication combined with therapy may be needed when obsessionality is extreme, but couselling alone is help.
Social Behaviour Distrurbances involve aggressive, bullying or submissive, victim behaviours in which relationships become disfunctional and social alienation, divorce, or unemployability can result when irrational breakdown occurs.
  
ANXIETY
LOW SELF ESTEEM
COMPULSIVE BEHAVIOUR DISORDERS
  
Anxiety can be generalised (eg performance anxiety) or very specific (eg lift phobia). Both are fear-avoidance responses that have been learnt and can change through direct behavioural training in 2 to 6 sessions or through more in depth dynamic therapy, which may be longer. Medication may be required briefly or not at all if psychological counselling has been effective.
Low self esteem comes from negative beliefs about being inadequate or worthless that usually comes from childhood experiences of verbal or physical mistreatment. Psychelp therapy can uncover the experiences of hurt and fear, which are still preventing the adult develop a healthier self-esteem. Learning assertiveness and conflict skills is a better approach than medication for low self-esteem.
Compulsive behavioural disorders such as gambling, shoplifting, cleaning, checking, etc, tend to appear during times of greater internal or external stress. They work as a quick fix to control anxiety that immediately recurs and needs controlling again. Eventually the person is forced to recognise the need for personal treatment by a clinical psychologist who may consult with a psychiatrist specialising in medication for OCD.
  
FEAR
NEGATIVE BODY IMAGE

APPETITE DISORDERS

  
Fear is a normal emotional response to threat or danger. It usually leads to appropriate action and therefore requires no treatment because safety can be restored by other means, e.g. improving security. However, fear is sometimes an exaggerated or inappropriate response to perceived failure or rejection, eg sexual and other performance fears, which benefit from counselling.
Negative body image is a socially constructed judgement about how women’s, or men’s, bodies should look and can be hard to change because media and other influences are so widespread. Excessive preoccupation with comparing or competing can lead to behaviour disorders that involve food, self-harm or substance abuse. Psychelp clinicians can help change the underlying beliefs and emotions and prevent behavioural or sexual disorders by increasing acceptance and positive self-esteem.
Appetite disorders involving eating or sexual behaviours may become uncontrollable to the affected individual during times of increased stress. The addictive properties involve sensory pleasure or stress relief that is short lived because of underlying emotions and beliefs about the self are too negative to enable normal behaviour. Early psychological therapy by a Psychelp clinical psychologist could prevent more serious conditions such as anorexia, bulimia or sexual paraphilia etc.
  
PANIC
GENDER IDENITY PROBLEMS
SUBSTANCE ABUSE
  
Panic is a non-specific fear avoidance response that is so intense that it leads to catastrophic thinking which then self perpetuates the cycle of fear. Control of distressed breathing and thinking responses can sometimes be learnt in 2 to 6 sessions although psychological treatment combined with medication may be necessary for severe cases.
Gender idenity problems such as normal homosexual preferences may not usually involve gender identity problems, which occur because of a belief about being born the wrong gender. Such beliefs may become overwhelming and lead to a strong desire to behave and look like the opposite sex. Psychological counselling only becomes necessary when the person begins worrying obsessively, and feels unacceptable to society in either gender role. Psychelp clinicians have specialist training for specific sexual therapy.
Substance abuse such as drug and alcohol dependencies initially develop as a way of coping with internal or external stress. Addictive properties that are both chemical and psychosocial reinforce "the quick fix" illusion that eventually undermines coping, identity and health. Psychelp counsellors will carry out an initial assessment and arrange referral to specialised drug and alcohol counselling centres. Personal therapy afterwards is usually important to prevent relapse.
  
ANGER
GUILT & BLAME & SHAME
 DISORDERS OF ATTACHMENT AND COGNITION  

Anger is a normal emotional response that may need no treatment provided it can be appropriately expressed. Internalised anger contributes to depression and most people need counselling to learn how to communicate anger constructively or it can interfere with relationships in families, friendship and work. Suppressed anger that is expressed as stress can be as destructive in its own way as violence or verbal abuse.
These are dysfunctional childhood beliefs that involve taking too little or too much responsibility becoming preoccupied with the opinions, needs and demands of others. These thinking patterns affect the way we behave in relationships at home and at work. Learning assertiveness and conflict skills can empower the person to realise they are equal with others and to understand that the "blame shame game" never works.

Dysfunctions in the child/parent attachment bond can begin very early, causing generational patterns of disturbance in family relations and adaptation to life. Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, using FIE-Basic, can improve the potential for more positive emotional attachments and cognitive functioning between parent and child and between the declining elderly person and their carer.

 
GRIEF
DISTRUST & SUSPICION
    
Grief occurs over loss of attachments through death or divorce, or loss of identity eg. through job dismissal etc. Healing and resolution requires that we focus on the feelings at every stage of the process of shock, anger, sadness and eventually detachment then replacement. Moving too quickly from loss to replacement can cause unresolved feelings to recycle in the next marriage or the next job.
Thinking that others are harmful and cannot be trusted is usually learnt within family relationships that were either abusive or too closely enmeshed to trust any outsiders. If not treated such thinking leads to social avoidance behaviour, isolation or even more serious mental disorders.
    
PERFORMANCE FAILURE & FRUSTRATION
SEXUAL AROUSAL
    
Stress burnout can be a debilitating mental, emotional and physical disorder that often occurs in vulnerable people who try too hard for too long without having the necessary skills to balance work or family demands.
Sexual arousal is a normal emotional response that may need psychological treatment when problems of inhibition or excitation interfere with achieving healthy intimacy in relationships. Anxiety about lack of arousal contributes to sexual dysfunction in females as well as males.