Worry, panic, dread
Anxiety therapy in Borough Green
Anxiety is not really a feeling problem. It is what you stop doing in order not to feel it — and that is where the damage accumulates.
What it looks like from the inside
Anxiety is unusually good at disguising itself as sensible caution. You are not avoiding the motorway, you are taking the scenic route. You are not avoiding the presentation, you are letting a colleague who is better at it do it. You are not avoiding the conversation, you are waiting for a better moment.
Each individual decision is defensible. The cumulative effect, over years, is a life that has quietly reorganised itself around not feeling something.
What I see most
- Generalised worry — a mind that moves from topic to topic and never lands, often worst at three in the morning.
- Panic, and then the fear of the panic itself, which is usually the larger problem. More on panic.
- Social anxiety — and the exhausting post-mortem afterwards, replaying everything you said.
- Health anxiety — checking, googling, seeking reassurance that lasts about ninety seconds.
- Performance and work anxiety, imposter feelings, the conviction that you are about to be found out.
- Anxiety alongside drinking, which is extremely common and where each side feeds the other.
The three things that keep it going
- Avoidance. You do not do the thing, you feel immediate relief, and the relief teaches your brain that the thing was genuinely dangerous. Next time it will be harder.
- Safety behaviours. The small things you do to get through — sitting near the door, over-preparing, having a drink first, keeping your phone in your hand. They feel protective and they prevent you ever discovering you would have been fine without them.
- Reassurance. Checking, googling, asking "are you sure?" Each one relieves the anxiety briefly and strengthens it for the next round.
How I work on it
Usually a combination. CBT where a specific belief and an identifiable loop are doing the damage — that is efficient and well evidenced. ACT where you already know the fear is irrational and knowing has changed nothing, which is by far the more common situation.
Practically, the work involves mapping what you have stopped doing, dropping the safety behaviours one at a time, learning to have the anxious feeling without negotiating with it, and steadily moving back out into the things it took from you.
Two things worth ruling out. Thyroid problems and some medications produce symptoms indistinguishable from anxiety, and are worth a GP check if you have not had one. And heavy caffeine intake — three or four coffees is enough to produce genuine anxiety symptoms in some people.
Where I work
From a private room in Borough Green, a couple of minutes from the A25 and a short walk from Borough Green & Wrotham station, with clients from Sevenoaks, Wrotham, West Malling, Tonbridge, Maidstone and the surrounding villages — or online.
Related
Common questions
How quickly does anxiety therapy work?
Focused work on a specific anxiety often runs to six or eight sessions, and people usually notice something within three. Longstanding generalised anxiety with years of avoidance behind it takes longer.
Do I need medication?
That is a conversation with your GP. Many people do therapy alone, many do both. Medication can make therapy easier to engage with when anxiety is severe; it does not usually resolve the avoidance on its own.
Is anxiety curable?
Anxiety is a normal human response, so the aim is not to remove it. The aim is for it to stop determining what you do. That is achievable for most people.
What if I panic during a session?
Then we have exactly the thing we are working on, in the room, with someone who knows what to do. It is genuinely useful when it happens.
Talk it through first
The first step is a short phone call. No commitment, no pressure — just a conversation about what is going on and whether I am the right person to help.
Free 15-minute call · Confidential · Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, 9am to 5pm