coping skills

Navigating Stress: Understanding the Roles of a Stress Coach and a Stress Therapist

by John Nolan
10th April 2025

A stress coach focuses on practical strategies and goal setting to improve stress management skills in the present and future, while a stress therapist delves into the underlying causes of stress, emotional patterns, and potential mental health conditions, often exploring past experiences. The choice between them depends on the nature and severity of the stress, the presence of underlying issues, and the individual’s desired outcomes, with therapists being qualified to address mental health disorders.

The Skills and Practices of a Stress Therapist

by John Nolan
7th April 2025

A stress therapist is a trained professional who specialises in helping individuals understand, manage, and reduce the negative impacts of stress in their lives. They utilise a range of evidence-based techniques and tools, tailored to the client’s specific needs, to promote well-being, improve productivity and relationships, and support a life aligned with personal values. Their role involves assessment, psychoeducation, teaching coping strategies, and providing a supportive environment for clients to develop resilience and regain control over their experience of stress.

Counselling for Anxiety:When it could be right for you.

by John Nolan
27th March 2025

Counselling for anxiety offers a supportive space to understand and manage anxiety. It involves building a therapeutic relationship, normalising anxiety, and exploring patterns of avoidance. Goal setting focuses on the client’s desired life beyond anxiety. Techniques like mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches help shift the relationship with anxious thoughts and feelings. Developing coping mechanisms, addressing potential trauma, and fostering self-compassion are also key aspects. Counselling for anxiety is a personalised process aimed at empowering individuals to live more fully.

Tackling Anxiety in the Workplace: Practical Solutions

by John Nolan
20th March 2025

Solutions for anxiety at work involve understanding your triggers, challenging negative thinking, developing coping skills like mindfulness, relaxation, assertiveness, and problem-solving. Taking action through gradual exposure and seeking support from colleagues, supervisors, or professionals (such as an anxiety specialist) are crucial. Prioritising self-care, setting boundaries, and focusing on solutions rather than solely on the causes of anxiety are also key components in managing workplace anxiety effectively.

Anxiety Treatment Therapy

by John Nolan
11th March 20253rd May 2025

Anxiety treatment therapy aims to reduce anxiety symptoms, decrease avoidance, improve quality of life, and increase psychological flexibility. These objectives are met through psychoeducation, identifying unhelpful patterns, exposure techniques, developing coping skills, and approaches that focus on solutions, acceptance, and values-driven action. The therapy process is collaborative and tailored to the individual’s needs.

Reasons for Professionals and Senior Management Seeking Private Anxiety Treatment13th May 2025
Many professional people and senior management seek anxiety treatment, often in private settings, due to the severe impact anxiety has on their careers, performance, and relationships. They may seek effective and tailored solutions beyond temporary symptom relief, favouring approaches that focus on performance, well-being, and client control. Stigma, embarrassment, and the need for privacy to address what can feel like a secret problem are significant motivators for choosing private treatment. They may also be looking for alternative approaches if previous attempts at managing anxiety, particularly through avoidance, have proven costly and ineffective.
An Exploration of Havening Techniques for Anxiety12th May 2025
Havening Techniques for anxiety are a psychosensory treatment using touch to generate delta waves in the brain, which is understood to depotentiate distress encoded in the amygdala. Practitioners guide clients through Havening Touch or Self-Havening, working with issues like panic attacks, phobias, stress, and trauma. A key benefit is the ability to work content-free, meaning clients do not need to verbally disclose details of distressing events. Havening acts as a valuable addition to existing therapeutic toolkits, potentially enhancing the effectiveness of other modalities. It is seen as surpassing traditional anxiety treatments in its described speed, efficacy, and gentleness, allowing clients to process difficult experiences without re-traumatisation. The real-time results and focus on underlying neurological processes are highlighted as particular strengths. While still gaining wider recognition, practitioners find it transforms their practise and provides a powerful self-care tool.
Coaching for Depression11th May 2025
This report has examined coaching for depression, drawing on principles and techniques found in various therapeutic modalities. Coaching-informed approaches differ from traditional therapy by focusing on solutions and positive emotions rather than problems, viewing the client as the expert rather than the therapist, and emphasising possibilities over impossibilities. Potential advantages include building confidence, fostering hope, and promoting action-oriented strategies. For clients, coaching can be preferable due to feeling more understood, empowered, and less blamed. Practitioners may benefit from a more collaborative role and the fulfillment of helping clients achieve lasting positive change. A critical element in coaching for depression is the constant monitoring of progress, often done through scaling questions, tracking goal achievement, and regular check-ins to identify what is better. Key techniques include using positive focus, finding exceptions, externalising problems, challenging negative thoughts, setting SMART goals, and promoting behavioral activation.
Comparing Havening Techniques and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Mental Wellbeing9th May 2025
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and its variants like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) are established psychological approaches that address anxiety, depression, stress, and trauma by focusing on changing thoughts, behaviours, and responses to internal states. CBT often involves techniques like exposure therapy and thought records, aiming to modify reactions that interfere with life goals. While self-help resources exist for CBT, professional guidance is recommended for complex issues and challenging techniques.Havening Techniques are a newer psychosensory modality that targets the neurobiological encoding of distress, particularly in the amygdala. It involves gentle touch (self-applied or by a practitioner) and aims to depotentiate traumatic memories and reduce stress quickly and effectively. Havening can be used content-free and integrates well with other therapies. It is effective for anxiety, stress, and trauma, helping to provide a sense of safety and facilitating shifts in perception. Self-Havening is a valuable tool for self-care, stress reduction, and building resilience, but professionals are necessary for treating significant or complex trauma. Both approaches offer distinct pathways to support mental wellbeing, with professional guidance being crucial for more severe or complex challenges.
Navigating Panic Attack Help8th May 2025
Help for panic attacks involves understanding their nature as temporary, non-dangerous physical reactions. Professional guidance can be beneficial, especially after ruling out physical causes. Self-help strategies include facing feared situations or symptoms directly without avoidance, employing specific breathing techniques for calm (though not as a way to stop an attack), actively challenging unhelpful thoughts and beliefs, shifting focus away from internal sensations and catastrophic thinking, cultivating acceptance and self-compassion, adopting healthy lifestyle habits like avoiding stimulants and practising relaxation, and using tools like journaling or worksheets to track experiences and identify patterns. The core is often learning not to react with fear or avoidance to the sensations and thoughts associated with panic.