Wilson Counseling: The Armchair Chronicles

image:dzineblog.com One of the common traits of anxious people is that they tend to catastrophize events in their lives. For example, I might be worried that something I said to a co-worker might be construed as unprofessional and that might lead to me having a bad reputation on the job which might lead to me not being promoted, or even fired. I don't necessarily have any evidence to back this up, but I just feel like it is true. That is catastrophizing. I was working with a client named Kim (not her real name) recently. She rated her anxiety at work at about a 10 out of 10 - in other words very high. Kim had a run in with a co-worker that had resulted in her being called into the human resources office. Ever since that time, she was highly anxious and afraid of any interaction with her co-worker. She avoided this individual, and any possible conflict, at all costs. She felt deep shame about being reprimanded. This was a woman who had twenty years of exemplary service wit...

Most of the people I work with in my practice have come in at some point with high levels of stress. They are experiencing the kind of stress that makes it hard to sleep at night, that causes them to have trouble focusing, or to feel agitated and short tempered with people they love. It is the kind of stress that makes them question what is wrong with their lives, but then feel too exhausted to do anything about it. Many of them are drained by demanding jobs that they spend a lot of their waking hours thinking about. Often, they even take work home. These are smart, hardworking, successful people. But, they have had the joy sucked out of their lives by the time they come to see me.  I talk with them about creating more balance in their lives. This means working less, and getting back to things in their personal lives that they value and that energize them. In general I recommend that they leave work by a designated time every night, and do not take work home. It soun...