This article is a case study about a young client struggling with anxiety. It discusses how he and his therapist found a way to communicate with one another through the use of drawing therapy.

Jake and his overwhelming anxiety

Jake was too young to be one of my clients, unfortunately he was also too old to fit into the paediatric mental health team and the teenage support group for anxiety was overwhelmed.

 Jake had a bad experience and didn’t trust therapists

Jakes mother  described a boy who every morning thought he would get up and go to school and by 9:05 had failed.  He was then stressed all day about having to go to school the next day and couldn’t concentrate on his schoolwork at home, even if his granny sat and helped him

The start of CBT therapy

Jake`s mother and I agreed not to tell the services that I was working with him in case it stopped him from obtaining more appropriate input.  We also agreed she would sit in on the sessions as a silent observer.

Jake didn’t say much either apart from telling me how he’d been let down by other therapists who had promised a phased return to school with him in control – but this hadn`t happened. I told Jake that I didn’t really care whether he went to school or not, all I cared about was helping him get through the time period until he felt ready to do so.

I did the standard CBT things using Zoom at Jakes pace, he was very anxious before our sessions and quite often came into therapy feeling upset, and sometimes he cancelled, hiding in his bedroom.

How drawing therapy became part of his CBT

Once I discovered Jake could draw things changed.  Using the shared whiteboard he could depict his feelings and could use the subsequent image to explain what he meant.

Several of these drawings changed things greatly for both of us, the first picture showed how he felt about anxiety and the treatment of it.  He drew a very cross looking person with steam coming from his ears.  After we discussed it  I asked him whether he wanted to continue working with me.  There are no words to describe the rewarding feeling I had as I watched smiley faces prop up on my computer screen as he drew, miles away, in his own sitting room.

CBT Drawings to express and understand anxiety

Today Jake and I talked about anxiety, or rather I talked and he drew. I thought I knew what it felt like to be anxious, I’d been anxious before exams, been a bit stressed if I didn’t know the outcome of a dilemma, and I’m scared of the dark. Anxiety is huge, scary, unstable and destructive. Jake drew his “ monster” on the shared whiteboard.

The first thing I noticed was the Boris hairstyle – my interpretation, Jake just wanted to make it look stupid. It wasn’t very big either but had a foot in the door. The front door which was open because the anxiety had come with a reasonable-sounding request. Once Jake allowed the anxiety in it talked and talked to him and even when he tried to make it leave by another door it never stopped telling him something was wrong. In the end, Jake simply stopped opening the door.

He wasn’t frightened though, his anxiety was stupid, annoying and persistent, but never scary, destructive or unstable.

I guess anxiety is just a word, but a picture is a thousand words.

AUTHOR: Emily Cobb

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

If you are looking for therapists who offer Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for a range of mental health issues you can read more about it on this page. We offer therapy at Act Counselling and CBT Services and are happy to speak with you today should you wish to find out more and book in with one of our therapists. Get in touch with us today via our online contact form or call us on 0141 554 0838.

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There is so much noise.  It is deafening.  Communication is in overload.  We have a global catastrophe here and now.

I invite you to stop, pause for a moment and consider your life, your presence in humanity and your capabilities just now and as we go forward. You may not be unwell, you may not know somebody in hospital, you may not know someone who is ill.  You may feel this will not impact on you or you will get through it because you are young or you have a healthy lifestyle or you are not taking this seriously for a variety of other reasons.  You may be infected, you may fall ill, and you could die.  At the same time conversely, those in higher risk categories due to cancer treatments/therapeutic drugs or older age may come through it.  We do not know who will survive and who will not, and this is the reality which we each must face.

Come together, respect each other

I am invested in the outcome for me, my family, my relatives, my friends, my neighbours, for you, for your family, your relatives, your friends and the future of our human race.  This is so much bigger than just you and me.  This is about us coming together now, respecting each other and offering our strengths whatever they are for the greater good.  I believe that you  have  something to offer from a smile to a kind word shared,  to your time, skills, knowledge and personal resources with a willingness to learn,  giving freely for no other reason than the wish to contribute of yourself and help make a difference to the outcome today tomorrow and when it finally ends whatever that will look like.   I believe in your capacity to put aside your own fears and issues and focus on the strengths you have in going forward to enable healing and compassion, sharing and supporting each other.   Already, this is happening, it is alive and growing.   We are connecting, recognizing it is down to each of us and that each of us can make a difference.

Be kind to yourself

For those of you who are struggling for personal reasons or reasons out with your control, be kind to yourself and reach out for help enabling a friend or a professional to share your pain and help you accept yourself for who you are just now.   Today, may not be your time to shine, but your time will come and then it will be your turn to share your strength and acceptance for another.  I cannot within these words, reach out to everyone and I know there are those who feel the situation is out of their control and this may be.   Take what control you can back into your being and space no matter how small that is.   Do what you need to do without causing harm.  Consider your strengths and put them to good use.  Identify the tasks that you need to address and deal with them one by one.  Call out your unmet needs and share and they will be met.  Trust in humankind.

Reflect, reassess

From operating as an individual to operating as a community, and we can stop and reassess what we are doing.  What has got us to a place with too few ventilators, not enough PPE, too few drugs, people not self-isolating/social distancing, funerals with no one to attend them, frontline staff at risk of dying.  This is for analysis and but not just now.  In seeing the problems, we can identify solutions which are realistic and achievable.  We need big thinking and a joined-up approach locally, nationally and globally.  We need to sustain an effort for this acute phase and going forward into a more chronic ongoing stage.  

I ask you to Identify your strengths and play to them. 

• Those who can coordinate, coordinate
• Those who can innovate, innovate
• Those who can dream, dream
• Those who can labour, labour but do it now.

Start today, this is not an unscheduled holiday for some and a crisis for the few who are fearfully fulfilling their professional role whilst inwardly fearing for their lives and the lives of their families.  What can you do for you, your loved ones, your neighbours, for your country men and women, for humanity?  This is not a dress rehearsal. 

What you can do

Consider your mortality.  Look at death in the eye and hold onto life.  Let us thrive in a new way, living together compassionately and kindly.  

Our shared vision and positive coordinated action can make a positive difference for humankind. It is not too late.

Now is the time.   Look after your neighbour and friends as you would like your own family members to be looked after.  Who are our neighbours and friends?  They are all of humankind.

I am a mother of 5 young people, a wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, a friend, a neighbour, a citizen of the world.  I am also a nurse and a trainee counsellor.

By Siobhan Campbell – year 1 diploma student

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As Therapists or other professionals move further along their journey of personal development, self-awareness and ultimately work towards self-actualisation it might be fair to say that we become less vulnerable. In relation to the vulnerability/stress model this leaves us more predisposed to taking on higher levels of stress, none more so in the stories we hear from our clients. Of course, some client’s stories touch us more than others and what of the ones about abandonment, neglect, abuse, trauma, emotional deprivation? It is our job but also in our nature to empathise with our client’s. With regards to empathy, the paradoxical theory often stands up in that our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness.

Dealing with Vicarious Trauma as a therapist

We empathise with the hard end of human suffering on a consistent basis. For some Therapists/Professionals, this might be daily. This often comes at a price. At ACT Counselling Services we often hear stories from colleagues of ‘taking the client home with me,’ which of course means thinking about the client in one’s own time. We also hear stories of colleagues having nightmares, rescue fantasies etc. A lot of professionals will take issues of vicarious trauma to Clinical Supervision and whilst this might well be helpful there is so much more that can be done.

Can we learn from Buddhism?

Traditional Buddhism has been a long advocate of the ‘suffering’ involved in being a human being, yet Buddhist Monks appear to remain compassionate and optimistic. What is their secret? Furthermore, can we as Therapists/Professionals learn from Buddhist Monks in order to offset Vicarious Trauma? Also, are there more practical steps that can be taken by Therapists/Professionals and their organisations to create a culture that protects us from the impact of Vicarious Trauma?

Do you want to learn more about Vicarious Trauma?

To find out more about the above and answers to the questions posed, visit our CPD Events page on this website and register for the ‘Vicarious Trauma’ CPD event scheduled to be delivered in Dunblane on Friday the 25th of August 2017. You can call us here at ACT Counselling and CBT Services in Glasgowon 0141 554 0838 or contact us online here.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

If you are looking for therapists who offer Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for a range of mental health issues you can read more about it on this page. We offer therapy at Act Counselling and CBT Services and are happy to speak with you today should you wish to find out more and book in with one of our therapists. Get in touch with us today via our online contact form or call us on 0141 554 0838.

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Still thinking about thinking, the ACT Team were recently discussing Albert Ellis who as many of our readers will know was the founder of Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT), one of the approaches that influenced Aaron Beck’s development of CBT. Like Albert Ellis, we are keen to impart to as many of our fellow Human Beings as possible, that in times of difficulty or stress you DO NOT have to treat yourself so harshly in relation to the way you talk to yourself in your own head.

Pressured lives

Life is becoming more and more pressure laden. The requirement to achieve is perceived as becoming more and more important. Some might say that Western Society is becoming more consumerist, materialistic and Narcissistic with every passing year. It is all about wealth and trophies. Work harder, buy more, happiness is just around the corner. Ever wondered why you can never quite catch it.

3 ‘Absolutistic Beliefs’

Albert Ellis documented what he believed are the 3 ‘Absolutistic Beliefs’ that underpin Human disturbance. Indeed, he believed that ‘we disturb ourselves.’ As a result of these ‘Absolutistic Beliefs’ and the growing demands outlined above, we at ACT Counselling Services believe that we are turning the screws too tight in relation to our beliefs and expectations of ourselves, other people and the world.

Explore more with ACT Counselling Services

By engaging in any of the Services offered on the ACT Counselling Services website (Therapy, Supervision, Diploma, Short Courses) you will discover exactly what these ‘Absolutistic Beliefs’ are and how you can release the pressure valve on life.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

If you are looking for therapists who offer Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for a range of mental health issues you can read more about it on this page. We offer therapy at Act Counselling and CBT Services and are happy to speak with you today should you wish to find out more and book in with one of our therapists. Get in touch with us today via our online contact form or call us on 0141 554 0838.

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