Problems that Sherri Brought to Therapy:
When Sherri came to see me for therapy, her anxiety had a very tight grip on her. Her high-stress job working for a financial investment company demanded a lot from her.
She often had to work late. As a result, she barely saw her 2 children. Sherri’s husband was also stressed due to doing all the child-care. This caused Sherri to feel even more pressure.
Sherri had always been a nervous person who worried a lot, but now her anxiety was running the show. She slept little, often having panic attacks during the night fearing she wouldn’t meet her deadlines at work. If she wasn’t worrying about work, Sherri was plagued with guilt for being a “terrible mother”.
The Outcome of Sherri’s Therapy:
Over the course of therapy, I helped Sherri gain more awareness of when her anxiety was triggered and how she experienced it in her body and in her emotions. We focused on healing her unhealthy patterns of coping that were developed early in her life.
Sherri had deep emotions that she had long been suppressing which were at the root of her anxiety. As Sherri was able to express some of these emotions, she started feeling calmer.
Counselling also helped Sherri free up energy to make changes in her work situation so that she could be home more with her children. Once she negotiated her workload with her boss at work, everything started to feel more manageable.
By the time we completed our counselling together, Sherri’s anxiety was dramatically reduced. If she did start to worry, she was able to be aware of what she was feeling emotionally and physically. This allowed her to use the tools she learned in therapy to help calm her so that her fears did not take over.
Sherri was now in the driver’s seat of her life.