Working with anxiety: a compassion-focused approach – with Briony Martin
Introduction
- Anxiety is a defensive strategy, adopted for good, but often unconscious, reasons, which has a message for us if we can be patient enough to listen to it.
- If you would like to build confidence and resilience in working with anxiety as a presenting issue then this one day workshop is for you.
Anxiety can be one of the hardest presenting issues to work with in therapy. It is often entrenched and accompanied by problematic physical symptoms and behaviours. It can be deeply distressing for the person experiencing it, and have a hugely negative impact on their life and their ability to function in the world. Clients can often be desperate for relief and help but, despite this, anxious thoughts and feelings persist and both client and therapist can be left feeling frustrated and stuck.
In this seminar we will be re-setting our approach to anxiety, moving away from trying to cure or fix it and towards coming alongside and listening to it. We will explore our work with anxiety to date, consider different manifestations of anxiety (including OCD and panic attacks), review recent research on the efficacy of compassionate resonance and introduce a compassion-focused approach which seeks to befriend the anxious voice rather than disputing or replacing it.
The workshop will include reflection and discussion as well as input from the facilitator, and there will be plenty of opportunity to ask questions, share knowledge and experience peer support. We will also learn some strategies for compassionate self-talk which can be used to attend to our own anxiety as well as offer to clients.
Briony Martin
Briony Martin MA (Cantab), MBACP Accred., Dip. Sup., is an experienced , accredited therapist, supervisor and counselling educator. Her private practice is in Marlborough, Wiltshire, and she supports counselling training courses at the University of East London and the Willows Counselling Service in Swindon. She trained integratively at Manchester University and has wide experience working with anxiety and associated issues.