CBT last year

[Shivmarie]

I had CBT last year and it really helped me, like a massive amount. I have GAD mainly in regards to health. My worry is I'm struggling to remember the techniques I was taught, and I'm finding it difficult to manage my anxiety as I can't remember. Help :-(

[MyNameIsTerry]

I've got various tool & technique templates that I can post for you but it would help if you could explain a bit more about your anxiety as I can narrow it down a bit.

I can post thought diary templates, challenging negative thoughts, panic cycle, etc if you need them but it would help if I new what to add or whether it's any use to you.

I'm glad it helped you. Have you tried Mindfulness meditation?

[Shivmarie]

Hi terry, no I havent tried that?
My anxiety is mainly to do with health anxiety. I'm nowhere near as bad as I used to be, I have GAD and have the odd panic attack still but I can feel it creeping back up slowly and I'm trying to use my CBT techniques but I can't remember them, which in turn leads me to panic as I really felt the benefit when I was going through it.
I have ALOT of intrusive thoughts most of the day infact, it is without a doubt my worst symptom and they mainly about death, so if my healths playing up, am I going to die? What if I get hurt today? What if I die in my sleep? All the things I thought I tackled at CBT and I do to an extent but it's really starting to overtake me again and I feel so low. X

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi Shivmarie,

I get you now.

How about this? It's based around panic & agoraphobia but it's got all the stuff in about challenging negative thoughts. This sounds useful to you because it's your thoughts that get out of control with HA, well from what I've seen on the HA board anyway.

http://www.moodjuice.scot.nhs.uk/pdfGuides/Panic.pdf

Thoughts diaries are useful for challenging negative thoughts because you can get them down on paper and in some you write opposing positive statements against them. Sometimes it's a negative 'What If' vs. a positive 'What If' format.

http://media.psychologytools.org/Wor...ght_Record.pdf
http://media.psychologytools.org/Wor...ion_Record.pdf
http://media.psychologytools.org/Wor...ght_Record.pdf
http://media.psychologytools.org/Wor...sh/What_If.pdf

Or maybe a Theory A Theory B worksheet which is similiar.

http://media.psychologytools.org/Wor...yA_TheoryB.pdf


There are loads of useful psychology tools on this website so you might find other methods to challenge your thinking.

http://www.psychologytools.org/downl...orksheets.html

Are those ok? I have GAD, OCD, depression & OCPD myself but not HA so not sure what else might be useful on there. I know when I had CBT I used some of the above tools and diaries to gather data about my patterns of behaviour so maybe it would be useful to start documenting when these thoughts come in the day? I'm wondering if they come more at certain times and a diary would help show that.

Are you under more stress at the moment?

I really would suggest Mindfulness meditation. My CBT therapist recommended it and it has helped with my OCD more than anything else. It's really good for breaking negative thought patterns, regaining controlling your thoughts, seeing sensations as nothing more, etc. I think this would help you because you need to take control of your thoughts or dismiss them as this is a useful tool. It does take time to learn and you need to make it part of your life really but whilst you tend to do 20 minutes a day, it's much deeper than that because it's about appreciating everything around you so you can do it in minutes with an object. At first it's at least relaxing but over time it can make you calmer, more compassionate (not saying you aren't already!) and alter your attitude (it subtly altered mine) and it's showing promise because they are scanning peoples brains and finding it is changing in favour of more of the positive areas of the brain in some trials that have been conducted. It has even been incorporated in CBT to create MBSR and MBCT. MBCT was co created by Mark Williams, a prof from Oxford Uni and he's very well respected if you speak to therapists. He has ome vids on BeMindful which is part of a long standing mental health charity. He has written a couple of books as well. MBSR is Jon Kabat-Zin who has several books out, MBSR was an earlier invention.