Yes, I think your counsellor is right. I know in my case it's not just that but also expecting to feel perfect so I have an unreasonably high expectation. For instance, I won't workout today because I feel a bit bleuggh but tomorrow I may feel better so can then. Then tomorrow comes and it may be bleeuggghh again and you say it again.
I've had this discussion with a few people with GAD + OCD and they said exactly the same. People with HA share similiar traits in their anxiety disorders to people with OCD and I see them have the same problem. They go weeks feeling ok and then they are put under stress for some reason and the HA starts creeping back in. It makes sense really because if you had say low level GAD and then a big event happened in your life to put you under more stress, your GAD will naturally spike. Anything attached to that such as OCD is bound to spike with it. It wouldn't make sense if your OCD was fine but your GAD was really bad to me since GAD is something many of us feel 24/7 to some extent.
I think of it like giving someone a major caffeine hit. Your overstimulate them and anything that works based on that system in the body is bound to suffer.
If you look at it from the point of view of the brain and how it works you have only got to look at the neurotransmitters to understand this. There are I think 4 classes and 2 of them are Excitory and Inhibitory. Drugs like Benzo's act on Inhibitory ones, namely GABA, which calms you down. The Excitory ones can mean faster processing between synapses, acceleration. We can't cope with that all the time hence the balancing our brains do in producing & releasing one to calm down the other.
I've always said I have triggers e.g. social stuff, change, new things, the unknown, etc so pretty typical stuff for anxiety sufferers. But I can have completely regimented days, something I suffered with badly with my OCD originally, and nothing changes. So, why am I still anxious when I know exactly what is going to happen and in what order? I have no stress at all on my life, yet I am still anxious. Thats GAD to me. No triggers, just increased "normal" range of anxiety.
I will post in about the 8 elements seperately as I need to dig that out of the book I have to get it right.