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Browse every published article connected to Peter Strong, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
Articles
Browse every published article connected to Peter Strong, or search within this exact expert archive.
Mindfulness is that quality of conscious awareness of whatever arises in our present experience in which there is an attitude of engaged-presence.
Meditation has been around for thousands of years and there are many different approaches. The most common forms of meditation usually involves focusing on a particular object, such as a word mantra, as in Transcendental Meditation; a divine image as in some forms of Tibetan Buddhist meditation; an inspirational phrase or image, as in Christian contemplative meditation; or mindful contemplation of breathing, as in Buddhist samatha meditation.
Agoraphobics and those with social anxiety and shyness issues are often searching for more self-help tools and strategies to help them better manage their anxiety. Often, they are highly motivated to overcome their anxiety, but are afraid of venturing out of their safe zone. Online counselling and therapy provides a convenient and effective solution.
The single major cause of emotional suffering and stress in our lives comes from the accumulated habitual emotional reactions to life events that we acquire through unconscious learning. We become victims of recurrent negative thoughts and patterns of emotional reactivity that operate automatically in the mind, and that operate outside the sphere of conscious choice. We become prisoners of our habitual thinking and suffer accordingly.
Panic disorder affects between 3 and 6 millio Americans, and is twice as common in women. We all experience panic at some time in our lives, but those suffering from panic disorder experience panic attacks on a daily basis, and this form of anxiety can severely reduce the quality of life, making even simple activities like grocery shopping unmanageable. In its most severe form this crippling form of anxiety can lead to agoraphobia, a very intense fear of going beyond the safety zone of one’s own home. In such severe cases, it is wise to seek medical help.
Mindfulness as taught in Mindfulness Psychotherapy and Mindfulness Meditation Therapy, is a particular awareness skill that teaches us to be aware of what is happening while it is happening. Through diligent practice, we begin to recognize reactions as they arise form moment to moment throughout the day. We learn to respond to each reaction with the simple formula: STOP, LOOK and LISTEN. When a reaction arises we simply greet it with: “No. Not now.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be defined as recurrent episodes of anxiety and panic in reaction to a past experience that was overwhelming at both sensory and emotional levels. The individual was unable to process and assimilate the experience, and the emotional trauma becomes repressed, only to reoccur in the future. The basic direction of psychotherapy for PTSD is to help the client re-process these emotions into a form that can be re-assimilate; essentially completing the process that was left undone. However, the methods for doing this are problematic for two main reasons.
MMT is an exciting new development in which mindfulness is applied directly to help transform and resolve difficult emotional states such as anxiety, fear, phobias, anger and other forms of habitual emotional reactivity that affects the quality of our happiness and the quality of our personal relationships.
Online Counseling and Skype-based Therapy are convenient, affordable and have been proven effective in several studies. In he UK and Australia Online Counseling is recommended by the national health authorities as a valuable resource that should be made more widely available as part of a preventative campaign to manage mental conditions such as depression.r
Do you feel stuck and unable to get beyond anxiety, depression and traumatic memories? Do you feel a victim of your emotions?
General Anxiety Disorder is a very common condition that affects many of us at some time in our lives. At any one time it is estimated that over 10 million people in the US suffer from some form of GAD. Many are actively seeking treatment through medication or some form of psychotherapy, either online or in-person. What can I do to help manage my Anxiety?
MMT can be defined as: the direct application of mindfulness to the present felt-sense of an emotional complex to facilitate transformation, resolution and healing. DIRECT APPLICATION means that the individual trains to establish and sustain a quality of relationship with the inner experience of an emotion, called the Mindfulness Based Relationship. The quality of the MBR is the key factor that will determine the successful outcome of MMT.
General Anxiety Disorder is a very common condition that affects many of us at some time in our lives. At any one time it is estimated that least 10 million people in the US have been diagnosed with GAD and are actively seeking treatment through medication or some form of cognitive therapy. In essence recurrent anxiety is a form of intense worrying about health, work, fear of the future or a wide range of situations that may occur in the future that creates an immense amount of emotional suffering. So what can we do to control our anxiety levels?
Online Internet Psychotherapy and Counseling through Skype is becoming more popular than ever for busy people. As a professional online psychotherapist, I have noticed a dramatic increase in the number of clients who prefer to have therapy sessions in the comfort of their own homes rather than driving to a therapist’s office. All say that they find online sessions using Skype or other videocam formats to be less intimidating than face-to-face sessions and that they feel generally more relaxed and in charge of the process.
When you really look closely at anxiety, depression, fear, anger or stress, you will almost always find recurring patterns of negative thoughts, traumatic memories and habitual emotional reactions. They are our tormentors, the pesky biting insects that annoy us throughout the day. They ambush our consciousness, pull us down and cause stress and emotional suffering. They come uninvited, cause havoc, and we wish that they would go away. If only we could control them, we would certainly have a better chance of controlling our mental state. So how do we do this?
Online Counseling is a very effective and also very convenient option for many people. Convenience is one of the main factors - people are often too busy to take the time to drive to and from a therapist's office. It is much more time-efficient to simply turn to your computer and make that Skype video call at the scheduled time. Also, many people, such as mothers with young children and the disabled or elderly, find it hard to make the special arrangements necessary to leave home to travel to their therapist's office. There is also the issue of availability.
When we experience depression we often describe it with phrases like: “I’m in a black mood”, or “It smothers me like a heavy blanket”, or “Its like being in a thick fog”, or “I feel like I’m wading through treacle.”r
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) first came to the attention of doctors during the First World War when relatively large numbers of soldiers returned from combat exhibiting intense emotional distress in which they seemed to re-live the terrifying events of war long after the event. However, war is only one context in which PTSD arises. Later, it became clear that this phenomenon of delayed emotional reactivity could result from many other contexts such as accidents and illness, physical assault, rape or witnessing acts of violence and devastation, natural or man-made.