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Jessica Leigh CBT

  • Home
  • About
    • About Jessica Leigh
    • Client Testimonials
    • What is CBT?
    • What to expect
  • Blog
  • Fees and Services
  • Contact us

Jessica Leigh: A Therapist in the Client Chair

October 12, 2017 Jessica Leigh
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I am a firm believer in never asking a client to do something that I wouldn’t do myself. Being open and honest with clients is I feel, a duty of care to them. I also think it is important to ensure that clients are aware that I am not perfect, I get anxious moments and low days, and I feel this deepens my understanding of what the client is experiencing, as its nothing that I haven’t experienced myself. So when I began to experience stress-induced anxiety from a busy work life, I had to take a step back and think what I would tell a client in this situation; to address their anxious thoughts and to implement self-care. So that is what I set myself for a personal action point this week, and I for this months blog, I wanted to give you an insight into a perspective of the therapist in the client chair.

In my personal friendship circle, my closest friends tease me that I have a mantra of ‘hello my names Jessica and everything’s fine’, and I’ve often said this with a straight face, whilst inside I felt like I was at breaking point. I struggle with overworking and pushing myself too hard, resulting in painful physiological symptoms. So when clients come in and discuss how they feel like they’re overworking themselves to out run failure, I get it, hook, line, and sinker.

So below is a diary excerpt of the day of a burnout individual who implemented CBT and self-care into their day.

Thursday 11th October 17

Today I woke up overwhelmed, a knot in my stomach and a heaviness. I immediately checked in on my thoughts to notice that my mind was already into the next week, thinking of everything I had to do. For this, I implored a mindfulness technique and asked myself ‘what is happening right now that I have to think about’, so I began to think out my day and nothing more. As the day went on, I began having a negative thought of ‘I should be working right now’, after investigating my thought, I made a brief mental list of the cost and benefits of taking a short self-care break (costs and benefits can be a helpful cognitive tool).

I then set myself four self-care ideas (it is important to note what YOU like doing, not what someone else likes doing). My four self-care tasks were;

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Cook a healthy, homemade dinner for this evening  

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Buy myself a nice bunch of flowers to look at for the week

 

 

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Light my favorite smelling candle and read a book

 

 

 

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Take my dog a walk in the park, with no earphones and appreciate nature and the changing season.

 

 

Even though I was back to work in the evening I cannot tell you how much of a difference those few hours accomplished.  Self-care alongside challenging negative thoughts is truly the road to happiness. I have been in that place of breaking point from overworking and I have learned the hard way that mental health is the cornerstone to EVERYTHING. Which is why I am such an advocate for self-care for mental health. It is the foundation of your physical health, relationships, work, the list goes on. And if you take care of your mental health, it will take care of you.

Thank you for reading, 

Jessica Leigh

 

 

 

 

 

 

← 5 Things a Psychotherapist wants you to know about Mental Health7-morning habits to supercharge your day! →

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Swipe left 🙋🏼‍♀️ This can be a common behaviour associated with anxiety and low self esteem. We can often tell people ‘everything’ in an attempt to control what they’re thinking. ‘Mind reading’ (trying to guess what people are thinking) is a cognitive distortion, which results in us spending a lot of time and effort trying to ‘convince’ people otherwise. When more often than not, they were thinking about something completely different. This behaviour can be costly because it is not only draining, but maintains inner beliefs of perceived weakness. Psycho education around long term stress. Perfectionism and general anxiety places your body into fight or flight mode over a long period of time leading to poor cognitive function (decision making etc) and health problems. The key to addressing these problems is to break down what is behaviourally and cognitively maintaining your anxiety and slowly adapting them to the healthy, rather than the harmful. Happy Monday everyone! We’re back in the office today from 10am. Excited for a new week of new clients! Any questions or queries, please feel free to ask! Have a lovely Monday! Self care Sunday reminder! 🙋🏼‍♀️ This is something I used to be so guilty of in my personal life. If I didn’t know everything about a topic, so I criticised myself for being stupid. I have a natural perfectionistic mindset which can be helpful, but extremely harmful if it isn’t attended to. Perfectionistic thinking brings in all or nothing thinking (or black and white thinking), which sounds like ‘I don’t know everything so I must be completely stupid’. Resulting in withdrawn behaviour and anxiety. When I began to challenge this and look for evidence of intelligence outside of this ONE example, I realised how strong emotion based thinking is. Next time you criticise yourself for not having all the answers, pull in the full picture and context, and remember that by merely admitting you don’t have all the answers is not a repsresentation of your intelligence as a whole #youresmarterthanyouthink I do not have enough time in the day to highlight how wrong this message is. You can not outrun your emotions and it certainly isn’t healthy to burn yourself out in the process. Choose time to address you emotions, either independently or with a counsellor. Take care of your mental health and it will take care of you #slowandsteady JLCBT client review #introvertproblems 🙋🏼‍♀️ #counsellinghumour There are a number of cognitive distortions that can effect our thinking. One of which is called ‘catastrophising’. This distortion consistently pulls your mind to the worst case, unrealistic scenarios which fuel anxiety. CBT teaches you how to check, challenge and change your negative thinking. Allowing you to be more in control of your mood as a result. If someone is going through a period of anxiety or depression, remember that it is not your responsibility as a loved one to ‘fix’ their problems, but you can ‘facilitate’ help through listening and empathy. More often than not the reason why we feel overwhelmed with individuals going through mental health problems is because we place an expectation on ourselves to ‘fix’ them. Take time today to merely ask how someone is. #youremorehelpthanyouthink Helpful things to ask yourself when you’re anxious/ depressed to glean perspective #cbttraining #mentalhealth You’re stronger than you think ❤️ Does this look familiar? If so you could be experiencing anxiety. For more information, visit our website today. Wishing all our clients and followers a lovely weekend! See you Monday! New blog from JLCBT! Link in bio and video blog on our highlights #selfcare New blog from JLCBT. Link in bio Sitting down to reply to all your questions and queries! #fueledbycoffee #admin #clientcommunication

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