Anxiety Treatment
Is The Stress Of Your Job Weighing You Down?
Are you a police officer, emergency medical professional, firefighter, or dispatcher living with chronic worry given the numerous critical situations that come your way day after day?
Is stress accumulating due to fluctuating shift work, long overtime hours, unpredictable call-backs, and delays without notice?
Have internal problems in your department created tensions and conflicts that disrupt the effectiveness of your team?
You may be feeling as though your job is weighing on you. When you receive a call, you can never be quite sure what challenging situation is waiting for you on the other side. Perhaps you get an overwhelming surge of worry every time the lights and sirens turn on out of concern that you may again be facing another traumatic situation.
It could be that stress is accumulating because of challenges within your department. You may be struggling to work with outdated equipment or are chronically short-staffed due to budget cuts and other financial constraints. Perhaps you’re due for a raise or promotion but know not to expect one because your department is in a hiring freeze or grappling with other internal setbacks.
When symptoms of anxiety meet workplace dilemmas, it can be difficult to feel as though a healthy work-life balance is possible. You may find yourself unable to make yourself available to your family during downtime because you’re so distressed by what to expect on the job next shift. And because you aren’t able to focus on the elements of life outside of work that bring you joy and purpose, you may feel as if you’re losing control of your emotional reactions.
It is, however, possible to do your job every day and not be in a state of constant worry. Therapeutic treatment is a well-researched method for reducing anxiety and minimizing the consequences of cumulative stress.
Unlike The Rest of Us, Trauma And Tragedy Are The Norm At Your Job
The nature of your work as a First Responder exposes you to a higher degree of stress than most people encounter in their day-to-day profession. And it’s no surprise that First Responders suffer from co-occurring symptoms of anxiety and panic at a rate four times that of the average American.[¹]
Ellen Kirschman captures the wide-ranging traumatic encounters that First Responders experience in her book I Love A Fire Fighter: What the Family Needs to Know. She writes that,
[First Responders] see more tragedy in a few months or a few years than the rest of us will see in our lifetimes: shootings, drownings, knifings, bombings, beatings, hangings, car wrecks, train wrecks, falls, fires, electrocutions, overdoses, poisonings, suffocations, heart attacks, seizures, sudden illnesses, workplace violence, school violence, domestic violence, and all manner of disasters—natural and unnatural, accidental or intentional.[² ]
By looking at Kirschman’s long list of critical incidents, it’s easy to see just how many variables and unknowns await First Responders each and every day. However, what this list doesn’t account for are the other aspects of cumulative stress endured by all of you—and those are the ongoing internal departmental stressors that frequently cause anxiety.
Oftentimes, for professionals who work in emergency response and regularly engage with the public, workplace politics can complicate one’s relationship to the job. At times it can feel like you’re under the microscope. Emergency work tends to draw strong and forthright personality types, which can result in tension and interpersonal conflict within the team. Furthermore, your job may include managerial or leadership figures whose professional philosophy remains at odds with your own.
Just as emergency work faces challenges both within and outside of the workplace, anxiety has an internal and external impact, as well. For instance, stress may be accumulating because of uncomfortable internal triggers—like physical sensations or a traumatic memory—which ultimately impact how you confront external dangers and threats. And perhaps because you have internalized stress for so long, your body has developed an automatic and uncomfortable response, possibly even numbness, when duty calls.
Like it or not, stressful events accumulate and have physical, emotional, and psychological consequences. However, anxiety treatment is precisely what can help you to cope and find relief—and it all begins with therapy at First Responders Thrive.
Anxiety Treatment Can Help You Unload The Burden Of Cumulative Stress
You likely became a First Responder out of a desire to help others, and as such, it probably doesn’t feel natural to be in a position to seek help for yourself. After all, you are the community help-givers who your neighbors turn to in dire circumstances.
However, I encourage you to look at it this way: you are there to serve your community and as a specialized therapist, I am here to serve you. During counseling, you will be given the chance to unpack the stress and anxiety that has been accumulating, so that you can begin to feel a sense of peace and resilience.
Throughout the course of therapy, you’ll be given an opportunity to explore your emotions and develop tools for coping and stress management with a therapist who respects you and understands your anxiety and the challenges that your job presents. You’ll also be encouraged to incorporate various strategies for wellness into your daily life—such as tips for good sleep hygiene, healthy nutrition and self-care, and social support—so that you can begin to reduce your symptoms of anxiety, panic, and cumulative stress.
Beginning with an initial intake, we will go over your professional and personal histories, your greatest concerns, and your specific goals for therapy. Together we will develop a thorough understanding of what you’re expecting from anxiety treatment and how I can be of most assistance to you. In addition, we will review our confidentiality agreement that is essential to our client-therapist relationship. I aim to be transparent in our work together while providing you with individually tailored and trustworthy care to help you with overcoming anxiety.
Over the course of treatment, you’ll be given several opportunities to gain meaningful insight into yourself and your anxiety. As you connect the dots between your experiences and the emotional responses you’ve had to them, you will foster a stronger internal understanding of yourself and be better prepared to handle distress in the future. Once you have a sense of why and how stress has accumulated, you’ll likely experience a sense of relief as you become more and more capable of pinpointing effective ways to manage your discomfort.
Incorporating principles of neurobiology, mindfulness, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), my approach aims to normalize your experience and calm your nervous system while strengthening relationships with your loved ones, coworkers, and, most importantly, yourself. I’m invested in helping you to improve your quality of life so that you can heal and recapture the strongest, most courageous, and most independent version of you that can possibly exist.
In this line of work, you’re probably rarely asked how you’re really doing; that’s where anxiety treatment can actually be so helpful. Anxiety and cumulative stress have made that uniform you’re wearing a hundred pounds heavier than it needs to be, therefore, I invite you to come and take a seat - let’s unpack your concerns together!
Maybe you’re ready to try therapy for anxiety and cumulative stress, but you have some questions…
Couldn’t I simply take medication to reduce anxiety symptoms?
While some medications can certainly curb the effects of acute anxiety and cumulative stress, these remedies can often mask symptoms of anxiety instead of getting to the core of the issue. Studies show that when it comes to anxiety treatment, medication is usually more effective when paired with counseling. This is likely because in therapy, you learn emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and strategies for coping that you will be able to access at any time, in any situation, in hopes that medication will eventually be able to be reduced or eliminated completely.
How do I know that what I say in therapy will be kept strictly between us?
I am a licensed and HIPAA-compliant psychologist who is committed to observing the utmost confidentiality within the therapeutic relationship. Moreover, I know from a specialized career working with Veterans and First Responders, that establishing privacy and building trust are absolutely essential to our relationship. During our first few sessions, I will make sure that you have a full understanding of the parameters and limitations of confidentiality and I will check in with you periodically to make sure you’re feeling heard, safe, and secure in the process.
I’m concerned that confronting my anxiety and cumulative stress will only make me feel worse.
I fully understand that beginning therapy for the first time can feel like an overwhelming prospect. Because our sessions are client-centered and tailored to meet your unique needs, we will move at your pace and discuss the topics that are of the utmost personal importance to you when it comes to issues of anxiety and cumulative stress. While these topics can bring up uncomfortable thoughts, emotions, and sensations, I will stand by you, helping to ensure that you feel safe, understood, and productive. It matters to me that you believe your needs are being met, and for that reason, I will ask you for feedback as we go along.
Take A Load Off And Find Peace
If you’re a First Responder, firefighter, emergency medical staff member, law enforcement officer, or dispatcher, anxiety treatment can help you cope with the elements of cumulative stress that come with your job. To schedule a free, 20-minute consultation to find out more about how I can be of assistance to you, please call (603) 491-5510 or contact me today.
References:
¹ https://www.jems.com/operations/groundbreaking-data-collected-on-mental-health-of-first-responders/
² KIRSCHMAN, E. (2021). Trauma and stress. In I LOVE A FIRE FIGHTER: What the family needs to know. S.l.: GUILFORD (p. 163-4).
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