Why Feelings Don’t Make Us Ill, and What Actually Does

Psychodynamic Therapy for Anxiety (Online UK)

Many people believe they struggle because they “have too many feelings.” In practice, people tend to struggle because certain feelings trigger anxiety.

This understanding comes from Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP), a well researched-informed psychodynamic model grounded in how the nervous system responds to perceived threat.

You do not need to know the theory. What matters is understanding how anxiety forms and what maintains it.

What Anxiety Really Is: Beyond The Symptoms

Anxiety is not simply a symptom to eliminate. It is often a signal that a feeling has been judged unsafe.

Psychodynamic therapy helps you understand:

  • Why anxiety appears

  • What triggers it beneath the surface

  • How your mind attempts to manage it

  • How to work with it differently

Feelings are not the problem

Emotions are biological signals.

  • Sadness helps us process loss

  • Anger protects boundaries

  • Fear prepares us for danger

  • Love supports connection and repair

When experienced fully, emotions rise, peak, and pass. Even intense feelings are temporary. Difficulties arise when certain feelings are linked to threat.

This often develops early in life, particularly when:

  • Expressing emotion risked rejection

  • Conflict felt unsafe

  • Approval felt conditional

  • Being “too much” or “not enough” carried consequences

When a feeling threatens attachment or self-image, anxiety is activated.

Why Anxiety Appears

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Anxiety functions as a warning signal.

It reflects the nervous system’s response to perceived emotional danger.

Common signs include:

  • Muscle tension

  • Tight chest

  • Dizziness

  • Nausea

  • Racing thoughts

  • Mental blankness or dissociation

Defence Mechanisms: Automatic Emotional Protection

When anxiety rises, the mind attempts to prevent the underlying feeling from reaching awareness.

These processes are called defence mechanisms. They are automatic and universal.

Common examples include:

  • Overthinking instead of feeling

  • People-pleasing

  • Minimising or joking

  • Emotional numbing

  • Self-criticism

  • Avoiding conflict

  • Saying “I don’t know”

  • Staying constantly busy

Defences develop for protection. Historically, they would have helped you back then. However, in later life they come at a cost.

The Cost of Defences

Defences interrupt emotional processing but do not resolve the emotion itself.

This creates a repeating internal cycle:

  1. A feeling emerges

  2. Anxiety increases

  3. A defence blocks the feeling

  4. The emotion remains unresolved and stays suppressed in the body

Over time this can present as:

  • Chronic anxiety

  • Low mood or numbness

  • Fatigue

  • Physical symptoms

  • Repetitive relationship patterns

  • A persistent sense of being stuck

The symptom is rarely the feeling itself. It is often the consequence of avoiding it.

Why Patterns Repeat

Defences shape perception as well as behaviour.

For example:

  • Blocked anger may lead to experiencing others as controlling

  • Avoided closeness may maintain emotional distance

  • Suppressed sadness may produce flatness or meaninglessness

Triggers repeat because the underlying emotional response has not been processed to completion.

How Psychodynamic Therapy for Anxiety Helps

Therapy aims to increase capacity to experience emotion safely.

In practice, this involves:

  • Noticing anxiety in the body

  • Identifying automatic defences

  • Gradually reducing those defences

  • Experiencing feelings at a regulated pace

As capacity increases:

  • Anxiety typically decreases

  • Emotional responses resolve more efficiently

  • Symptoms often reduce

The pace is collaborative and adapted to your tolerance.

Fees and Practical Information

Sessions are 50 minutes and cost £65.

Appointments are available online across the UK, with morning, afternoon, and evening availability.

Next Steps

If you would like to explore whether therapy might be helpful, you are welcome to contact me.

The initial consultation is a chance to talk things through and decide what feels appropriate.

Contact

If you would like to explore whether therapy might be helpful, you are welcome to get in touch.

An initial consultation gives us space to consider what brings you here and whether this way of working feels right for you.

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FAQ: Therapy for Anxiety

  • Feelings themselves are not harmful. Anxiety typically arises when certain feelings are associated with threat.

  • No. Anxiety reflects learned patterns of emotional protection.

  • Defences are useful in some contexts. In others, they restrict emotional processing and maintain symptoms.

  • When approached gradually and safely, emotional experience tends to regulate rather than intensify anxiety.

  • Emotional numbing is also a protective response. Therapy works with this carefully and progressively.

  • Coping strategies manage symptoms. Psychodynamic therapy addresses the processes generating them.

  • It depends on individual circumstances. An initial consultation helps determine suitability.

  • No. Anxiety affects the body directly. Therapy addresses the underlying regulatory process.

  • Duration varies depending on patterns and goals. Some changes occur quickly; deeper restructuring takes longer.

  • To increase emotional capacity, reduce automatic anxiety, and interrupt repetitive patterns.

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