Test, Performance or Interview Anxiety
Most students, performers, job seekers experience some level of special sensation/feelings in the body before and/or during exam, performance, and interview. For majority that help get ready and go through the event effectively. That feeling/sensation might have different names, everybody calls it differently: a little nervousness, worry and so on which are basically fear, or does not give any label at all. However, when an intensity of those sensations/feelings grows to out of control level then we call them fear, anxiety or a panic attack and that state affects performance and become a problem.
Fear has two kind of manifestation: phobic, an acute reaction to a stimulus and nervousness/anxiety kind of reaction when it is built over longer period of time. Phobia is like one trial learning and can be unlearned quickly. However anxiety takes a bit more time to unlearn.
What to Expect
After an initial short phone or e-mail consultation we schedule an in-person (or via Skype) assessment session. But before the assessment session I send you a simple intake form to fill out and send me back by e-mail or post mail. Or, if you prefer, we fill it out together during the assessment session. However, when I have it before the assessment session it saves us a lot of time.
The assessment session is free of charge. During that session we have a chance to get to know each other. Then I gather information about the issue and your conscious and unconscious reactions to it. Finally, I use couple of techniques to find out if I can help you or not. The assessment also highlights how many sessions you would need. Most of the times we need only two sessions to get results but sometimes three-four sessions needed and it is only when there are other stimuli involved or when having anxiety became a habit. If I can help you, I describe how the process goes, how many sessions it might take and what is your investment. Then you receive answers on all your questions and make a decision.
We start with understanding what you want instead. Generally, fear/anxiety is there to protect us, but when it is too intense we cannot get the message. I explain, teach and then guide you through simple, easy to do and fast working techniques to reduce the intensity of the anxiety/nervousness to a manageable level. Then we find out and maintain positive intentions of anxiety, if any. Despite its extreme unpleasantness, often anxiety has some very important informative or protective function. Mostly it is variation of protecting you from something or warning about something. In general, most of the time, any feeling, emotion and behavior have a positive intention and do something positive for us. But sometimes it could be just a habit that is triggered by some stimuli and act as a background noise.
Then I guide you through a special set of technique designed to help recoding your body/mind in a way that you react to the same trigger that used to make you feel fearful, differently, in a way you want. For example you might want to react calmly but being alert, with confidence and strength to deal with a situation. In a very safe manner we repeat the techniques couple of times and your anxiety pattern is interrupted!
After the sessions you are equipped with techniques and strategies to go through events in a way you want. Then it takes in average three weeks to repeat/practice techniques and make new behavior (for instance being calm and confident during exam, performance or interview) automatic default behavior.