Disorders

Disorders that can be treated using cognitive behavioral psychotherapy.

There are several disorders where behavioral psychotherapy can help. At first glance some symptoms do not even seem to have a psychological origin. Here are some examples:

• Psychological difficulties after a sudden change in your life such as life crisis, job loss, problems with your husband/wife, divorce, moving to a new place etc. (adjustment disorders).
• Psychological difficulties which appear after experiencing a traumatic event such as assault, accident, war etc. (posttraumatic stress disorder).
• feeling down, lack of drive, hopelessness (depressive disorder).
• Suddenly emerging intensive anxiety (panic disorder).
• A fear that a panic attack might happen if you leave your house or while walking in a public place such a market or a department store (agoraphobia).
• An intensive and persistent fear of an situation, object or animal (specific phobias).
• Excessive and uncontrollable worry about the future, excessive worry that something bad might happen (generalized anxiety disorder).
• Recurring and persistent thoughts, which cannot be ignored despite efforts to do so (obsessive thoughts).
• Rituals that you repeat over and over - either with no obvious reason or because by doing this you try to lower the anxiety caused by obsessive thoughts (compulsive behaviour). Such behaviour might be washing hands very often, repeatedly checking out if your electric cooker is switched off etc.
• excessive worry about having a serious illness which was not discovered yet or was overseen by the doctor. This goes along with the urge of being frequently consulted by a physician and to get assured by him that you are perfectly healthy (hypochondria). 
  
• physical symptoms (abdominal pain, chest pain, nausea etc.) for which the physician cannot find any physical cause (somatization disorder).
  
• persistent pain that in the beginning might have had a physical origin (such as a slipped disk) but (according to the physician) their present intensity cannot be explained by a physical cause (persistent somatoform pain disorder).
  
• Long-lasting difficulties in the way you get along with other people such as: continuously feeling as being inferior to others, feeling to be dependent on another person in an excessive manner, experiencing the urge to always do things perfectly (personality disorders).
• .......these are only a few examples of problems that can be treated by psychotherapy. What your specifical diagnosis is will be be found out by me in a thorough diagnostic examination.
  

Your English speaking psychotherapist in Heidelberg

R. Zank