Neuroscience-InformedANXIETY TREATMENT IN LONDON

The part of the brain responsible for triggering the anxiety response, the limbic system, doesn’t process rational argument and operates below conscious thought, faster than your thinking mind can respond. This is why people can understand precisely why a situation is safe and still feel their heart rate spike, their chest tighten, their thoughts race; insight simply doesn’t reach the mechanism. Working with this level of the brain’s and nervous system’s response, rather than only with the thinking that follows it, is what distinguishes an integrated neuroscience-informed approach from purely cognitive work.

Please know that understanding anxiety and changing it are two entirely separate processes. The cognitive understanding happens in the prefrontal cortex, the thinking brain and what is often described as top-down. The anxiety response originates lower down, in the limbic system, where emotional memories and threat responses are encoded. These two systems don’t reliably talk to each other in the way we’d like them to. You can have complete intellectual clarity about a situation while your nervous system continues to read it as a threat, because the threat encoding was laid down independently of any conscious decision. And it is this historic threat encoding that needs working with, through techniques and processes that target it directly, as well as working with a more ‘bottom-up’ approach.

This is one of the most common frustrations I hear from people every day. That you know the anxiety isn’t proportionate to what is actually going on, you’ve read about it, done the talking therapy, tried to mainly think your way out of it – helpful but not the full package – and consequently, for those with this past encoding especially, it still doesn’t shift. The brain circuit running the anxiety response doesn’t respond to willpower or reasoning. It was never designed to. Pushing harder at it doesn’t work, so please, be kind with yourself, the part of the brain running your anxiety is simply one willpower struggles to reach successfully.

If you want to know more about anxiety’s origins and the ‘top-down, bottom-up’ approach I mentioned, you can find more by reading more about what is anxiety: why you can’t think your way out of it.

The nervous system is capable of change quickly when the right level of the brain is being targeted. Most people I work with begin to notice meaningful change within one to three sessions, not just in how they manage anxiety but in how frequently and intensely they experience it. This is a faster timeline than many people expect from therapy, and it reflects both the efficiency of the methods I use and the fact that we are working with the source of the anxiety rather than its downstream effects.

The exact timeline varies depending on how long the anxiety has been present, how deeply it is rooted and connected trauma components, and whether it is connected to specific experiences or is more generalised. An initial consultation gives us both a clearer picture of what is likely needed.

I work efficiently and do not extend treatment beyond what is producing results. You receive resources, psycho-education and tools and techniques to work on between the sessions via your own portal access, meaning our time together is used to its optimum. If a particular approach isn’t producing change, we assess and adjust together rather than continue with the same approach. Our goal is for you to feel in control of it and to resolve the core components that were triggering it day to day, not ongoing management.

If previous therapy like CBT helped you understand your anxiety but didn’t change the physical experience of it, the most likely explanation is that the work addressed the top-down pathway – the cognitive dimension – without reaching the bottom-up nervous system response where much of the anxiety is generated. Most talking therapies are built to work with the cognitive dimension of anxiety, the thoughts and reasoning, and they do that well. What they have more limited reach into is the nervous system level, where much of the anxiety is actually generated. So if the thinking work helped but didn’t shift the physical experience of it, that’s a straightforward reflection of where each tool has access.

The approaches I use work at both levels simultaneously. Havening Techniques® acts directly on the nervous system response and to re-code past triggers; CBT and cognitive elements address the thought patterns that maintain anxiety; NLP and hypnotherapy work with the unconscious patterns that sustain the cycle. Somatic, body- based, emotional and nervous system regulation tools form new associations, calm, soothe and build sustained resilience. The combination is specifically designed for people for whom partial approaches have produced incomplete results.

People who have had previous therapy often make faster progress, not slower, because they already understand the landscape of their anxiety and have done significant work with the cognitive patterns. What’s needed is to ensure the nervous system dimension and working with the root cause(s) are added and find any other components that have been missing for you.

Three questions that will give you genuinely useful information before committing.

First: How do you work with anxiety?

You want to hear how whether they work with both the cognitive and nervous system aspects of anxiety, or primarily with thought patterns, changing behaviour and talking. This tells you whether the approach also includes the bottom-up pathway where much persistent anxiety originates. You also want to listen out for whether they mention previous trauma or impactful experiences and how (or if) they deal with them. Do they seek to find and target them directly or do they use gradual exposure, basic tools for the physical symptoms and cognitive approaches as a way to override and form new associations. Finding and targeting the root cause(s) paves the way ready to approach previous threatening situations and experiences in a new way. It tends to get results quicker, be more comfortable and leaves less need for time and work to address specific situations.  

Second: What does your approach do differently for anxiety that has strong physical symptoms, such as racing heart, chest tightness, hypervigilance… or when it seems to fire without an obvious thought trigger?

A therapist with a differentiated approach will have a specific answer and will demonstrate knowledge of ‘bottom-up’ approach and nervous system regulation and somatic based processes that help on this level.

Third: How many sessions would you typically expect before someone notices meaningful change, and what would indicate to you that the approach needs adjusting?

A practitioner who can answer these specifically rather than generically is more likely to have a tailored approach to anxiety rather than a single model applied to all presentations. Most anxiety that has persisted despite previous help needs something more targeted than a standard protocol.

Yes. You don’t need to relive everything to change how it affects you.
Havening Techniques®, which I use, works by changing how the brain has encoded a threat response at a neurological level, without requiring prolonged re-exposure to the triggering experience. The process is gentle and targets the amygdala directly through a psychosensory protocol, which means the anxiety pattern can be changed without the discomfort that can stop many people seeking help. It can also be carried out ‘content-free’, meaning you don’t have to talk about, or divulge the experience you are working on. For those struggling with difficult feelings about their past experiences, this can come as a great relief.

The assumption that effective treatment requires detailed re-engagement with difficult experiences comes primarily from exposure-based models, where repeated contact with a feared stimulus is used to build a new association. This works for some presentations, but it’s not the only route, and for many people it’s a significant deterrent from seeking help at all, and for some, can lead to feeling ‘flooded’, where the exposure becomes to overwhelming for them to tolerate, hindering recovery and creating unnecessary suffering.

The approaches I use, particularly Havening, allow the nervous system encoding of a threat response to be changed without the need to endure high levels of distress during the process. For those of you who have avoided therapy because you fear having to relive things, I hope this shows that there are other ways to help.

Yes. Tam works with clients worldwide via video. Online sessions are as effective as in-person sessions for most people.

Tam has in-person practices in Marylebone, London and in Brighton. She also works with clients worldwide online.

Havening Techniques® is a psychosensory method that uses specific touch-based protocols to create lasting neurological changes in the amygdala (the brain’s threat-detection centre) directly altering how anxiety responses are encoded rather than working with the thinking that surrounds them. Most persistent anxiety has a significant nervous system component and encoding that cognitive approaches have limited reach into. I am an experienced certified Havening Techniques® practitioner and one of a small number currently practising in the UK.

Unlike exposure therapy, Havening does not require sustained re-engagement with triggering experiences. Unlike CBT, it does not primarily work through changing thought patterns or avoidance behaviours while the underlying encoding that drives them is still intact. They will naturally dominate until they are worked with and rewired, so the obvious way in is to work with recoding them first and then we’re able to address any residual unhelpful thinking patterns and behaviours where we can integrate cognitive and behavioural elements for lasting change. Havening is particularly effective where anxiety has a strong physical quality, fires without an obvious cognitive trigger, or is connected to specific past experiences that have become encoded as ongoing threat signals.

The research base for Havening is growing, alongside a vast body of experience-based evidence from successful Havening case studies and findings from practitioners world-wide. It works by inducing delta waves in the brain through self-applied or received Havening touch, which changes the electrochemical encoding of the fear memory in the amygdala. The result is that the trigger no longer produces the same physiological response, as the encoding no longer connects to the old emotional responses such as fear or anxiety. By de-linking these, it frees us up to form new pathways of behaviours, responses, thinking around the situation.