Tony's story

Tony was experiencing low mood, negative thoughts and poor body image. He had difficulty understanding his emotions and described feelings of sadness and anger that could be triggered by something small and would last for hours.

"I seem to get these negative thoughts and I lie on my bed thinking about them for hours and how bad everything is. I can't stop them."

In the first session with his Wellbeing Coach, Tony looked at what was going well in his life. He named a number of creative hobbies and a sense of contentment with his university course but described experiencing high levels of anxiety near exams and assignment deadlines and how this affected his behaviour.

The Coach helped Tony to understand the physical effects anxiety can have on our bodies and why we experience these sensations. They looked at the thoughts-feeling-behaviour model and applied it to some recent situations.

Tony talked about his use of social media and how reading comments left him feeling anxious and down. His Coach asked how much control he had over this and Tony realised he could choose not to read comments.

Over the course of sessions, Tony and his Coach looked at assertiveness techniques, thought challenging and coping with distressing feelings. Tony used a worry flow chart to observe his emotions and let them go. He found talking about his interactions with others helpful for understanding himself and his relationships.

Tony was able to increase his self-confidence and became more self-accepting as he developed his understanding of the connection between his thoughts, emotions and feelings and gained more awareness and control over them.

"I now understand why I get these thoughts and emotions and how to handle them...These were some great sessions, which helped me deal with low mood and negative thoughts."