ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the common symptoms of anxiety. Sometimes, clients present with difficulties but do not consciously recognise that they are suffering from a generalised anxiety state or from a named phobia. Many clients have described experiencing panic attacks without being aware that this is actually a known syndrome. Increased heart rate, often felt as palpitations; a feeling of “fluttering” in the chest or of a pounding heart; a client may describe a conscious awareness of their heart beating or that it seems “to skip a beat” every so often. A client may describe a feeling of muscle tension in a certain part of their anatomy, or even throughout a whole range of different parts of the body. Some clients can make use of very plausible arguments as to the reason they are behaving in a certain way.
