2 minute read
Mind over Matter
We explore the power of thought and how therapy is for life, not just for a crisis.
In the BBC series Change Your Mind, Change Your Life, celebrity husband and wife hosts Matt and Emma Willis match people navigating mental health journeys with therapists to explore ways to overcome their anxieties.
No scenario is the same, but all show how you think can make a difference - and that therapies once learnt can be a tool for everyday resilience.
The couple discuss their own experiences. Matt, member of boy band Busted, reunites with the psychotherapist who worked with him to understand the emotions behind his battle with addiction. Emma, who hosts The Voice, shares her own health anxieties. Weeks before the programme was aired this summer, she’d discovered a hole in her heart which needed surgery.
“It really knocked me. I didn’t feel like myself and didn’t know how to cope.”
She used talking therapies, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and mindfulness to find clarity, strength and a path to healing that helps her in everyday life.
"I didn’t think I needed it,” she says in the programme. “Now I see it as something that should be available and encouraged for everyone. There is talking on a surface level but there’s so much more going on inside.”
Read Mersey Care’s self help guide on managing anxiety
Talking Therapies (visit NHS.UK to find a service local to you)
nhs.uk/mental-health/ conditions/health-anxiety
