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Overcoming anxiety One cold wintery London night Andrew Vincent, a psychotherapist specializing in addictions had an epiphany. He suddenly realised that the weather was not conducive to help people deal with their demons. He and his wife, Sally, already had a villa in the Algarve and decided to move lock, stock and barrel. Along with their multidisciplinary team Sally and Andrew have been helping people at their English language recovery centre in the Algarve, for the last 10 years. On arriving at the aptly named Nova Vida Recovery Centre, I am surprised that there are no outward signs that the pleasant pink-hued villa is anything other than a normal property. As I walk in it feels like a home and not a clinic. As I settle down in a comfy armchair in the study I ask Andrew more about the move to the Algarve. “At that time, I was in private health care and I saw the emphasis was on profit and not on the individual patient and I wanted to find an environment which would help the recovery process.” Alcoholism and addiction have been accepted as a disease since the mid-1950s in the USA but there is less acceptance in the UK. Since 2015 the diagnostic criteria used by doctors to diagnose this illness has been renamed “chemical use disorder” or “alcohol use disorder,” however, Andrew tells me that many medical practitioners in the UK still do not treat it as such. This is in contrast to the US and Holland where it has been accepted as a medical condition and treatment can be covered by health insurance programmes.
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BY SOPHIE SADLER
The majority of Andrew's patients are there to recover from alcohol addiction although increasingly they are dealing with more and more business people or professionals suffering from burn-out. It is a surprise to me that around a fifth of their patients are airline pilots, who are being sent to the centre to recover from stress or anxiety also termed as “burnout”. I ask them to define this and he tells me; “It is when there are too many demands on an individual and not enough resources – both within the person and the organization. It normally affects diligent people who push themselves too far and eventually, it can be likened to when a blown fuse in the head.” The centre has worked with a major Asian airline, as well as other European airlines, to help pilots who are struggling to cope with the demands of the job. Following the German wings tragedy when co-pilot Andreas Lubitz was accused of deliberately crashing the plane after suffering from depression, there has been increasing pressure on airlines to monitor their pilots. “Budget airline pilots are particularly susceptible;” says Andrew, “they have challenging shift patterns and this causes a lot of pressure on their bodies and minds.” The centre focuses on individual care to suit each patient using a combination of group therapy and one-to-one sessions which can help people get through eating disorders, drug or alcohol addictions, sex addiction or gambling problems as well as other emotional disorders. Looking out over the villa's pool from its elevated position over the Loule countryside you can imagine why people would choose this place to help them recover.