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18 Feb, 2013

Creative Minds Are More Prone to Anxiety – Surrey Institute Study

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Wallington, Surrey (PRWEB UK) 17 February 2013 – The study involved 328 of their clients. 153 were clients who were having hypnotherapy for anxiety and 175 were being seen for issues unrelated to anxiety. In the study their clients were asked a set of simple questions. One of the questions was “Do you consider yourself to be a creative person, yes or no?”

The results showed that 88% of the anxiety clients believed that they were creative in some way, whereas surprisingly, only 47% of the non-anxiety clients believed they were creative.

Paul Howard, the anxiety specialist at The Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy said, “The results were quite unexpected and lead us to believe that creative people have a higher propensity for developing anxiety conditions.”

The anxiety clients were, in the main, suffering with agoraphobic type issues like having panic attacks whilst travelling and shopping, and social phobia issues like blushing, exams, presentations and public speaking.

Creative people are often associated with creative jobs. However, interestingly in this study the mix of professions was across the board, from accountants to secretaries, with no particularly creative type professions like artist, musician or architect being prevalent.

Howard went on to say, “Although this study does not prove that creative people have a high risk of anxiety, the results are interesting and warrant further investigation. In a study we are starting soon we intend to give clients a test to establish quite how creative they are, making the results more objective.“

Howard believes that the reason creative people may be more likely to develop anxiety is that they have a greater capability to create very visual imagery about what “might” happen to them in situations they are already afraid of, because of previous experience.

He gave an example of a person that has had a panic attack on a train previously. If they are creative, they may be better at producing a catastrophic result for their next journey, generating a higher level of anxiety in their mind.

Paul Howard has been practising hypnotherapy at the Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy in Wallington, Surrey for over 10 years. He specialises in anxiety and psoriasis and is an accredited member and Marketing Director for the National Council for Hypnotherapy.