Easing anxiety and promoting positive thoughts
Anxiety can be unexpected and overwhelming. While we all feel anxious from time-to-time and some level of passing worry is perfectly normal, it can become unmanageable alone and disrupt an individual’s daily functioning. Here’s how Help@hand from Unum helped support an employee whose anxiety was triggered by a recent occurrence, but which had roots back to her childhood.
The role
Rachel is a Governance Analyst in her 30s. Her relatively new and demanding role involves handling important legal and regulatory matters for the business.
Help@hand’s mental health support in action
Following a recent redundancy, Rachel had suffered bouts of anxiety that meant she often had trouble sleeping and which impacted her day-to-day life. Determined to get to the bottom of what was causing her anxiety and take back control, Rachel decided to talk to an independent counsellor.
Rachel’s employer has access to Help@hand from Unum through their Group Income Protection policy and has promoted this to their employees so they can make the most out of the support available. The app provides key health and wellbeing services, including mental health support, a remote GP, physiotherapy, medical second opinions, and employee wellbeing support.
Using Help@hand’s confidential mental health support service, Rachel was offered a video appointment within two days with a mental health specialist via the app and was able to pick a time which suited her – taking advantage of the up to eight mental health consultations available to employees per year*.
During her counselling sessions, her therapist helped her clarify her thoughts, including a trip back in time where, together, they explored her childhood. With the consultant’s support, Rachel was able to look at how issues from decades before continued to impact her as an adult. As a result, she was able to come to terms with, and heal trauma that she didn’t realise she still carried with her.
Since using Help@hand, Rachel is sleeping better and is confident about what she wants. The sessions also helped her to understand the behaviour of people around her and allowed her to positively reframe her childhood.
The employee’s view
“I think the real antidote is speaking to someone who is trained to understand, who can help take the narratives out of the subconscious, and help me deal with issues.
Knowing that you are having a confidential chat to someone who is not judgemental and wants you to get better is good. I felt I had, and still have, someone to talk to if I need to discuss something important that is troubling me. This means that I am happier and can spend my energy on more productive things instead of dwelling on negative emotions.”
Find out more about Help@hand
Visit our dedicated Help@hand page for further information on how to get registered.
Already registered?
Head over to our employer toolkit for a suggested rollout plan for Help@hand, so you can communicate the services in a timely manner and get the highest level of engagement from your employees.
*Up to 8 sessions per year, shared between employee and partner.