Kelly Harris

About

Why can I not relax even when everything is fine? People ask me that with real frustration, having done everything they were supposed to do and arrived somewhere objectively secure without any corresponding change in how it feels. The short answer is that the part of you responsible does not take your word for it. Hypervigilance responds to accumulated evidence rather than to reassurance, which is why being told you are fine now has never once worked. We build the evidence deliberately instead, in conditions where you stay in control throughout, and the setting gradually adjusts itself downward. Before clinical work I spent my time in research, and I still think in terms of what would actually constitute evidence. Reassurance is not evidence. If everything is fine and you still cannot settle, get in touch. Evidence takes longer to build than reassurance and it actually holds.