Support the Phobic Trust-Reinstate Funding for the Wellington Clinic

Dear Wellingtonians We urgently need your help to keep our service running in Wellington. I am the Chief Executive and Founder of the Phobic Trust which I established 30 years ago to treat anxiety disorders. This includes offering group and individual therapeutic treatment for anxiety, panic disorder, phobias (including agoraphobia and social phobia), and OCD (including obsessive thinking and hoarding). We also have consumer support groups and a 24-hour 0800 phone line for people in distress. Anxiety disorders are very common in New Zealand with 24% of the population estimated to suffer from them. Many people live successful lives with anxiety, but our expertise over the years has been in working with people with the most severe forms of these disorders. These are people for whom anxiety is debilitating and incapacitating. It prevents them from developing close relationships, stops them from going to work or school, severely interfering with their lives and the lives of the people close to them. Many of these people are on long term benefits due to their disability, Many resort to alcohol and drug abuse and more sadly suicide. Unfortunately the Chief Executive of the CCHB resigned last year. The new Acting CEO and CCDHB funders were under pressure to cut costs and refused to renew our contract, arguing that the people we have seen were not severely enough disabled. This is not the experience of the people who have been able to benefit from our service even in the brief time we have worked with them. Nor is it the opinion of our very experienced specialised psychologists and psychiatrist. We believe the service is needed. We have been told the only way to demonstrate this is for people to tell the DHB it is needed. You can do this by supporting us by a petition. Please help us to help you and your families, more importantly the future generations.… Marcia Read QSO Consumer Reference: My name is Beckie Alexander and I am a former client of the Wellington Phobic Trust Clinic. I had trouble with anxiety from 1994 onwards but it wasn't until I reached rock bottom in 2002,that the Phobic Trust was able to help me on the road to recovery. Prior to this I had sought help from other counsellors but invariably was left to 'do it myself',not something someone as severely disabled as myself could do. I could not work,or even leave the house. Marcia Read was instrumental in the person I have become today,a fitness trainer with my own business. This clinic is vital to the Wellington community because it provides a 'specialist service' for people with anxiety disorders. Please help us give other people like myself the support they need to live full productive lives! Beckie