Anxiety Therapy
Are Stress And Anxiety Defining The Way You Live?
Is uncontrollable worry disrupting your job, relationships, or social life? Are you so busy mentally running through worst-case, “what if” scenarios that you feel like you’re unable to make decisions, take action, and enjoy your days?
Perhaps you’re anticipating or actively navigating a difficult life transition and need help managing the added stress. Maybe fear, self-doubt, or irrational thoughts are making it difficult for you to relax or even feel safe.
Anxiety Can Present Itself In A Number Of Ways
As a way of managing your worries, you may spend a lot of energy trying to control situations, people, or your environment. When that goal proves impossible, you may find you feel irritable, reactive, and then guilty or ashamed as a result.
The constant battle with worry may be causing muscle tension, digestive issues, or problems sleeping, and making decisions. And if you’re in a relationship, you may be concerned that the inability to control your anxiety is placing an unfair burden on your partner.
Anxiety can make it difficult to feel hopeful and optimistic about the future, but you can enjoy a more fulfilling, joyful life. Therapy can help free you from the yoke of anxiety and negative thoughts, allowing you to feel calmer, safer, and more capable of handling whatever life throws at you.
Our World Is Filled With Anxiety-Inducing Stressors
Anxiety is the body’s natural way of alerting us to danger and keeping ourselves safe. It can even motivate and push us to grow and make positive changes. Experiencing some level of anxiety is normal and even useful. However, for many people, that warning system has trouble either shutting off or accurately perceiving what is and is not a real threat. As a result, some people get stuck in survival mode where worry and fear become the dominating forces in their life.
Anxiety can be fostered by family dynamics, socio-cultural dysfunction, and life changes. Growing up in a family environment that was chaotic, full of conflict, or one in which feelings were not discussed, are all factors that can contribute to anxiety. Our culture’s overwhelming pressure to succeed and be happy, to measure up on social media, to be fiercely independent, as well as prevalent discrimination and marginalization are also factors that contribute to anxiety. And sometimes a perfect storm of life changes can create anxiety even in a person who typically feels calm and able to control their worry.
Therapy can help give you a clearer understanding of yourself and what drives your anxiety. By looking at yourself through a lens of curiosity and compassion, you can begin to heal, feel settled, and redirect the energy you have been channeling into worrying toward the pursuit of what truly brings you joy.
Anxiety Therapy Can Liberate You From Fear And Worry
A lot of folks coping with anxiety can’t imagine a future where they feel like everything is going to be okay. They look at other people who juggle responsibilities and have fun without worrying, and it feels like an impossible reality—but change is possible.
Therapy gives you an opportunity to identify the source of your anxiety, understand the function it serves, and learn what you can do to lessen its existence and its impact. Ultimately, therapy offers you a chance to feel safe, calm, and capable of enjoying life.
What You Can Expect From Anxiety Counseling Sessions
Before we first meet, I’ll provide you with some forms to fill out so you can describe your experience with anxiety in as much detail as you like. Then, in our first session, we’ll get to know each other a little better and explore in greater depth why you’re seeking help now. I understand that it takes time to build trust, so we will proceed from there at a pace that feels right to you.
When it comes to my approach, I believe that healing takes place on parallel paths. That means, while the overarching goal is to understand and address the roots of anxiety so that it is no longer a problem, it is also important to help you find some immediate relief from symptoms.
To better understand the core issue, we’ll focus on your history—significant life events, family background, socio-cultural impacts, and relationship dynamics—and how those factors may have influenced your experience with anxiety. Understanding those contributing factors can help inform the healing process.
Some Of The Tools I Use In Anxiety Therapy Sessions
Every person is different, so I use several tools to help clients safely address deeper issues. For instance, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a powerful method for treating anxiety that focuses on challenging and reframing inaccurate thoughts and beliefs that fuel worry. Psychodynamic work allows us to follow the trail of anxiety and its symptoms back to its source so we can treat the problem at its root. And if we find trauma is at the root, we can use EMDR, a highly effective treatment for trauma, to address it.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) works with the different parts of a person that may be at odds with each other. For instance, IFS can address the part of you that runs through worst-case, “what if” scenarios because it truly believes it is necessary and vital—even though another part of you believes that doing so is causing more harm than good.
While doing that deeper work, we’ll draw from a toolbox of techniques designed to help you more immediately manage the symptoms of anxiety. For instance, we may use breathing exercises, grounding techniques, and mindfulness skills that will help you better regulate difficult emotions and manage disruptive thinking. I realize that some symptoms are really coping mechanisms that, while disruptive, may keep you feeling safe, which is why I’ll never push you to let go of them until you’re ready. The goal is to figure out what works best for you.
I know that it may seem impossible now, but you can get to a place where you feel optimistic and trust that everything will be okay. While anxiety therapy can’t transform the world into a perfectly safe place, it can empower you with the capacity to handle whatever comes your way so you can stop battling negative thoughts or preparing for the worst and start living with a sense of confidence and peace.
Perhaps You Are Considering Anxiety Counseling But Still Have Some Concerns…
I’m worried my anxiety will never get better—even with treatment.
Part of you knows that change is possible. That’s why you’re here. But the part of you that is anxious often speaks so loudly that you can’t hear the rational, resilient, part of you. Anxiety therapy can make more space for that healthier voice and help the worried part of you feel safer.
I’m terrified to face my fears and the parts of myself that I don’t like.
What others may call “resistance” I see as your mind and body’s way of communicating that an essential part of you needs attention in order to feel safe before it can heal and move forward. So part of anxiety counseling is about listening to that part of you, understanding it, and addressing its concerns—not judging or pushing past it. Throughout the therapeutic process, I will communicate with you, checking in with how you are feeling and what you are ready to address.
I feel like so many people have it worse. Why do I deserve help?
No matter how much pain you are in, you deserve to feel better and enjoy a fulfilling life with all the opportunities that it provides. Anxiety on any level can be problematic. Therapy with an anxiety counselor helps you navigate immediate challenges and prevents minor issues from becoming larger ones.