Therapy for Anxiety Disorders
Generalized Anxiety Disorders, Panic Attacks, and Phobias
Is this you?
Do your worry excessively and for no reason at times?
Is it hard to concentrate because you can’t stop thinking about something that occurred or even worse, hasn’t occurred yet, but you think it will?
Do you have muscle tension in most parts of your body and find it hard to relax?
Have you found it hard to breathe and thought you were having a heart attack?
Do you often have a feeling that something bad is going to happen?
Do you suffer from stomach upset and headaches sometimes?
When was the last time you had a decent night’s sleep?
Do you often focus on the negative?
Are you often irritable?
Is your irritability starting to cause conflict in your relationships?
Is it hard to change plans or adapt to unexpected things?
Do you run conversations that you already had through your brain and criticize yourself for not saying something, or for what you said?
Do you see only the worst possible outcomes of a situation?
Do you jump to conclusions based on how you feel? For example,”I feel awkward, therefore, I am an awkward person.”
Do you focus only on the negative aspects of a situation and ignore the positives? For example, you may receive a positive work review overall, but focus on the single piece of negative feedback.
Do you have a belief that things should be a certain way? “I should always be kind.” What happens when that doesn’t happen?
If you are reading this and thinking, “Wow, that’s me…..” I’m so glad you are here. Read on to see if my anxiety therapy services could help you.
You might cope by pretending that nothing is going on internally so that others don’t think you are “crazy.”
You appear to act calm and well-rested so that those you care about don’t worry about you.
You pretend that others are experiencing the same difficulties in life so that you don’t feel like anything is wrong in your life.
Pepto-bismal and ibuprofen work wonders in the short-term.
If you stay busy enough and distract yourself with “busyness,” then you feel better for a little while.
If you stop your body’s constant need to move, (shaking your leg, sitting still) people won’t know the inner turmoil going on inside of you.
You’ve learned to compensate for the constant barrage of information in your head, like making lists, putting reminders in your phone, going to bed early because you won’t fall asleep for another hour, etc.
If this is you: you need a space to understand why this is happening and how to take steps to cope with it. And most importantly, you need someone to walk alongside you to provide education and support in alleviating it.
I can help you understand the biology of the brain and body that causes anxiety as well as situations and thoughts that contribute to it.
As you start to understand how anxiety has affected you, it will be important to understand how it has affected your relationships with others and your life in general as you have tried to cope with it. As you start to understand this, we can make a game plan for moving forward with your new tools and understand yourself to make your life easier.
My experiences with anxiety therapy.
I have worked as a therapist with anxious clients since 2005. There have been times in my life that I would consider experiencing “seasons” of anxiety. I also happen to have loved ones that have an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders are probably one of the most common mental health disorders. Thanks to Covid 19, anxiety disorders are on the rise! (A little bit of sarcasm leaked out there…)
I see people with anxiety disorders most often in my therapy practice. I have helped kids as young as four years old to older adults in their eighties learn to manage their anxiety disorder. Some have experienced anxiety more recently and others have dealt with it their whole life.
I’ve found that folks that acknowledge and treat their anxiety disorder with therapy or a combination of therapy and medication feel better faster and successfully learn to live with their anxiety disorder. Research also indicates the same findings. If you are taking medication, I can work with your doctor to help find the most effective dosage and medication through information exchange. I do not prescribe medication.
Anxiety disorders do not go away completely with therapy and/or medication, but can be learned to be tolerated or coped with. We can effectively reduce symptoms or the severity of your symptoms, so that you can live with it. You may find that there will be times in your life where your anxiety may be worse given the amount of stress you are experiencing. Stress can be experienced as emotional, physical, environmental, financial, spiritual, sexual, and mental. All of these states are important to our well-being, and when we experience stress in any one of them, we will react. Anxiety happens to be one reaction. Depression can be another reaction. Oftentimes, anxiety disorders and depressive disorders go hand in hand. They are often diagnosed together. This is due to the chemical in our brain, called serotonin. Both diagnoses struggle to get serotonin to the correct part of the brain to function normally.
I love combining my clinical training with my experiences to foster a supportive space to understand how thoughts, feelings, and environmental stressors can make anxiety worse. Once we understand how these are working to make your anxiety hard to tolerate, we can use cognitive behavior therapy and in some instances, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) to reduce the anxiety response. We can also learn to identify what is causing your stressors and find ways to cope through it, such as using relaxation techniques, finding appropriate boundaries and limits that you are comfortable with setting, and challenging some automatic anxious thoughts. Of course healthy living such as a healthy diet, exercise, engaging in hobbies, and having healthy, supportive relationships are important in your treatment.
I am trained in EMDR therapy. Click here if you are curious what that is.
