Calm Your Mind; Find Your Peace

Are you struggling with feelings of worry or fear? Does it sometimes feel as if your mind goes a mile a minute, spinning in circles about problems endlessly, without ever really reaching a resolution? Does it ever feel like panic takes you over completely, making it hard to think straight or get anything done?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you may be struggling with anxiety. Whether it’s a new problem for you or a chronic condition, anxiety can be grueling and often debilitating. You deserve help and relief.

What Is Anxiety?

While some amount of worry can be normal and useful in that it prompts us to take care of life’s problems, clinical anxiety is different. If your worry has become so intense and pervasive that it robs you of your peace of mind, then it is an impairment rather than a normal cognitive process. When worry runs amuck, it can become a clinical condition with both physical and emotional symptoms.

Emotional symptoms of anxiety include:

• Excessive worry or fear
• Restlessness
• Irritability
• Difficulties concentrating
• Feeling tense or keyed up
• Sleep disturbances
• Fatigue

Physical symptoms of anxiety include:

• Rapid heartbeat
• Sweating
• Trembling
• Shortness of breath
• Nausea
• Upset stomach
• Frequent urination
• Muscle tension

My Treatment Approach

Anxiety therapy begins with an initial clinical assessment. During this first meeting, we talk through your history, your concerns, your goals, and your strengths. We confirm your diagnosis and work together to make a treatment plan, which would include determining the best research-backed therapy for you and your situation.

I primarily several research-backed therapies when helping clients deal with clinical anxiety:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Learn to identify and change negative thought and behavior patterns that are causing or maintaining your anxiety symptoms.
• Exposure Response Prevention Therapy (ERP): Face your anxiety triggers in a gradual, planned, methodical manner so that your nervous system can learn that the heightened anxiety responses you experience is not needed.
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): With mindfulness and acceptance, learn to pursue what matters most to you to keep anxiety from running your life. 

What Is A Typical Session Like?

In a session with me, we might focus on:

• Identifying the underlying causes: Anxiety can be caused by a combination of life stressors, genetics, and beliefs. Learning what’s causing your worry is an important part of the process.
• Developing positive coping skills: Relaxation skills, assertiveness skills, and positive self-talk can help you learn to manage your worries more effectively. CBT and ACT are particularly useful approaches for learning positive coping skills for anxiety.
• Challenging negative thoughts: Out-of-control worries can play a significant role in fueling an anxiety disorder. Specialized therapies, such as CBT, offer excellent tools for identifying and reframing unhelpful thinking patterns. 
• Limiting avoidance or obsessive-compulsive behaviors: In an attempt to feel better, many people avoid what makes them anxious, or engage in obsessive or compulsive habits around the things stressing them out. At first, this leads to relief, but in the long run, it reinforces the anxiety. Limiting avoidance or obsession is crucial. Anxiety therapy with ERPs can be particularly helpful for this.
• Facing fears: Although scary at first, confronting the anxiety triggers more directly usually leads to less anxiety in the long run. This is the entire premise of anxiety therapy with ERPs.
• Improving relationships: When worry runs the show, we can miss out on important moments with the people we love. Counseling can help you engage more fully in your relationships again. ACT is an especially helpful therapeutic approach for this.
• Finding meaning and purpose: Engaging in activities you care about can give you a sense of pride, accomplishment, and meaning, which in the long run helps most people feel more satisfied with their life. ACT may be a great treatment approach for you if your anxiety has kept you from important things.

Get The Help You Deserve

If you’re struggling with anxiety, it’s important to know that there is help out there. You don’t have to go through this alone. Professional clinical counseling can help.

Ready For Next Steps?

Contact me today to get started. We can schedule a free, confidential consultation to go over any questions or concerns you have about counseling.