Finding a good fit with a psychotherapist has been shown in studies to be the most important factor in determining a successful outcome. To make finding a good fit affordable for you, I offer first sessions at $60.
Please contact me to learn more about Anxiety & Depression treatment.
For some, these symptoms can alternate, hyperventilating and panicked one day and then a kind of paralysis the next. You might notice feeling numb at a time that otherwise would have been enjoyable and then unable to sleep, plagued by negative thinking or feelings of dread. In each case, something has become out of balance in a way that is unmanageable.
Anxiety treatment is just not as simple as “snapping out of it” (I bet you’ve tried!). Between the difficulty sleeping and worried thoughts keeping your mind active long after you know it’s time to get some rest, of course you’re feeling tired and unsettled. Add on perhaps the jitters of caffeine, screen time, work or family dynamics, not wanting to burden friends and loved ones with worries or negative thoughts, and you’ve got more than enough stressors to compound and keep a negative pattern in place. Added on top of that are usually a plentiful helping of “shoulds” such as, “I should be able to figure this out” or “I should be able to just ‘get over it’” or even “I should be better than this.” Maybe you think of your life as pretty good, so all this panic, unrest, and preoccupation seem mysterious or unreasonable.
While we should definitely try and talk ourselves down or try and mentally shut down anxious thinking just to see how good we are at it, mostly likely we’ll find that the physical effects, such as nervous twitching or shakiness, body tension, uneasy belly or nausea, blurry thinking and accelerated heart rate can override even our best efforts.
When this becomes a way of life instead of a passing feeling, anxiety treatment is about addressing your somatic symptoms, learning how to regulate your nervous system so you have options and skills when these sensations occur, relating to your experience in more effective ways, and figuring out how to address the underlying stressors that have created the situation. Anxiety treatment is focused around how to interrupt the loop, practice directing our attention to what we can control, and finding a new way of relating to our experience, so we can change the system not just from the top down, but the bottom up. Somatic therapy has known for years, and you know this too on an intuitive level, that when the body is relaxed, the mind follows suit.
If you find yourself looking for anxiety treatment, you’re in good company. Anxiety is the most common symptom cluster that affects adults- 18% of the population on any given day! So yes, several smart and capable people you know are also suffering from panic, paralysis, OCD, or PTSD and maybe you have urged or they are now urging you to get anxiety treatment.
Countless psychologists and philosophers refer to the modern age as the “age of anxiety” because never before in history have we been so confronted with a so rapidly changing and uncertain environment, nor so isolated and fragmented a culture. For many, the cultural deficits are compounded by coming from environments where emotional skills were not taught or supported. It’s time to work through anxiety when these intense somatic symptoms and emotional dysregulation become the norm not the exception, when despite a loving relationship or achievements at work or money in the bank don’t seem to make a difference, when everything should be “fine” and yet it doesn’t feel that way.
“I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.’
Charles Bukowski
Anxiety treatment is needed when it feels like the world has gotten so small there isn’t enough air to breath.
Stress and worry send signals to the sympathetic nervous system that we are in danger, producing an elevated heart rate, shortness of breath, and panicked sensation that can turn into hyperventilating, panic attacks, and motivational paralysis. Not only is there the sheer terror of not being able to breath, long-term chronic stress on the body leads to a host of diseases and difficulties. While this response and the host of neurochemical and endocrinological processes it sets off was very helpful to escape tigers and bears, its this same system that gets set off when we encounter a stressor or stresses that surpasses our current coping strategies.
When the system gets out of whack, everyday events, even minor conflicts or inconveniences, or seemingly nothing at all can set off this system and over time it changes the way the brain and body take in information until breathless, fatigued, nervous, and jumpy become “normal” and we stop being able to “relax” even when we want to. Anxiety treatment is a way to hit the somatic and biologic reset button, learn skills that will help in the moment and going forward, learn how to deescalate the physical sensations and work with your nervous system in a more adaptive and integrated way.
Anxiety treatment is needed when work or passions suffer because our panicked, breathlessness, and overwhelm are taking up our time and energy.
Anyone who has been surprised by a panic attack or panic event knows how shocking and overwhelming they are. The main thought afterward is something like, Please don’t let that ever happen again, oh that could happen again, I do not want that. Even just the thought of having another attack can set off our system into a stress response. Yes, there are some drugs out there, perhaps you have already tried them, or have them on hand for just in case, but you also realize that something in you needs to be addressed so that you aren’t just “managing” for the rest of your life.
Anxiety treatment can help us make changes when it seems too stressful and worrisome to do it on our own.
We might be unhappy at work or in a relationship that we have outgrown but don’t want to leave, the stress and anxiety associated with making changes just feels like too much. Being stuck is painful and depressing but the thought of hurting someone we care about, losing security we have obtained, or losing stability we have worked hard for is even scarier. When there’s no clear way out or through, we can get caught in this unpleasant-but-bearable experience that is “just enough” to stay. Meanwhile, the months and years that we could have been happy, could have had a better experience, keep slipping by. Through working together, we can identify ways to shift thinking, create room to maneuver, find the safety to explore the difficult areas and move forward to a more fulfilling experience.
Anxiety Treatment for social anxiety can transform the restless, uneasy, don’t-fit-in feelings to confidence and ease
Social anxiety, a stressful and debilitating nervousness that can arise in our mind, keeps us from the connection and care that we want and need. Social anxiety can act as a loop: when we attempt to reach out, we find ourselves overcome with anxiety and negative thinking until the engagement starts to feel more like a prison sentence than something nourishing. Afterward, negative self talk can bring about feelings of shame or helplessness, effectively keeping us from wanting to reach out in the future. Although we long for connection and relationships, dating and reaching out feels too scary and quickly knocks us off balance. We know that we have good qualities to share, if only we could find a way to come forward and connect in a way that nourishes instead of depletes. For many of us, learning how to set boundaries, knowing we can hang up the metaphorical phone when we need to, can go a long way in easing social anxiety. Learning how to recognize and make contact and connections that are nourishing gives us the motivation and encouragement to take risks and come forward.
“I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away – yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth’s orbit and wanted to shoot myself.”
Soren Kierkegaard
Putting ourselves out there and connecting with others always involves taking a risk and becoming vulnerable and there are no two ways around this. The problem is not that we feel a little fluttery or anxious, it’s that our anxiety, fear and worry are the only things that we are in touch with, making social events, dating, and building connections daunting, nauseating, and scary. Even if we meet someone we like and things are going well, the experience is plagued with insecurity, worry, and even resorting to behaviors that we know aren’t good for us because we don’t know how else to get through all the uncertainty. Increasingly, it can seem tempting to mediate our risk by using online forums but for most of us, this doesn’t lead to the deep connection, love, and security we are really looking for. By learning skills, practicing connecting in a safe environment, getting a clear understanding of what we need to feel supported and confident, and having a new experience around connection can build a solid base to take out into the world.