The Nature and Treatment of Anxiety
Although some anxiety in our lives is natural and can help prepare us to meet its challenges, too much of it too often can become disturbing and even disabling for us. We can end up consumed by troubling thoughts, physical distress, feelings of danger or doom, and no sense of how to act to address it.
When people struggling with anxiety contact me, they often feel miserable or even out of control of their lives, and their difficulties may even be creating conflict with others. The first thing that I will do when working with you is to help you to step back, define the problem, and begin learning how to effectively respond to it..
COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY (CBT)
When you meet with me, you’ll learn that chronic anxiety is typically a “false alarm syndrome” which usually has a strong basis in challenging life experiences and your automatic interpretations and reactions to them. We’ll then focus on a range of simple but targeted coping skills, which can include new thinking strategies, body-oriented practices to gain more perspective on physical distress, and carefully chosen “approach strategies” to turn the tide for your anxiety or avoidance. We will choose the approaches that work best for you and complement each other, and then tailor them to your personal experience.
Beyond that, we can take a look and see if there are difficulties with defining and committing to your deeper values which have caused internal conflict and have contributed to your feeling stuck.
RELIEF IS CLOSER THEN YOU MAY THINK
The good news from research and clinical experience is that if most people struggling with anxiety can quickly benefit from directed, skills-based therapy and soon experience substantial relief, feeling as though they’re actually ‘getting their lives back.’
Sometimes all it takes is an increase in your awareness and some practice with new behaviors.
ANXIETY PRESENTATIONS THAT I TREAT INCLUDE:
- Panic & agoraphobia
- Generalized anxiety (uncontrollable worry)
- Social anxiety
- Separation anxiety
- Specific phobias
- Health and medical anxiety
- Conditioned insomnia
- Sexual anxiety
Reach out
Do you need to take action but are not sure how?
I invite you to contact me for a free phone consultation to see if CBT can help you with your anxiety.
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