Anxiety Therapy & Treatment
Alleviate Anxiety and Stress, Reclaim a Sense of Control, and Create the Relationships and Life You Truly Love
If you’re like many of the clients I help every day as an anxiety therapist, there’s a good chance that you’re struggling with nagging self-doubts or excessive self-criticism … that you often have difficulty sleeping … that you can’t let go of distress, or often overreact, take things personally, and get into arguments with your partner, friends, colleagues, or other family members … that you routinely experience racing thoughts, compulsive behaviors, or feel worried or afraid.
And if any of this feels familiar, then I don’t have to tell you how debilitating it can be when chronic and severe anxiety and stress slowly consume your life.
You already know how difficult it can be just to get through each day, let alone be kind to people, focus on your work, or take care of the people you love when all of your energy and attention is focused on trying to pretend you don’t feel like you know what.
Of course, we all experience anxiety and stress from time to time. Common situations, such as meeting deadlines, first dates, public speaking, and even being stuck in rush hour traffic can lead to stress and anxiety.
In a very real sense, we’re genetically wired to experience anxiety and stress …
Stress and anxiety heighten our sense of awareness in new, unusual, or potentially threatening situations. They can help us meet those tight deadlines and be more alert when we’re meeting new people or find ourselves in new or uncomfortable surroundings.
In short, anxiety and stress can be beneficial … in moderation.
But when anxiety and stress are experienced regularly over long periods of time, they can greatly disrupt our relationships and our lives.
Ongoing or severe anxiety and stress not only make it difficult to calm down and relax, they can cause you to lose focus and be unable to concentrate at work, make it hard to be present in your relationships, and take their toll on your physical health and well-being.
That’s right. As if the emotional discomfort anxiety and stress cause aren’t bad enough, there are the long-term health effects of not getting enough sleep, eating too much or too little, constant muscle tension, recurring stomach and headaches, and never being able to relax.
If left unaddressed, the consequences of anxiety and stress can be severe, and can even lead to other emotional and behavioral problems such as alcoholism, substance abuse, and depression.
Fortunately, you don’t have to keep struggling or resign yourself to a lifetime of worry, self-doubt, discomfort and fear …
Anxiety Treatment: Getting the Help You Need and Deserve
Given the fast-paced nature of our lives, the demands of our professional and personal relationships, and the ever-present struggle to strike a balance between attending to our daily obligations and responsibilities and working towards our personal aspirations and goals, it’s little wonder why so many of us feel anxious or stressed.
But, regardless of our reasons for feeling stressed, the results of severe and recurring anxiety are pretty similar …
We experience excessive worries, irrational fears, and no shortage of negative internalizations. And we come to feel disconnected from the people in our lives that matter most – including ourselves.
The common reaction to these feelings, at least for a while, is to put on a “happy face” and pretend they’re not there. But this never works … at least not for long.
And denying that you’re feeling overwhelmed by stress and anxiety is exhausting in and of itself, leading to even quicker burnout.
Unfortunately, many of the people I’ve helped to overcome anxiety and stress didn’t even realize they were suffering from severe and recurring stress and anxiety until the symptoms became overwhelming.
But you don’t need to wait …
Any time stress and anxiety are affecting your ability to function is time to seek professional help.
Depending on the cause and severity of your anxiety, you may need some form of anti-anxiety medication (some form of benzodiazepines, such as Xanax, Klonopin, Librium, Valium, or Ativan) to help you cope with anxiety’s symptoms and regain functioning and clarity long enough for counseling and therapy to be effective.
As a board certified psychiatrist, I can prescribe just such medications, if and when they’re indicated.
However, even if you do need anti-anxiety medication to regain some semblance of control, you should still get some professional counseling or psychotherapy with a therapist who specializes in treating anxiety, stress, and panic attacks.
That’s why, although I do prescribe medications to those who need them to deal with severe symptoms of anxiety and panic, the focus of my work is creating a compassionate, non-judgmental, trusting relationship with you, so you can be open enough to explore who you really are and do the deep work necessary to truly heal and grow.
Recurring anxiety and stress are caused by the way we perceive and react to life events, not the events themselves.
As such, in order to successfully overcome stress and anxiety, we must change the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that keep us stuck in our worry and fear.
Think about it for a minute …
We’ve all been on dates, flown in airplanes, had to meet tight deadlines, been stuck in rush hour traffic, and so on. Why do these situations cause some people anxiety and stress and not others?
It’s not the situations themselves that are inherently stressful. It’s our perceptions of them, the stories we tell ourselves, the pictures we see in our minds, and our feelings about these situations that lead to our anxiety and stress.
As Mark Twain once quipped, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
However, it is possible to retrain your brain to think and feel differently – to free yourself from recurring anxiety and stress – and this is precisely how professional anxiety counseling and therapy can help!
When it comes to treating anxiety disorders, research has consistently shown that counseling and therapy – whether or not they are used in conjunction with medication – can help you change the way you perceive and respond to anxiety-provoking and stressful situations.
Anxiety therapy can help you change the negative thoughts and beliefs that lead to recurring anxiety and stress, as well as help you regain a sense of control and move forward in your relationships and life with confidence and optimism.
Should You Seek the Help of an Anxiety Therapist?
Change is rarely easy, and creating positive, lasting change in your life requires time, commitment, and a good deal of work.
However, if you’re reading this then it’s likely you’ve already been suffering from overwhelming anxiety and stress for some time …
You’ve likely tried ignoring the problem, talking to friends and family members, reading self-help books, various relaxation techniques, and so on, and so on, only to find that the anxiety and stress remain, or even get worse.
So now it’s time to ask yourself: what will your life be like if you don’t get some professional help?
Are you prepared to continue struggling the way you have been?
You don’t have to!
As an anxiety therapist, the anxiety counseling and psychotherapy services I offer can help you learn the skills and tools you need to cope with your anxiety and stress, learn to reframe your thoughts, perceptions, and beliefs, and move forward in your relationships and life with greater clarity, peace of mind, and confidence.
If you’d like to find out whether or not medications can help, or you’re ready to explore who you are and do the work necessary to alleviate, work through, and resolve your anxiety, so you can create the relationships and life you truly love, I encourage you to contact me today and schedule an appointment.