Anxiety Treatment
Does anxiety control you or interfere in your relationships?
Do you worry about things you cannot control?
Struggle to sleep or be alone with your thoughts?
Doubt yourself frequently, never really feeling like it’s ok to be you?
Feel ashamed, guilty, inadequate, embarrassed, overwhelmed?
Worry about what others think or say about you?
Need a lot of reassurance from others?
Anticipate what others will say or do and rehearse your response in advance?
Change yourself to accommodate others or find yourself people-pleasing?
Anxiety takes many forms and robs people of peace, energy, and focus.
Anxiety impacts the body in many ways. A trip to the doctor usually ends with pills. When anxiety is due to chemicals in the brain, medicine can be helpful.
When anxiety is influenced by stressors or early life experiences, anxiety counseling is helpful. If anxiety is modeled growing up, or humans develop in chaotic/unstable/painful environments, anticipation becomes a survival strategy. Anxiety and fusion is an innate part of human functioning (or dysfunction).
Problematic anxiety results when the human emotional system hijacks the thinking brain (fusion).
Anxiety also influences relationships creating tension, conflict, and disconnections that lead to chronic arguments or intimacy struggles. You may find yourself listening to respond instead of listening to your partner. Maybe you feel like your needs are being threatened. When we become anxious about getting our needs met, our emotional systems take over and coping becomes unproductive.
Anxiety becomes an attempted “solution” for coping with what we cannot control. We don’t solve our solutions. We solve problems. It’s not until anxiety becomes chronic or an outdated coping strategy that we finally recognize it and seek treatment. When we are miserable enough, we ask for help.
Anxiety is painful but highly treatable.
Counseling for anxiety addresses the root issues, identifies what influences it, normalizes and validates the struggle, and provides tools to decrease and manage anxiety so it stays in balance. Anxiety treatment can be done individually or in couples therapy.
Anxiety is a normal part of life and becomes problematic when imbalanced.
All life on Earth is anxious, on a continuum. Without anxiety, we would die. It motivates us to anticipate danger, keep ourselves safe, act responsibly, and solve problems. An imbalance in anxiety can overwhelm us and feel uncontrollable, working against our goals. It can make us feel miserable or frozen.
All humans struggle to separate their emotional systems and thinking brains.
We all have two systems inside of us: the emotional system and the thinking brain. Most humans use their feelings (emotional systems) to make decisions. Our decisions are made to conform (or rebel) to what is happening around us. This fusion drives us to give up parts of ourselves to be around others and is passed down from one generation to the next. It’s universal to all humans.
We also have a large prefrontal cortex responsible for imagination and the ability to think about our thoughts. Anxiety easily drives the imagination into fearful, painful thoughts. Our anxious brains encourage us to self-doubt or be self-critical, mercilessly at times. The emotional hijacking continues.
Culturally, we struggle to support effective self-care and encourage anxiety symptoms.
American culture drives us to work harder, undervalues people, and invites us to take responsibility for what doesn’t belong to us. We feel so much pressure to perform and live up to others’ expectations.
Materialism drives us to want more, compare ourselves to others, and never feel like we really measure up. Often, we feel ashamed of our first-world problems because those who are less fortunate have “bigger problems than us.” This creates and sustains guilt and shame, anxiety’s evil cousins.
Schools are challenged with social problems and bullying. The rise of social media makes bullying easier. Kids rapidly learn they need to fit in or be made fun of. Administration is overwhelmed and teachers cannot keep up with the needs of students. This causes anticipation: what to wear, how to act, what to say, who to like, how to be liked. If you make a mistake, your life can be made miserable as soon as it gets around school. Then you’re stuck with it until you graduate or move schools.
Some studies show that 1 out of every 4 people have a mental health issue. It’s ridiculous and unfortunate to suffer this way. There are still stigmas around asking for help.
Some generations and cultures continuously perpetuate ideas that feelings are a sign of weakness and dealing with them will create sensitive humans who can’t handle life. It’s considered shameful to talk to a stranger about problems. “Only crazy people need therapy.” These myths and misnomers are damaging and prevent people from accessing care that can make a huge difference in quality of life.
Anxiety is hard-wired into humans. On some level, we all feel anxious.
Science shows us how we are wired to anticipate outcomes and adjust to stressors. Doing this in a well-balance way is important. When we are imbalanced, we feel anxiety in its problem form. It’s possible to learn how to manage our innate drives, understand anxiety and fusion, and thrive in a world that is very difficult to live in with balance.
Effective treatment will help you learn how to understand anxiety and what influences it, identify and replace maladaptive coping skills, and maintain a balanced life that helps prevent relapse. It’s time to learn coping strategies that work so you can live your best life.
Effective anxiety treatment untangles thoughts and feelings.
Sometimes it takes years to ask for help. Once you decide to participate in anxiety counseling, you’re on the path to healing.
Having treated anxiety for the last 15 years, I’m convinced anxiety is best treated at its core using a systems approach. I work with clients to help them understand where the anxiety is coming from. We will use a multifaceted lens to understand influences in your:
biology (chemicals in the brain and body),
psychology (how you’re wired to think and interpret the world), and
environment (peers, work, school, family of origin, trauma, etc.).
Anxiety is a systems problem, not an individual problem.
My license in marriage and family (LMFT) training supplies me with in-depth understanding of how people operate as systems. We are an individual system, internally, or a micro-universe inside. And we exist in systems with others, externally. Together, we will learn how to understand the complicated internal workings that make us human, and how the systems we belong in drive anxiety and fusion.
When our systems (internal or external) are imbalanced, it wreaks havoc on our mental and physical health, and relationships.
I teach clients how to see and change their anxiety levels using a systemic approach that makes the problem visible, normalizes it, and then offers practical exercises to promote change. I will give you tangible, easily understandable assignments. I give lots of resources for exploration between sessions (if that’s your style). Others like me to be very directive with homework.
My most successful clients are those who come prepared to learn, take notes, and work on suggested goals between sessions. It may feel hard to get started, talk about, or identify what you are feeling. That’s OK. I work with people to make this emotion and energy visible and changeable.
Common concerns about beginning anxiety treatment.
I’m anxious about starting counseling. It’s hard to talk about my feelings.
It makes sense. Anxious people are anxious about a lot of things, including starting therapy.
“Feelings are a weakness” is a misnomer I’ve heard countless times. Talking about feelings is vulnerable. Client feedback shows people experience me as very safe and realize it’s OK. I’ve worked with hundreds of people who struggle to open up including withdrawn teens, veterans and active military members, frustrated parents, lonely couples, and people who have suffered trauma/abandonment/estrangement. I’ve counseled a wide range of personalities and ages.
Talking is only possible when it’s safe. That’s my number one goal. I encourage people who are trying something new to give it three attempts. The three-attempt model gives people a chance to move beyond initial awkwardness, see an experience for what it truly is, and then evaluate if it’s helpful. Most of my clients immediately feel at ease and express their relief at the end of the first session. They say they feel understood, validated, gain clarity and hope, and want to keep working together. My client retention rate is high.
I’ve lived with anxiety my whole life. How do I know I can feel better?
I get it because I’ve been there. I once asked my husband what he was thinking in the moment. His reply shocked me. He wasn’t thinking about anything. NOTHING. Zilch. I couldn’t believe this existed! My brain naturally runs at 100mph, and previously, with a ton of anxious thoughts. I’ve spent a lifetime understanding anxiety, what drives it, and how to fix it. And now my brain is much, much quieter.
I counsel from a core-systems perspective that helps understand anxiety at a root level. My goal is to empower you with everything you need to feel better. I love teaching people what I’ve learned. (I wish they taught it in schools growing up!)
How long will anxiety treatment take?
There are several factors that influence success: history and extent of the anxiety, fusion in the family of origin, therapy rapport, and the willingness to work between sessions.
Effective treatment for anxiety is something that targets problems at the core. Anxiety often stems from programming in our DNA or has been learned and reinforced for years, sometimes decades. Sometimes anxiety results from trauma. The history and extent of the problem and fusion in the family of origin influences how long therapy lasts.
If we work together, I’m going to help you feel safe. Then we zero in on the problem, and I’ll teach you how to fix or regulate it at the core so the changes last. I will work at your pace, and respect your budget, spacing out sessions as needed. I’ll give you lots of resources (if you want them) to use between sessions.
It’s important to set realistic expectations. My most successful clients are those who are ready to learn, take notes, and work on their goals between sessions. Counseling for anxiety is challenging at first, but not meant to be painful.
Clients report they look forward to counseling sessions and experience relief from anxiety each time.
Ready to experience relief from anxiety?
If you’re anxious and hurting, wondering if you’ll ever be free of the noise in your mind or heart, and considering beginning counseling for anxiety, feel free to give me a call.
I personally answer my phone and return calls within 24 hours. I’m happy to answer all of your questions and work with you to feel comfortable about starting therapy.
Give me a call at 810-397-4861 or contact me below.
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