anxiety disorders

Living with anxiety can make everyday activities feel taxing and overwhelming. Common symptoms include excessive worry, obsessions, restlessness, difficulty concentrating, and physical symptoms like a racing heart or muscle tension. Often these symptoms result in attempts to quiet that worries that end up developing into time consuming rituals or compulsions.

Anxiety therapy includes understanding and managing the thoughts and sensations that are driving the symptoms. Uncertainty is often a trigger and increasing ability to tolerate it will also be practiced. In many cases, it is important to include a gentle progression of activities to build confidence and rewire your nervous system. Practicing both cognitively and behaviorally will help to relearn what is safe and what you are capable of doing.

    • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

      • Intrusive, unwanted thoughts, images, or urges paired with behaviors/rituals in efforts to reduce the anxiety.

    • Health Anxiety (& Illness Anxiety Disorder)

      • Deep fear of having or getting a medical illness despite minimal physical symptoms. This could be for self or others and results in excessive health related behaviors or avoidance.

    • Panic Disorder

      • Includes sudden waves of intense fear that along with physical symptoms such as shortness of breath, racing heart, and sweating.

    • Agoraphobia

      • Includes intense anxiety about being in situations that would be difficult to escape, such as public.

    • Social Anxiety Disorder

      • Intense fear of being judged or negatively evaluated by others. Often leads to avoiding social situations.

    • Generalized Anxiety Disorder

      • Includes persistent, excessive worry about multiple areas of life. Symptoms of tension, restlessness, and over-thinking are common.

  • We will start by building a solid understanding of you, your experiences, and how anxiety is impacting you. Then we will discuss how and why anxiety shows up, practice skills to think differently, and build confidence to respond differently.

  • Exposure therapy is an approach that helps you gradually face feared sensations, thoughts, and/or situations. It is approaching anxiety in an intentional way so the nervous system can adapt. For many anxiety disorders, exposure and response prevention therapy may be fitting. With this particular therapy, we also focus on stopping the safety behaviors (rituals), as they are a major player in the anxiety cycle.

    We will work together to determine what the best approach for your concerns will be. Practice work will be gradual and consistent with your personal goals, though all exposure based therapies are designed to be challenging.

    There may be a temporary increase in anxiety, and that is expected as you start to do more activities you previously avoided. With practice, your nervous system learns to adapt to the new activities and you will experience less fear over time.

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