When you’re anxious, you often don’t use the word, “anxious.”

You say things like you’re… Worried. Stressed-out. Distant from others. Suddenly angry. Compulsive. Panicked. Grim. Tense. Avoidant. Isolated. Easily bugged. Traumatized.

Anxious people often don’t seek therapy because, well, thinking of calling a therapist makes them anxious. But certain forms of therapy are really, really good at treating anxiety, and there are a lot of things a therapist or coach can do to help eliminate anxiety, from thought-stopping to exposure to relaxation techniques, psychoanalysis, EMDR… Figuring out what will work best for you is a key part of our job.

You are not your best self when you are anxious. If you’re anxious, you might be:

Feeling…

– Edgy, pressured, tense, panicked, angry, miserable, manic, depressed.

Thinking…

– About the worst thing that might happen. About how you might have humiliated yourself last night. About the bad thing that happened to you, maybe a long time ago. Anxious thinking chases its own tail, and makes you feel worse and worse.

– That you are powerless to fix the big problems, that asserting yourself will make things worse, that you shouldn’t get help, that it’s hopeless.

– About a bad thing that happened to you (or trying not to think about it).

Acting…

What’s it make you do? Drinking, TV, porn, shopping, compulsive OCD rituals, angry outbursts. People often do things that relieve them in the moment, but damage their lives, which leads to, you guessed it, increased anxiety. These are all forms of avoidance of challenges – and the inherent or imagined risks of failure, embarrassment, rejection, or making someone mad at you.

Acting anxious makes you more anxious, which makes you act anxious…

Anxious people often try the same thing over and over again – and are afraid to try something new, like, oh, say therapy.

I mean, you’ve tried lots of solutions on your own, right?

Why keep trying, without an expert to help?

We will assess:

– How you think, and what you do

– The body. Everything from recent lab values to sleep to diet to exercise.

– Relationships. Because getting relationships working can be the fast-track to relieving anxiety.

And we will intervene.

You will:

– Develop the simple habits that can make you feel much, much better.

– Challenge and interrupt destructive thought reruns.

– Find increasingly better ways to connect with other people.

– Do one little thing after another that will quiet the anxiety, and free you to get on with your life.

You really can get there from here.

Let’s Do What Works.

Anxiety feels awful. It’s the most common psychological complaint (close to a third of us will report high anxiety) and when it’s severe you might think you don’t know how you’re going to stand another minute of it.

At its worst, you’re convinced that you’re going to die. It feels so bad that we often avoid doing anything that might make us more anxious, and will do almost anything if it might make us feel less anxious.

You really can get there from here.

Evening and weekend appointments available.

Credit cards accepted.