ANXIETY
Anxiety is one of the most common symptoms with which I work. It manifests itself in different ways. In small doses, it can be a super-power; helping you study before a big test, or prepare for a presentation, for example. When the test or presentation is over, your anxiety lifts.
What brings people to therapy is when anxiety lingers and intensifies. Even though the anxiety-provoking event has passed, you remain on-edge. Perhaps you experience it in your mood as a constant feeling of dread, irritability or unease. Or in physical symptoms, like heart-pounding or digestive issues. You can’t stop ruminating about events you can’t control. You find yourself replaying conversations in your mind over and over again. Or maybe your anxiety becomes so extreme that you experience panic attacks. The worry of having a panic attack brings on its own anxiety and you find yourself avoiding settings or people that may bring on the panic.
Common Sources of Anxiety:
There are myriad sources of anxiety. Often it starts in childhood or even infancy. Events happened that led you to develop the worldview that your environment was unsafe, or unpredictable, or your needs would not be met. Perhaps you grew up with a parent who struggled with mental illness, or a substance use disorder. Perhaps conflict in your home was repressed; people said things were okay when they weren’t. Often, the source of your anxiety started generations before you!
Here are some common sources of Anxiety:
A part of yourself has been abandoned or shamed
Experiencing ACES (Adverse Childhood Events)
Your world didn’t make sense when you were growing up; conflict and tension in your household was repressed.
Attachment disturbances; as an infant, your needs were not consistently attuned-to and your brain triggered an alarm response that altered its neurobiology and stress hormone levels.
Common Symptoms of Anxiety:
Physical - racing/pounding heart, restlessness, digestive issues, sleep disturbance, disordered eating
Mood - irritability, hypervigilance, dread, unease
Mental - rumination, catastrophization, thoughts of being a failure or letting people down, inability to stop worrying, indecisiveness
How I Can Help:
While I tailor therapy to each individual client, here are some of the approaches I favor when working with anxiety:
Somatics— Trauma lives in the body as much as the mind; somatic approaches help release what talk therapy alone can't always reach.
IFS (Internal Family Systems) — Trauma often fragments our sense of self; IFS gently helps you reconnect with the parts that learned to protect you.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) — Helps you identify and gently challenge the thought patterns that keep anxiety spinning.
DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) — Builds practical skills for tolerating distress and regulating the nervous system in the moments anxiety peaks.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) — Effective for anxiety because it desensitizes stuck memories that inform present situations