Therapy for Anxiety
When worry has taken up permanent residence in your mind, and your body won't settle. It's time to do something different.
When "Just Relax" Stops Being Helpful
Anxiety isn't just excessive worry—it's your nervous system stuck in overdrive. It shows up as racing thoughts at 3am, tension you can't shake, avoiding situations that used to be manageable, or constantly bracing for the next thing to go wrong.
Maybe it's gotten worse recently because of relationship stress, work pressure, or major life changes. Or maybe it's been your baseline for so long you can't remember what calm actually feels like. Either way, it's exhausting, and the usual advice about deep breathing and positive thinking isn't cutting it.
This might sound familiar:
Your mind runs worst-case scenarios on repeat, even for minor things.
You're constantly tense—jaw clenched, shoulders up, stomach tight.
You avoid situations because the anxiety isn't worth it, even when you want to go.
You're exhausted from being alert all the time, but can't seem to turn it off.
People tell you to "just stop worrying" like you haven't tried that.
You feel like you're managing fine on the surface, but it's taking everything you have.
Small decisions feel overwhelming because you're afraid of making the wrong choice.
What Therapy Actually Looks Like
I work with anxiety using approaches that address both the mental patterns and the physical response. We're not just talking about your worries—we're working with your nervous system and the underlying reasons it's stuck in threat mode.
Understanding your anxiety patterns—what triggers the spiral, how you respond, and what keeps it going. Sometimes anxiety is protecting you from something specific, and we need to figure out what that is.
Working with your nervous system through somatic approaches. Your body is holding tension and stress, and we need to address that directly, not just think our way out of it.
Building practical skills from ACT and DBT—how to notice anxiety without getting pulled into the spiral, how to make space for uncomfortable feelings, and how to act even when anxiety is present.
Looking at the bigger picture—anxiety often connects to relationship patterns, boundaries, perfectionism, or old survival strategies that aren't serving you anymore.
Reducing avoidance gradually. Anxiety loves avoidance, but avoidance makes your world smaller. We work on expanding what feels possible again.
My Approach
I use an integrative, trauma-informed approach that combines ACT, DBT, somatic work, and other modalities. What matters is that we're addressing anxiety from multiple angles—the thoughts, the physical sensations, the behaviors, and the underlying patterns.
This isn't about eliminating anxiety entirely (that's not realistic). It's about changing your relationship with it so it's not running your life. You'll learn to work with anxiety rather than constantly fighting against it or letting it make all your decisions.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Worry in response to real circumstances is a natural part of functioning. Anxiety that warrants attention tends to persist beyond the situation that prompted it, interferes with daily functioning or sleep, feels difficult to control, or shows up physically in ways that are hard to manage. If anxiety is regularly affecting your quality of life or decision-making, it is worth exploring.
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Anxiety involves the body's threat-response system, which is physiological by design. Symptoms like racing heart, shallow breathing, muscle tension, and digestive disruption are not side effects of anxious thinking; they are part of the same response. Effective anxiety work often addresses the body as well as the mind.
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Yes. High-functioning anxiety is common, particularly among people whose performance and productivity have remained intact despite significant internal distress. Functioning on the outside does not neutralize the cost of sustained anxiety on the inside.
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Sessions typically involve identifying the patterns and triggers that maintain anxiety, developing skills for working with anxious thought and physiological arousal, and building a broader relationship to uncertainty. The approach is shaped by what each person brings rather than a fixed protocol.
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Some approaches do include practices between sessions, and others do not. The pacing and structure of that kind of work is something to discuss directly in a consultation or early sessions, since it depends on what fits for you.