My Approach to Helping
Have you noticed a recent increase in your anxiety? Are you avoiding certain places, situations, or things out of fear of the physical and emotional response you might experience? Feeling panic and overwhelm doing things that used to feel completely safe and afraid that you'll never be the same again? If so, anxiety might be starting to dictate your life...and it can be hard to know where to start. It's important to work with a therapist who gets it and who understands the best evidence-based approaches to treating disordered anxiety. When done right, treatment for anxiety can be highly effective and can get you back to living the kind of life you want to live. You're not stuck like this forever. I help people overcome anxiety - whether you're struggling with excessive worry, panic attacks, social anxiety, specific fears, intrusive or scary thoughts, or even trouble leaving your own home.
More Info About My Practice
Having done the work to overcome my own anxiety, you can be sure that if you're working with me that I GET IT and that I'll approach whatever you're dealing with, with zero judgment. I'll start by getting to know you and getting a full assessment of what's going on. From there, we'll develop an individualized plan for tackling this issue and for getting out of fear & worry and back into your life. The work can be a little hard at times, but we'll move at whatever pace is comfortable for you. I'm solution-focused in nature and use gold-standard approaches for treating anxiety (cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy). You'll learn new coping skills and new ways of interacting with unhelpful thinking that will allow you to gradually expose yourself to situations that might now feel too overwhelming.
Specific Issue(s) I'm Skilled at Helping With
I help people with specific fears, agoraphobia (fear of places or situations that causes you to avoid), social anxiety, intrusive thoughts (scary and unwanted thoughts), excessive worry, and panic attacks.
My Role as a Therapist
When dealing with anxiety, my role as a therapist can take on many forms. I first listen to understand...and then plan, educate, coach, and provide some accountability. I provide structure and a safe and private environment for sharing things that you're afraid other people might not understand. Regardless of how long you've been struggling with anxiety, you're not broken - you just haven't figured this thing out yet...and that's where I come in.
The Duration and Frequency of Therapy
Typically, therapy takes place once per week for 50 minutes - 1 hour. Because I take solution-focused approach, I typically recommend attending sessions weekly (at least in the beginning) so we can start making progress as quickly as possible. The amount of sessions varies from person to person, but is ultimately up to you and when you feel you have all of the tools you need. I've worked with people who feel ready to complete in as little as a couple weeks and others who feel like they need a few months (or longer)...but average is somewhere in the 10-12 session range total.