ANXIETY COUNSELING

Are you experiencing excessive feelings of worry, fear or panic?

Anxiety CounselingDo you feel as though your life is being held hostage by your anxiety? Is it getting in the way of leading the life you want to live by isolating and immobilizing you? Have you experienced panic attacks, a racing heartbeat, or tightness in your chest? Perhaps you are staying home because you fear having anxiety or panic in front of other people. Or maybe you feel like you are white-knuckling your way through social situations, forcing yourself to interact with others, and ending up feeling exhausted, frustrated, and more fearful than before. Do you notice yourself constantly getting caught up in racing and worrying thoughts? Worrying about the future… worrying about the past… worrying about what others might think…?

Perhaps you’ve even begun to have anxiety about your anxiety, doing whatever you can to avoid situations that might create more feelings of fear and dread. And perhaps your attempts to stop your anxiety are backfiring. Maybe they make your anxiety worse, or maybe they work in the short-term but end up isolating you from parts of your life that are important to you and making things worse.

You are not alone! Things can be better.

Anxiety treatment can be very effective at helping people better relate to their anxiety and reclaim their life. In fact, contemporary therapies for anxiety are among the most effective treatments that we have.
Anxiety therapy can help you identify the unworkable solutions that you may be using to get rid of your anxiety and replace those strategies with new ways of approaching, thinking about, and relating to your anxiety. You can start reconnecting with the parts of your life that you may be avoiding and start to live a more full and vital life.

Everyone experiences anxiety.

In fact, humans evolved to worry, think negatively, and fear the unknown. We are hard-wired to expect the worst, and it is a common human experience to try and get rid of feelings of worry and anxiety. It is perfectly helpful to have feelings of fear when we believe that our safety or well-being is in jeopardy because it helps to keep us safe. However, problems arise if we begin to have these fears when the situation doesn’t call for it or when such responses get in the way of leading a valued life. If you feel that your worry and anxiety are excessive and dominating your life, anxiety treatment can be a critical step for you to take.

Benefits of anxiety counseling include:Anxiety Counseling

  • Learning to ground and center yourself in anxiety provoking situations
  • Learning about your symptoms and how past attempts to get rid of anxiety may be making them worse
  • Developing a new relationship with your thoughts, emotions and body
  • Reconnecting with areas of your life that you value and may have begun to fall by the wayside
  • Identifying the role that avoidance plays in helping to prolong and worsen anxiety
  • Learning how to stop adding to your anxiety or worry about your worrying
  • Reclaiming a valued life – the kind of life that you want to live

But you may still have questions, concerns, or anxious thoughts…

I’ve tried therapy before and it didn’t help. How will this be any different?

It can be quite disheartening to have the experience of going to therapy and feeling like treatment was unsuccessful. While there are no guarantees in therapy, my background and experience in using proven, contemporary behavioral therapies for anxiety puts me in a unique position to help. I draw on cutting edge, research proven therapies to help you take back your life.

Aren’t there medications that help with anxiety? That sounds a lot easier!

Absolutely! There are a number of medications that can help to alleviate some of the symptoms of anxiety. Whether or not you take these medications is always your choice, and sometimes it’s a very good idea to choose a medication. However, medications on their own are a partial solution at best and should typically not be considered a stand-alone, first-line choice for anxiety treatment.

The reasons for this are numerous. However, one important reason is that stand-alone therapy has consistently been shown to be as effective, and in most instances more effective, than stand-alone medications. In fact, behavioral therapies for anxiety are among the most effective therapies that exists! While medications often provide some relief from anxiety they do not protect against relapse and symptom worsening like therapy does. Therapy should almost always be considered a first-line treatment of choice for anxiety, and sometimes it can be helpful to also take medication.

My problems are too big and my anxiety is far too out of control for therapy to help!

It’s normal for individuals who are considering anxiety therapy to feel overwhelmed and helpless by the chronic and persistent nature of their symptoms. In fact, with anxiety it’s often par for the course! Remember that it is the nature of anxiety to create doubt and worry. It is also the nature of anxiety to create avoidance of anxiety provoking situations. So, it makes a lot of sense that somebody who excessively worries would worry about treatment and possibly even avoid it. However, this typically becomes a vicious cycle that over time creates more anxious thoughts, worry, or panic.

What is unique about working with you?Anxiety Counseling

That’s a good question. There are a number of things that are unique to me as a therapist. Here are a few:​

  • I work with cutting-edge behavioral therapies that have been scientifically proven to help individuals with anxiety.
  • My measure of success when working with individuals is whether or not they are able to begin leading a full, meaningful, and vital life. While we definitely work on anxiety, we also work on a whole lot more!
  • Many clients have stated that they find me to be a warm and inviting individual who they feel comfortable opening up to.
  • I uniquely tailor my approach to each individual that I see. No one person is the same and I work to get to know the individual who I am working with.

CONTACT
Cooperative Therapy, LLC
412 S Clay Ave, Lower Level
Kirkwood, MO 63122

Association for Contextual Behavioral Science
Integrative Behavior Couple Therapy

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