Counseling for Anxiety
Sometimes anxiety comes from a years-long struggle with uncontrollable worry and longing for some extra sense of control. Sometimes, it comes on in reaction to one significant event that seemed to come out of nowhere. In either case, there is no doubt that anxiety can inhibit motivation, action, and clarity as much as anything else you are likely to encounter.
Given the current state of the world, I must mention that anxiety due to the COVID-19 pandemic is a significant, ongoing issue. This does not mean that all anxiety counseling is now targeted toward coronavirus issues, but it is something that I want to make sure that I address. Much of what makes this period so unnerving goes beyond even the notion of getting sick. Whether you feel endlessly bombarded with worst-case scenarios by social media or the uncertainty about what the ongoing notion of lockdowns means for your career, this is a stressful time for even the most stalwart.
On the other hand, anxiety might be something that you have dealt with for months or years before the pandemic. Maybe anxious thoughts have been with you for most of your life. If this sounds more like what you are going through, I want to assure you that there is hope. Just because you have dealt with this for a long time does not mean that you are stuck with it forever.
How I Treat Anxiety
My primary method of treatment is called Internal Family Systems Therapy. If this is something that you have never heard of, you might find my page on that helpful. What it means for anxiety, though, is that we will work together to identify the part of you that responds to the world with anxiety. The assumption is that you are not wholly an anxious person. There just happens to be a part of you (the anxious part) that is overpowering the rest of your facilities. By connecting to that part in a curious way, it will become possible to get to the bottom of what motivates those anxious feelings (beyond worrying that something bad and out of your control might happen).
Treating feelings and emotions as aspects of ourselves that we can communicate with allows us to see ourselves apart from whatever might feel most negative. In the same way that people have to remind themselves that they are not their bodies, it is also important to remember that we are not simply our feelings. We are the culmination of many different parts that guide the path we take. Anxiety, while troubling in many ways, plays a role in that, and my goal is to help you take hold of what that role is so that you can live beyond that feeling.
