Anxiety Therapist in The Bay Area
Helping Stressed High Achieving Bay Area Professionals find Freedom from Anxiety
Anxiety Therapy for Self-Critical, Anxious, and Overwhelmed Adults
Every morning, you wake up feeling behind.
The pressure at work is relentless, with constant deadlines and high expectations.
You are always working on your computer, always thinking, making sure you are on top of everything.
You tell yourself to push through.
However your mind criticizes: "You're not enough. You can't fail."
You wonder if this anxiety and stress will ever end. You see successful, confident people around you and feel like an impostor.
You strive to match up but never seem to be good enough.
Living in the high-stress Bay Area and holding demanding jobs can amplify the pressure.
Self-criticism convinces you that others are more capable, leading you to constantly question your worth and feel like a fraud.
You compare yourself to those with more wealth, achievements, and accolades, deepening the sense of inadequacy.
You feel the need to be perfect for everyone: friends, family, coworkers. The fear of not being enough is paralyzing. You overcompensate, trying to meet their needs, proving your worth through constant service, yet feeling empty and unfulfilled.
In this high-stress environment, the pressure to excel is overwhelming. The self-criticism and doubt erode your confidence and happiness. Despite outward success, inside, you're battling doubt and insecurity, always wondering if you'll ever truly measure up.
Anxiety Therapist for Stressed Bay Area Professionals
I help successful yet anxious professionals who struggle with intense self-criticism, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome find the freedom that they are looking for.
If you've ever felt like you're constantly performing, striving for a level of perfection that seems always just out of reach, and battling with the inner critic that never seems to quiet, I understand you.
Through our sessions, we will create a safe, supportive space where you can openly share your thoughts and feelings. I believe in the power of vulnerability and the growth that comes from facing our innermost fears. But more importantly, we'll start rewriting that narrative together, fostering a sense of self-compassion and understanding that paves the way for genuine healing.
Anxiety Therapy that Addresses Core Traumas and Past Hurts
As a trauma-informed therapist, I understand that the experiences of anxiety, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome are not just products of the mind but also deeply etched into the body.
Trauma, whether stemming from significant life events or the cumulative stress of unrelenting standards and self-criticism, resides not only in our memories but in our physical selves. It influences how we react to stress, how we handle relationships, and even how we view ourselves in our professional and personal lives.
In our sessions, we will explore not just the psychological impact of your experiences but also the somatic, or bodily, aspects. By incorporating Brainspotting therapy into our session, we will work at a deeper level than traditional talk therapy. By exploring the traumas in our body, Brainspotting will allow you to heal, and release those hurts and pains that drive your anxiety.
Anxiety Therapy That Gives Amazing Outcomes
At the end of therapy, you feel alive and excited to live the life that you want. You will be able to wake up excited for the life that you get to live. Therapy with me is deep and long-lasting, and my clients leave therapy understanding themselves, and their world.
You will be able to breathe, and feel lighter in your day-to-day life. Your relationships flourish because you're no longer held back by the need to perform or please. You're able to be genuinely yourself, expressing your needs and desires without fear of judgment or rejection. Your connections are deeper and more meaningful because you're interacting from a place of self-assurance and authenticity.
Instead of doubting your place in the world, you will know where you belong and what you offer.
About Anxiety Therapy
Types of Anxiety Therapy That I Specialize in:
Work Stress and Anxiety
Imposter Syndrome
Money Anxiety
Chronic Comparisons to others
Performance Anxiety
Burnout
Relationship Anxiety
Top Signs of Anxiety
Often clients don’t know what anxiety looks like or try to minimize their symptoms. Here are some signs that might indicate that you have anxiety and seeing a therapist will help.
Constant worry over small things
Feeling restless or on edge
Trouble sleeping
Irritability or short temper
Avoiding social situations, work assignments, or other activities
Difficulty making decisions
You worry about the future (Future catastophizing, doomsday scenarios)
FAQ About Bay Area Anxiety Therapy
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Anxiety therapy is aimed at not just managing the symptoms, but uncovering and healing from the root causes of your anxiety. My approach to anxiety therapy is twofold, designed to offer you comprehensive support and guidance every step of the way.
First, we focus on anxiety management. This stage is about equipping you with practical skills and tools to navigate and lessen the immediate impacts of anxiety in your daily life. Techniques such as mindfulness, understanding our thought processes, and various coping strategies play a crucial role here. The goal is to help you gain immediate relief and a sense of control over your anxiety symptoms.
Second, and crucially, we delve into the deeper issues that fuel your anxiety. This part of therapy is dedicated to understanding how underlying factors like trauma, family dynamics, and core attachment styles contribute to your anxiety. By exploring these areas, we aim to address not just the symptoms but the very roots of your anxiety.
This approach is particularly effective for addressing specific anxiety-related challenges such as relationship anxiety, perfectionism, and financial anxiety—areas that I specialize in. It's important to recognize that managing anxiety is a significant first step, but true healing comes from confronting and working through the deeper, often more complex issues that lie beneath the surface.
In our sessions, we'll create a safe and supportive environment for you to explore these aspects of your experience. Together, we will work towards not only understanding these deep-rooted causes of your anxiety but also changing them. This process is about more than temporary relief; it's about fostering lasting change and healing that empowers you to live a more fulfilling life, free from the constraints of anxiety.
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In my therapy practice, I employ a diverse array of modalities to address anxiety, recognizing that each individual's experience with anxiety is unique. My approach is to combine surface-level and deep-level techniques to offer a holistic treatment plan tailored to your specific needs.
At the surface level, I utilize mindfulness-based strategies and cognitive-behavioral techniques (CBT). Mindfulness practices help in bringing your attention to the present moment, reducing the overwhelming power of anxious thoughts. CBT, on the other hand, is focused on identifying and challenging distorted or unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors that contribute to anxiety. These techniques are foundational in helping you manage and mitigate the immediate symptoms of anxiety, providing practical tools for day-to-day coping.
On a deeper level, my practice is enriched by trauma-informed therapies, such as Brainspotting. Brainspotting is a powerful modality that aims to access and process trauma stored in the body, helping to treat anxiety at its root, often linked to unresolved traumatic experiences. By working through these traumas, we can reduce the chronic anxiety they perpetuate.
Additionally, I incorporate Internal Family Systems (IFS) to explore and address the internal parts of you that may be contributing to your anxiety. This includes parts that are self-critical or hold beliefs that amplify anxiety. IFS helps in understanding and transforming these parts, fostering internal harmony and reducing anxiety from within.
Attachment-based theories are another cornerstone of my practice. These theories help us explore how your relationships and early attachment experiences influence your anxiety, particularly in how you connect with others. Understanding these patterns is crucial for healing anxiety that impacts or is impacted by relationship dynamics.
By blending these modalities, my aim is to not only provide you with immediate tools for managing anxiety but also to explore and heal the underlying issues that fue your anxiety. This comprehensive approach ensures that you receive care that is not only effective in the short term but also transformative in the long term, leading to lasting change and a deeper sense of peace and well-being.
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Therapy with me typically last between 1 to 2 years. This period is necessary to fully address and understand the underlying causes of your anxiety, like trauma and attachment styles, which require time to process properly.
My method of treating anxiety is comprehensive. Rather than just offering quick solutions for immediate relief, we take a deeper look at how your anxiety is connected to different areas of your life, such as your relationships, financial situations, and family matters. By tackling these underlying issues, we aim for a more permanent solution to your anxiety.
The length of therapy varies depending on your individual needs, your objectives for therapy, and how quickly you feel comfortable moving forward. We'll work together to find a pace that suits you, focusing on achieving profound and lasting healing.
This approach isn't about temporary fixes. It's about going beyond surface-level symptoms to address the fundamental reasons behind your anxiety. Our goal is to help you gain a sense of control and resilience, enabling you to face life's challenges with a newfound strength and calmness.
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In my practice, I see clients on a weekly basis. This consistent schedule is crucial for making meaningful progress in therapy. Meeting less frequently, such as every other week or once a month, often doesn't provide the continuity needed to deeply explore and address the core issues driving your anxiety.
Weekly sessions allow us to maintain momentum and build upon the work done in previous sessions without long breaks that can disrupt the therapy process. This regularity is key to preventing the cycle of crisis management, where sessions become focused solely on dealing with immediate issues rather than the underlying causes of anxiety. It ensures that we can work together in a structured way, tackling the root of the problem and moving towards lasting change.
I've found that this approach, while requiring a commitment, is the most effective way to achieve the goals we set in therapy. It supports a depth of exploration and change that is less achievable with less frequent meetings.
