Anxiety
If you suffer from anxiety, these feelings can become overwhelming and interfere with your day to day functioning. You may have experienced anxiety’s snowball effect.
If you’re unsure what stressors or triggers bring on the anxiety, or when it will occur next, you may be familiar with the idea of experiencing anxiety... about experiencing anxiety, (in public situations or when you are in the middle of the demands and responsibilities of your day). The temporary physiological, emotional, and cognitive effects of anxiety or an anxiety attack may make you feel like somebody you don’t recognize or want to be. It may make you feel out of control of your body, your mind, and your life.
For anxiety disorders such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder, OCD, Panic Attacks, and Social Anxiety, I work with each client to customize a plan for managing anxiety. Together we will explore root causes for your anxiety, and identify daily stressors, triggers and themes. Whether it’s simple stress-reduction techniques, or more highly structured CBT and ERP (Exposure Response Prevention), the goal-oriented, evidenced based treatment method(s) we will utilize will empower and enable you to rejoin your personal and professional life as a more present, and confident you.
Self-Esteem
A low sense of self-esteem or lack of self-confidence may make you feel like something is innately wrong with you; like you are less-than, but a poor self-concept develops as a result of a multitude of psychosocial factors external to you. Early on in life, we internalize messages and develop a sense of self; a sense of how we fit in the world, and relate to others. A poor self-concept can lead to depressive, and anxious symptoms that make daily tasks, socializing, and relationships seem difficult to bear. While it may seem like low self-esteem is an invariable part of who you are, with the right tools it can be broken down, understood, and managed. Our goal will be to enable you to discover who you are without it as the negative thoughts become, “less loud.” I utilize evidenced based approaches such as psychodynamic theory, CBT, solution focused therapy, and a strengths based approach to identify the negative self-talk, beliefs and behaviors that reinforce these ingrained concepts, and assist you in learning to evaluate and challenge this thinking.
Depression
Depression can feel all-encompassing and overwhelming. It can feel inexplicable, leading to frustration and hopelessness that it will not improve. You may wake up with, or intermittently experience bouts of sadness throughout the day. This may make you feel unmotivated, or irritable toward family, friends, and loved ones. You may have lost interest in things you normally enjoy, or find it difficult to go through the day watching others manage seamlessly, and wonder why you can't do the same. Whatever it is that you're feeling, depression is difficult and can cloud your thoughts and your mood. Together we will explore your thought patterns, feelings, and behaviors, identify a plan that will help you reframe, and manage your emotions, and develop skills aimed to enable you to attain the quality of life you seek.
Relationships/Dating
Romantic relationships are hard work as they require meeting the needs of two people, each with their own emotional challenges and attachment styles. Whether single, or in a relationship, it is this challenge that can often lead to frustration, self-doubt, anger, or sadness. If single, do you feel deterred by the dating scene, or question yourself? Do you feel doomed to repeat the same patterns over and over, or fearful you will end up alone?
Are you currently in a less-than fulfilling relationship and need help exploring if you want to try to make it work or leave?
Are you worried that your partner and you are growing apart, or vacillate between periods of happiness and explosive fights?
If any of the above resonates with you, therapy may help increase your understanding of your wants and needs, and identify the maladaptive perspectives that keep you and/or your partner stuck. Through guidance and feedback, I integrate various techniques to help you understand your triggers. When emotions run high, and a situation escalates, acting out on emotion can feel validating by taking control over something that feels completely out of control; however, this often results in the opposite of the desired result. Using specific strategies and tools, together, we will empower you by identifying the patterns and triggers, and utilizing them to prevent unhelpful reactions, ultimately setting you up for future healthy relationship dynamics.
Eating Disorders
Eating disorders develop as a result of various psychosocial factors and are put into place as a coping mechanism, often long before the individual truly recognizes it, and long after it becomes an ingrained behavior that is difficult to break. Eating disorders are akin to addictions, as they become a preoccupation that insidiously impacts relationships, career, core values, and sense of self. Through the use of CBT-E and DBT, we will work together to develop insight into disordered thinking, and behaviors related to eating/exercise, and their destructive patterns in self-care and relationships. We will practice mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotion regulation to assist you in developing a healthier relationship with food and your body, and a more adaptive expression of feelings. Recovery is difficult, but the strength and life you gain is worth it, and I will be here every step of the way.
