Anxiety Therapy
Has Your Anxiety Become Unmanageable?
Are you a highly sensitive person who struggles to cope when life becomes challenging?
Do anxious thoughts ever disrupt your concentration or make it hard to sleep?
Is it difficult for you to connect with others and maintain close relationships?
The effects of anxiety can negatively impact all aspects of life. Whether you struggle with racing thoughts, perfectionism, people-pleasing habits, or panic attacks, you may feel trapped, unable to navigate stressful situations or find satisfaction in your relationships.
Your Mind May Feel Like It’s Always In Overdrive
When life gets hectic, your brain may be constantly churning and never at rest. Maybe you have become paralyzed with indecision, second-guessing yourself at every turn. Or you might find it difficult to stay in the present, often dwelling on the past or worrying about what may happen in the future.
The pressure you place on yourself to perform—whether at work or in trying to please others—can become overwhelming. Even if you try to conceal it from others, there may be times when you feel like you’re spiraling inside. At times, you may even experience panic attacks that strike unexpectedly and keep you incapacitated for hours.
Living with anxiety could lead to isolation and avoidance, gradually making your world smaller and more confined than it should be. Relationships may also be a source of stress, filled with self-doubt, insecurity, and disconnection.
Approached through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS), therapy can help you explore and understand the different parts of yourself that contribute to anxiety. By identifying and nurturing each part that comprises the greater whole, you can cultivate a more compassionate and harmonious relationship with yourself.
Today’s Culture Is Rife With Anxiety
According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), “an estimated 31.1 percent of U.S. adults experience distressing levels of anxiety at some point in their life.” [1] Sadly, although anxiety disorders are highly treatable, only 36.9 percent of those suffering receive treatment through medication or therapy. [2]
This gap can be attributed to the societal pressures that often prevent us from seeking support. The fast-paced nature of modern life places a high value on relentless productivity and constant achievement, creating an environment where anxiety is not only prevalent but often exacerbated. Many of us are conditioned to believe our worth is tied to success—in careers, academic performance, and personal relationships. This pressure to constantly excel can lead to ruminating thoughts and an overwhelming fear of failure.
Prevailing Social Constructs Negatively Impact How We Think And Feel
Additionally, societal constructs such as racism, patriarchy, and materialism create a toxic landscape that intensifies our feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. These systems of oppression not only shape how we perceive ourselves but also how we interact with each other, leading not only to a lack of inner connection but also unhealthy relationships. By internalizing these beliefs, anxiety within our culture has become the air that we breathe.
In our urgency to “fix” uncomfortable feelings quickly without examination, we often engage in unhealthy coping mechanisms that ignore the root causes of our distress. What’s more, traditional therapeutic approaches can sometimes fall short in addressing these deep-seated issues, often prioritizing the compartmentalization of emotions over exploring the root causes of our discomfort.
In therapy, you can unpack the underlying wounds that cause anxiety with curiosity and kindness. Taking things slowly allows you to ground yourself in the present and learn healthy ways to self-regulate your nervous system.
Therapy Can Help You Nurture Self-Compassion And Alleviate Anxiety
If you’ve suffered with anxiety longer than you can remember, you might believe it’s an integral part of your personality. Perhaps you haven’t given much thought to its origin, believing there’s not much you can do to change intrusive thoughts, ongoing panic attacks, and unsatisfying relationships.
Understandably, you may be skeptical that therapy could ever relieve longstanding anxiety. In therapy, we invite in that skepticism, embarking on a journey that, rather than simply managing your symptoms, will help you cultivate a meaningful relationship with yourself that leads to deeper, long-lasting healing. Through self-discovery and imagination, you can confront and address forgotten memories, giving attention to aspects of yourself that have been neglected or overlooked. By addressing the underlying pain you’ve been avoiding, you can finally get unstuck while alleviating anxious responses.
What To Expect In Sessions
Our initial focus will be getting to know each other and building a trusting relationship within the safe container of therapy. As we explore trauma wounds and difficult past experiences, I may make suggestions about tending to parts that need attention, but ultimately, you will be empowered to go in whatever direction makes sense to you. If it's helpful, I will also support you in teasing out what feels intuitively like the direction you would like to take. In this way, you will get to know the parts of yourself that have been exiled and are prone to anxiety.
Where we go in anxiety therapy will depend on your needs and goals. Through psychoeducation about how the nervous system is impacted by trauma, you will be guided through self-regulation and somatic skills that ground you in the present moment, relax, and let things go. We will take our time, slowing down long enough to engage both body and mind simultaneously, helping to integrate emotions and physical sensations.
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Internal Family Systems Therapy For Anxiety
Internal Family Systems is a therapeutic approach that helps you understand the different "parts" of yourself, similar to how a family works together. Each part is a compartmentalization of the psyche that is comprised of its own perspectives, thoughts, feelings, sensations, behaviors, and beliefs. These compartmentalized parts can have relationships with each other, sometimes liking each other or opposing each other, and often causing internal psychological tensions. Parts are not a singular feeling or thought; they can be as fully dimensional as a person.
Anxiety is a symptom of a dysregulated nervous system. Utilizing IFS therapy, you can successfully “update your system” by recognizing the parts that are holding onto past trauma but wanting to avoid confrontation.
As you develop greater curiosity and self-compassion for these parts, shame and judgment will fade, and anxiety will subside. To complement IFS, we may incorporate art therapy, self-regulation, somatic exercises, and mindfulness practices, depending on your needs and preferences.
The truth is, there is hope and no need to suffer from anxiety anymore. Therapy can help reveal the internal and external resources you already possess to thrive. When you connect with your sources of distress, it allows you to chart a new trajectory for yourself that is free, confident, and able to withstand life’s challenges.
But Maybe You’re Not Sure If Anxiety Therapy Is Right For You…
Will therapy help decrease my anxiety, or am I wasting my time?
In therapy, you will learn how anxiety is a survival mechanism that helps protect you from perceived threats. However, beyond serving this protective purpose, you will understand when anxiety becomes extreme, resulting in panic, second-guessing, and people-pleasing.
In IFS therapy, you will come to know these protective parts of yourself and build relationships with them, rather than fighting them. While connecting with yourself on a deeper and more compassionate level, you can access greater calm and shift away from anxious responses.
I worry that I will be judged for seeking anxiety counseling.
Understandably, if you’ve never tried anxiety counseling before, you may feel embarrassed or ashamed about asking for help. However, therapy is a safe, non-judgmental space where all aspects of yourself are welcome. Your anxiety responses developed for good reasons, and by utilizing Internal Family Systems therapy, your counselor can help you distinguish between what’s anxiety and connecting with yourself in a deeper way with curiosity and openness, helping to reduce self-judgment.
Does working with an anxiety therapist mean I’ll have to discuss painful experiences I've been avoiding?
In anxiety psychotherapy, you get to set the pace and craft treatment goals. We only approach difficult content when you’re ready. A benefit of IFS therapy is that healing happens when you connect with parts of the self that hold pain, not by directly revisiting trauma. In this way, you can address the underlying cause of anxiety safely and comfortably.
Living Free From The Constraints Of Anxiety Can Be Transformative
Slowing down allows for inner connection and a deeper understanding of yourself. To schedule a free 15-minute consultation to find out more about in-person or online anxiety therapy with me, please call (614) 285-5013 or visit my contact page.
[1] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/any-anxiety-disorder#
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