What is Anxiety?

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 Anxiety is the tendency to experience extreme worry about daily life events and situations that are out of proportion to the nature of the situation. People often worry about the past and the future, along with the present moment. People often worry about the worst thing that could happen in every situation, finding it difficult to see the positive perspective.

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The American Psychological Association has the following Criteria listed for General Anxiety Disorder:

1. Restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge

2. Being easily fatigued

3. Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank

4. Irritability

5. Muscle tension

6. Sleep disturbance (difficulty falling or staying asleep, or restless unsatisfying sleep

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Treatment

I use a combination treatment for anxiety of CBT, Mindfulness, Existential, and Psychodynamic therapies.

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CBT: Learning the difference between threats and non-threats through reality checking. Also learning to identify negative thoughts and learning to reframe them.

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Mindfulness:

We often live in our mind, rather than "Just being." We worry and ruminate about the future and the past. We even worry in the present in our mind rather than live in the present. We worry about what will happen, if people like us, and shame ourselves for not being "good enough." Mindfulness about slowing learning how to get out of your mind, and into life. 

 

Existential We can also dig deeper into ourselves to find out our values, the things that truly matter to us. Once we know the things that truly matter, we can let go of the things that don't. We can take action and be responsible for each day and what we do with it. We can learn to live authentically so that we are worried all of the time about the mask we are putting on.

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Psychodynamic

I believe in the inside out method of therapy: getting to know someone fully, discovering the root causes for struggles today. 

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