JON REEVES, PhD
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
ANXIETY
WHY THERAPY?
Anxiety can ruin an otherwise enjoyable life. Perhaps you feel nervous around your coworkers, or even your friends. Perhaps you feel overwhelmed, like there's too much to handle. Maybe your thoughts race all day, but never get you closer to a solution for the many things that worry you.
There are lots of other symptoms of anxiety:
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Do you have to catch your breath for “no” reason?
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Do you feel distracted, or on edge, or have trouble sleeping?
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Do parties seem exhausting, or meeting new people dangerous?
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Do you worry that you have a serious medical issue, when all evidence suggests that you don't?
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Do you worry about death a lot?
Each of these, by themselves, may seriously interfere with your life. Often a few of these go together--or even several of them. Therapy is well-suited to address these issues.
THERAPY FOR ANXIETY:
Together we can build skills to manage these moments of anxiety and discover why you’re anxious in the first place. My approach is both “bottom-up” and “top-down.”
Learning skills without understanding their cause (i.e., bottom-up only) may mean that you can kind of regulate anxiety when it emerges, but you have to keep tamping it down for the rest of your life. Gaining insight to the causes of your anxiety, without any tools to actually regulate it (i.e., top-down only), (a) prolongs your suffering while you're gaining insight, and (b) may leave you helpless when new anxiety-provoking situations emerge. This is why we do both. See my approach page for more.
There are some anxiety reduction exercise on my Resources page that can give you a taste of the skills we may practice during therapy. Perhaps you will find some relief from these resources before we even meet! (Note: practicing skills on your own may not be as effective. For example, watching a youtube video of a exercise and actually seeing a trainer at a gym usually carry different results).
However, if you’re reading this, you may have suffered from anxious feelings for some time. Try the exercises, but also reach out to me or another therapist.