Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Cranbrook, BC.

Counselling plays a crucial role in addressing anxiety, providing a safe and supportive environment where individuals can confront the intricate psychological and emotional factors contributing to their anxious feelings and behaviours. Therapists specialized in anxiety disorders utilize various therapeutic approaches, including Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Exposure Therapy, and Mindfulness-Based Therapy, to assist individuals in uncovering the root causes of their anxiety, challenging irrational thought patterns, acquiring effective coping strategies, and promoting emotional resilience. Through counselling, individuals can develop a deeper understanding/management of their anxiety.

While our bodies are perfectly designed to adapt and react to stress, modern problems mean that we tend to detect life threatening dangers in very ordinary places. Conflicts at work, arguments in our relationships and uncertainties such as the post-Covid world activate old survival mechanisms. We may be stuck in the buzzing, fear states of ‘fight-flight’ or the numb and paralyzed states of ‘freeze and shut down.’ The good news is that I have a long history of safely and successfully helping individuals and couples to reduce and release stress using a variety of CBT and mindfulness techniques, as well as trauma-informed therapy. You have my commitment to compassionate and educated care.

Therapy with me provides a calm, supportive space to help you understand and manage anxiety and stress. Together, we'll explore what's fueling your worry, calm your nervous system, and build practical strategies to regain a sense of control and ease. Whether anxiety shows up as racing thoughts, tension, or overwhelm, you don't have to navigate it alone. Our work will help you feel more grounded, resilient and able to face life's challenges with greater clarity and confidence.

One helpful approach to dealing with stress and anxiety is to calm the sympathetic nervous system, and one of the most effective techniques for doing this is to learning to breath slowly and deeply, while cultivating mindful, present awareness. In treating anxiety we learn to face our emotions and to develop active ways to manage unhelpful thoughts and unpleasant and distressing emotions. Discerning what we can influence and what lies beyond our control is also important. In addition, it is critically important to maintain social connections, to deliberately regulate our intake of information through social media, and seek out stories of hope and compassion.

Do you feel anxious, worried or on edge? Are you unable to stop worrying at times? Do you worry about many different things? Do you worry about something awful happening? Do you lay awake at night worrying? Anxiety and stress is very hard to cope with at times. It can cause fatigue, muscle tension, and an overall feeling of being unwell. Bettina uses a number of different approaches to help alleviate anxiety and stress. EMDR and CBT are empirically validated therapies to help you with both anxiety and stress. Sometimes trauma or emotional childhood experiences can cause the anxiety that we feel as adults. EMDR can help heal the wounds of trauma and lessen the anxiety we feel in our lives.

We live in a fast paced 24/7 world dealing with social media, technology and lots of things to worry about in the media. No wonder we are all a little anxious these days. I will help you change your relationship with your thoughts so they have less power and control over you. When we give in and avoid things due to anxiety we end up feeling pretty isolated. I will teach you tools and strategies to get through your stress and anxiety.

Chronic stress and anxiety when untreated can make just 'regular human function' feel like an unsurmountable task. Anxiety tends to be a downstream symptom of other psychological dynamics and experiences, so understanding how we got here can help us process their impact and develop tools to increase resiliency, improve insight, and manage feelings and emotions.

Anxiety can severely impact the quality of a person's life. It can impact their sleep, work, relationships, school, and their physical health. Sometimes, anxiety can become so intense that people experience physical symptoms like sweating, heart racing, dizziness, nausea, etc. The good news is that there are effective psychological treatments for anxiety. CBT (Cognitive behavioural therapy), which is the type of therapy I practice, is an evidence-based approach that provides individuals with skills to help manage their anxiety and get control over their lives back.