Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Pittsburg, CA.

Depression, anxiety, excessive worry, and challenges in relationships are rooted in insufficient emotional attunement in formative years. After providing you practical and effective tools that lower anxiety and reduce stress symptoms in the moment; I focus on really attuning to your experience and helping you experience being accepted. As our relationship develops, I find it normal that you will internalize an internal ability to experience yourself as acceptable. After this happens, you will find that the normal "pain in the ass life experiences" that you find will still be there, but you will have a different sense of self that will allow you to navigate them a deeper sense of self!

With anxiety and stress, we will work together to first learn to identify the sources of each and then we will work together in coming up with a plan for managing yourself when you feel overwhelmed. Then we will explore your circumstances and examine your lived experience to better understand what other choices you have for taking care of yourself if you are often feeling anxious and stressed.

Anxiety in all of its forms (social, panic attacks, fears and phobias, PTSD, health-related anxiety, and performance anxiety) are concerns that I have helped adults and children overcome for over 22 years. It is a specialized area of therapy I work with using approaches that bring somatic awareness and resolve the underlying trauma that has led to activation in the body and worried mind. My aim is to help you learn tools to help you cope better and empower you to understand the causes of anxiety leading to resolution and lasting change.

Anxiety falls along a continuum from acceptable to crippling, debilitating anxiety requiring professional intervention. The major forms that anxiety takes are: Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder, Phobic Disorders, Social Anxiety Disorders and Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD). A variety of proven therapeutic interventions are well established now, eg., Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Yoga, Tai Chi, Breathwork. By diving into therapy clients regain a sense of optimism, courage and confidence in relationships, workplace and career, driving, aging, life transitions and more.

In addition to being a licensed Marriage Family Therapist, I am also a ceritified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner as developed by Dr. Peter Levine, and a certified Structural Integration Practitioner as developed by Dr. Ida Rolf. Using these body-based technologies in what we call a "bottom up" approach to anxiety and stress is a lot more effective than the "top down" approach of traditional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. That's because anxiety and stress are artifacts of the reptillian brain and limbic system not the neocortex where CBT works.

You are: - Often overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted - Struggling to keep up with day-to-day tasks -Disconnected from yourself and relationships -“Taking it out” on others or feeling resentful toward people you love -Going numb most of the day (hello, Netflix and mindless scrolling?) -Missing important dates or deadlines -Experiencing increased health issues and poor sleep You are ready to: -Learn new ways to manage stress and enjoy relaxation -Feel a new sense of purpose, balance, and passion in life -Create boundaries that honor your well-being -Explore how your past may have shaped where you are now -Create fulfilling relationships with yourself, your loved ones, and life

You don't have to go at this alone. Anxiety is difficult to manage because sometimes our mind and body do not appear to agree. When you are dealing with the physical symptoms of anxiety or stress, your heart rate may increase, you may sweat, you may breathe a little more shallow, or you might find yourself holding your breath altogether, while your mind may be confused as to what and why you feel as you do. As your therapist, I will offer you exercises/tools, somatic perspectives and grounding to help you regulate your nervous system. I will hold space with you and I will approach your anxiety with compassion and curiosity, honoring the defenses that keep us going.

Are you feeling stuck? When you’re depressed, anxious or overwhelmed, it feels that life is always difficult. Anxiety and stress can also immobilize us and make it difficult to take any action. Taking the time to work through challenges in therapy improve your life in ways you never imagined. I am a therapist who helps clients manage anxiety and break through depression. My style is warm and nonjudgmental, and I work collaboratively with a wide range of clients. I have a great deal of experience with postpartum depression and anxiety. Using insight-oriented psychotherapy and mindfulness techniques, I will help you find a way to stop feeling stuck and move forward.

I begin by understanding how you experience anxiety/stress because how you experience them is unique for you. Then we begin to increase your tolerance for how you experience anxious/stressful thoughts, feelings, memories, and/or situations. This is necessary so the anxiety/stress stops being an overwhelming experience that interferes and gets in the way of your life. It's crucial to be able to become more comfortable when you experience anxiety/stress because they're a part life. The problem is the distressing and limiting to debilitating effect they have on you. As you learn to be able to do this, you will begin to experience more peacefulness, calm, hope, self-confidence and self-esteem.

Feeling anxious is never comfortable; stresses of life often bring us to that point. Having a safe and compassionate listener can be the beginning of alleviating some of the pressure that causes these disruptive emotions. Being able to talk about your struggle in a trusting space allows you to put some of the angst outside of yourself and begin to look at your anxiety more objectively - allowing you to make sense of it and temper it. When you hold all of this as your own it continues to grow and expand. I can provide you a safe space. I am direct and empathetic so we will honestly explore your "stuff." Call today. Begin to make your life more manageable. You need not do this alone.

Anxiety often serves a useful function for humanity when it is not overused, facilitating us keeping our responsibilities and agreements, and remaining ethical and moral in our behavior. Yet, anxiety, leading to stress is the most common dysfunctional problem in today's high pressured world where stressors abound. Anxiety when overused, like too much anger, is self destructive to our minds and bodies. My therapy style assists you to get to the root of your anxiety, determining what secondary gain you may be getting from this behavior and weighing it against the cost. I can assist you to get to the source of your anxiety and learn behaviors thta will serve you and your family better in life.

While most treatment approaches for anxiety and stress are effective on the surface, they don’t treat the real problem. Mantras, deep breathing, and rational dialogues about your fear being irrational rarely work---for most people don’t believe it or you! Imagine if you can trick the brain into changing without you telling your conscious mind that you are changing it? Problem with anxiety and stress is that the brain in this state knows you want to change it and it resists. Contact Kevin@kevinfleminphd.com for the ultimate stress and anxiety solution that will literally change your brain's autonomic nervous system patterns while you sit on your butt. 877-606-6161.

Anxiety can feel overwhelming and at times debilitating. Stress can increase this anxiety to even more unmanageable levels. Learning ways to manage stress can help reduce the anxious feelings. I can work with to learn tools and skills to help calm you and ground you when you begin to feel overwhelmed. The goal is for you to feel like you can manage the anxiety that starts rattling you and to have some tools that you can pull out to calm you down enough to be more effective in that moment. Together we can work to find ways for you to feel calmer, more grounded and more like yourself.

Much of anxiety and stress are related to the negative messages we send ourselves. We worry about what others think of us, what may happen in the future, and how we acted in the past; just to name a few. Because much of anxiety is based in our thoughts; a large portion of the work we do in this therapy is to challenge our thinking. By challenging our negative thoughts, we can experience a more positive shift in emotions and behaviors. We will also discuss and practice mindfulness strategies as a way to work on being more present in the moment and decrease the focus on negative repetitive thinking. Relief from anxiety is possible with effective skills.

Anxiety takes so many forms. The root is basically fear that manifests in so many symptoms. I help adults and children that suffer from this debilitating condition by giving them simple tools to practice as soon as they feel anxiety coming on. As they practice and use the tools to help them in their everyday activities, we work on processing where that anxiety originated from - with that the healing begins.

Anxiety and stress are actually two different things. Where stress usually comes from actual and identifiable challenges, anxiety tends to be more arbitrary in that there isn't necessarily one specific cause. However, both anxiety and stress tend to develop based on one's specific context--that is what one has experienced through their lifetime. While some anxiety and stress is actually good for us (i.e. propels us toward action), excessive amounts can create both emotional and physical challenges. I work with clients from a top-down/bottom-up approach, working to help the brain to better control the bodily effects of stress and anxiety and the body to control the brain.

If you are struggling with feelings of anxiety or depression a wonderful tool is to learn about Mindfulness Meditation. Once you learn the simple steps, you can practice a little as five or ten minutes daily and see the results immediately. Mindfulness Meditation is easy to learn, has no side effects and is very cost effective. You can use it as a tool for stress management or for deepening your spiritual growth and practice. There is no right or wrong way. You take what works for you and apply it to your life.

I take a practical approach to treating anxiety and stress. I help you identify the sources of anxiety if you do not already know them. I support you in learning skills to regulate your emotions and increase awareness of body sensations and experiences in order to help you be able to control and reduce feelings of anxiety. I also use a combination of exposure therapy, if appropriate, and adjustment to lifestyle to help you reduce or eliminate sources of anxiety or stress. I know that every experience of anxiety or stress is unique and I will work with you to develop a plan of support tailored to your needs. I will provide a safe environment for you to challenge and overcome your fear/stress

Anxiety and stress are most common conditions that result in physical ailments, disease and impairment in living. I show you how to use the whole body to both contain stress responses and to find a more solid, stable foundation with which to process anxious and stressed places. These are usually aspects of ourselves that do not feel safe or supported- so grounding in the whole body, breathing, letting the body unwind tension allows for a way to not get caught up in these stress patterns. Rather we then learn how to enter into the places of anxiety/stress- so that these parts of ourselves feel safe to experience, express and release what they have been carrying- including unresolved traumas.

If you're struggling with anxious thoughts, you may find it hard to focus. The fight or flight alarm is going off in your brain, constantly sending you messages starting with "what if...." If worrying is keeping you trapped in a hamster wheel, tired, but unable to rest, you may find yourself turning to addictive substances or behaviours to cope. As an addiction counsellor, I help clients cope with the anxious thoughts keeping them trapped in addictive behaviours. By uncovering these underlying thoughts, I help you develop coping skills so you can gain a sense of focus, clarity, confidence, and freedom from constantly overthinking. Send me a message and I'll guide you through the next steps.

I work with clients using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, mindfulness, Narrative Therapy, Expressive Arts, and psychoeducation to address anxiety and stress. Many folks are experiencing extreme stress as a result of all we have experienced in the last year. I'm able to work with clients experiencing burnout, increased anxiety, and higher stress relying on neuroscience as the guide.