Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Altadena, CA.

In treating anxiety, the most impotant issues is interupting the cycle of worry, obessing over worry, fearing the return of worry, and allowing worry to spread to every aspect of your life. Discriminating realistic reasons to worry from irrational reasons can help clients with excessive stress to cope. Interupting and redirecting thoughts of anxiety to more productive thoughts and activities will interupt the cycle that creates habitual anxiety. We will look at times you may over-react to triggers (be it an upcoming social situation, or a stumbling block that creates more stress and predictions of failure). We will take this path together. You are not alone.

Are your worries and fears overwhelming, preventing you from living your best life? Do you feel paralyzed by panic and doubts? If this sounds like you, and you want to make some changes, I’d like to help. The good news is that excessive worrying is a habit you can learn to break. We can work together to teach your brain to stay calm and collected and to look at life from a more realistic and positive perspective. Together we will decrease your preoccupation with ‘what ifs’ and ‘worse case scenarios.’ Through tailored relaxation techniques, and VERY SLOWLY exposing you to your fears, we can reduce your anxiety to a manageable level, so your fears are no longer interfering with your life.

Everyone feels anxiety at some point in their lives but when it starts to interfere with your life, counseling can help. Although anxiety can feel debilitating, it is treatable. People with anxiety don’t always share the same symptoms, they vary from person to person. Therapy will help you to reclaim your life and function in a chronically stressful world.

Anxiety and stress come from a variety of sources for children and young adults. Further, the behavioral outcome of anxiety and stress varies from one individual to the next. While some may become isolated and avoid stressful situations, others can become behaviorally aggressive and aggitated. I work closely with my clients and families on identifying the underlying causes of this anxiety, and by using cognitive behavioral therapy and solution focused methods my clients learn the skills to manage and resolve these stressors.

In anxiety and stress treatment and counseling, therapists often employ a holistic approach, tailoring techniques to individual needs. Clients benefit from a safe, non-judgmental space to explore underlying causes of anxiety and stress. Therapists may utilize cognitive-behavioral techniques to reframe negative thought patterns, relaxation exercises to manage physical symptoms, and mindfulness practices to increase present-moment awareness. Through therapy, clients gain coping skills, improved self-awareness, and a sense of empowerment, enabling them to navigate life's challenges with greater resilience and confidence.

Anxiety happens when fear has become too big to handle and we don't feel safe within ourselves or the environments that we are a part of. My approach to anxiety is to help you become aware of where the fear originated from and learn how to feel comfortable in your own skin again. When we feel at home in our bodies that's when we become released from the suffering of anxiety.

My psychotherapeutic approach to treating anxiety and stress is holistic and includes working with the body, mind, and spirit. The 3 foundational pillars of wellness and the treatment of anxiety and stress from my perspective are diet, sleep, and exercise. Learning how to ground ourselves in the present moment and cultivate mindfulness is an important aspect of this work. Integrating other evidence-based treatments such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can be very ehlpful as well.

My approach to the treatment of anxiety is to use the most effective intervention strategies possible. My treatment for anxiety (including panic disorder and OCD) utilizes exposure therapy, which works by helping a person confront a specific fear or memory while in a safe and supportive environment. The main goals of exposure therapy are to help my clients learn that by stopping the avoidance of what they fear, they actually become MORE comfortable and can reduce their anxiety to a substantial degree - all of which opens doors of hope and increases the potential to reach your desired goals with an improved quality of life.

Anxiety and stress are like an evil and corrosive thread that work their way through every aspect of a life. It can rob the joy that can make life worth living. I know from both personal and professional experience how anxiety and stress can take the joy out of life and also how to overcome these issues and put them in your past. With the aid of tools like EMDR CBT and guided visualizations I can help you overcome this issue and heal from the issues that drive it. Additionally, I can provide tools, coping skills, and other resources to help you manage this particular issue, and experience increased relief from these symptoms with each session.

It can be hard for people who experience various challenges to have the confidence or desire to approach a professional. Not only we are generally too embarrassed to ask for help in unraveling our feelings, healthy functional people suffer the double stigma. Since they are used to being highly functional in most, if not all aspects of their lives, when they face unfamiliar emotional challenges it can be hard to accept or understand it. In many occasions it is not easy to say: hey, I am dealing with something that I don’t have the tools to resolve! I truly care about them and want the best possible results.

Stress at work or school, relationship stress, financial stress, health issues often are precursors for people to seek psychotherapy. Disturbances in sleep and appetite and an inability to attend and concentrate can undermine one's work performance or a student's ability to successfully master the demands of school. I have experience treating teachers, nurses, doctors and lawyers with anxiety and stress and, as well, see college and graduate and law school students form universities in the Los Angeles area, including USC, UCLA and Loyola.

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.

When you're struggling with anxiety and stress, you want help as quickly as possible. For some clients, medication is appropriate but talk therapy can reduce stress and anxiety quickly. Learning how to relax yourself with breathing can stop panic attacks and is an easy-to-learn technique For most clients, talk therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) are very helpful in working with anxiety and stress. As you begin to understand how to challenge the negative thoughts that lead to anxiety and stress, you will feel more in control and be able to reduce the normal stress and anxiety the is part of life.

I provide counseling for anxiety and stress at the Narrative Couples Center. Through collaborative conversations, we discover alternatives that can replace the oppression of anxiety. Are you wanting peacefulness, more balance, less overwhelm? I look at how problems interfere with people’s hopes, and use a strength-based approach that supports resourcefulness.