Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Clearlake, CA.

Anxiety can affect your whole life. Like physical pain, anxiety is a symptom that something is wrong, and like pain, it can be treated. Often, understanding the source of your anxiety is enough to lessen or eliminate it completely. We can help you identify what triggers a sense of apprehension and stress in your life. As we come to understand the underlying causes, we will develop tools and strategies to help you cope with your anxiety.

The modern world we live in is full of amazing technological advancements and organizational wonders, but it is also more complex and demanding than ever before. The myriad competing demands of our lives, how busy we are, the continual pressure to do and be more creates enormous stress for all of us. This stress can escalate into anxiety and the added strain of these issues easily begins to short-circuit our ability to function at our best, to feel good, to maintain relationships and responsibilities. I can help you understand the internal and external forces creating these negative feelings, and together we can find strategies for minimizing stress and anxiety so you can feel better.

Stress is an inevitable part of modern life. Anxiety seems to be part of this same package, but does it have to be? Anxiety is the uncomfortable and often intolerable gap between where we are and where we want to be. It can run everything and ruin everything. The where-we-are that anxiety so painfully stretches away from is usually our difficult-to-be-with internal emotional reality involving hurt, shame, anger or fear. Learning to be with ourselves and find release usually requires the help of someone who is intuitive, warm, sensitive and familiar with the terrain of emotions. This is what I do. This is my everyday work. Let me help you.

Anxiety and stress are two words that often go hand in hand. They can creep into our waking hours and haunt the evenings when we need to go to sleep. Together, you and I will come up with a plan for both waking hours and for nighttime if needed. We will develop coping skills you can use in the real world and some for when you have more time on your hands. Anxiety doesn't need to consume you and doesn't need to rob you of the good things in life such as being with people or saying yes to activities.

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.

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.

Anxiety and fear are primal emotions that under ideal circumstances help prepare you to face danger trhough fleeing or fighting if trapped. However, when anxiety is triggerred too easily the protective function is lost and you are at risk for developing anxiety disorders like social anxiety, panic, phobias, chronic worry, and PTSD. Once an anxiety disorder has developed it is maintained in a vicious cycle of fear and avoidance. I help people break this cycle by learning to deescalate their anxiety response and gradually confront, rather then avoid, their fears. People who have experience trauma growing up may also have anxiety in the form of PTSD. I have special training to help you.

Experiencing occasional anxiety is a normal part of life. However, anxiety disorders and ongoing chronic stress can appear as repeated episodes of worry & fear, or develop into sudden feelings of intense anxiety with physical sensations, known as panic attacks. Your anxiety may feel related to an event or thought, and other times appear to occur randomly and without cause. Anxiety can develop at any age, when left untreated it may develop into depression. In therapy we will explore how anxiety is affecting your life. You will learn how your physical, emotional and mental health are connected and together create an effective treatment plan specific to your goals to improve your well-being.

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.

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.