Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in La Mesa, CA.

I supervise doctoral interns working with the severely anxious and stressed population, many of whom have concomitant trauma and psychotic disorders. My belief is that anxiety produces a range of depressive reactions which in the extreme can cause frightening and distressing physiological symptoms such as nightmares, panic attacks, phobias, and even hallucinations. I am a trained EMDR practitioner and have years of experience with extreme stress as well as the anxiety that flows in and around episodes of depression

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.

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 can take over almost everything: a racing mind, a knot in your stomach, broken sleep, the feeling that you have to stay braced for something you can't even name. Persistent stress wears down your body and your patience until you barely feel like yourself. The good news is that this state is treatable, and you don't have to manage it alone. We'll begin by taking the edge off, then turn to the deeper question: what is your anxiety actually responding to? Worry rarely appears for no reason; it usually points to something underneath that deserves to be understood. I work in a depth-oriented way, helping you trace the unease back to its source so the relief holds permanently.

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.

Anxiety often follows frequent mental emotional reviews of images or replay of past fears or dangers, related to traumatic reminders and injuries. I will assist the person in identifying the areas of emotional conflict contributing to symptoms of stress and anxiety and and means to redirect to healthy positive perspectives . We will work together at verbalizing, externalizing, relevant thoughts and feelings in an effort to express internal fears, attached to the anxiety. I will provide psycho-education, normalization and reactions to traumatic memories of events. Relaxation, calming and breathing techniques, exercise, healthy eating, are also part of the therapeutic procedure.