Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Laguna Woods, CA.

Stress and anxiety are common feelings we experience. We often need help working through the anxiety producing events and sometimes we just avoid those events all together (which can create it's own stress and anxiety). Together we will confront the events that bring on the anxiety. Using easy to use tools from our therapeutic sessions, you can work on lowering the anxiety and stress and feel more comfortable with living your life to the fullest.

Tools are specific for your wounds. Stress and anxiety limits our capacity to really connect with life and with love. Anxiety and stress often stems from wounds in the core of the personality that are long ago forgotten. Buried feelings can keep you so wound up and compulsive that you can't relax and feel present. Anxiety can keep you stuck living "in your head" disconnected from the rich, full life you are meant to feel! Don't settle, learn to use the tools to release anxiety and stress!

People rarely come to counseling when their anxiety first starts causing them problems. Most people try to handle it on their own and try the “white knuckle” approach until they are exhausted and overwhelmed. Often life becomes unmanageable and depression sets in when anxiety is not dealt with. Anxiety commonly focuses on illogical things that may seem foolish or kind of crazy, so you have kept these to yourself. Don’t keep struggling alone. Call me so I can help you reduce the hold anxiety has on you and restore freedom to live your life fully again. Contact me at 714-751-0888 and I promise I won't think you are crazy.

We treat anxiety and stress by first helping you identify what may be causing it. Causes may include external stressors (like economic stress or marital stress), or internal stressors like being too hard on yourself, or not feeling fulfilled in life. depending on the cause, we then teach teach you find ways to perhaps think differently about the stressing situation, ways to change your life to reduce the stress, or techniques for stress inoculation such as relaxation training, meditation, or deep breathing exercises. If you have a panic disorder, we teach you specific coping techniques to deal with it in the future.

Stress and anxiety can be extremely uncomfortable but at the same time these are actually areas that therapy is the most able to help relieve. An important step is to help my clients learn how to transition the nervous system out of the fight/flight/freeze response into a state of relaxation. That alarm state is good for helping the individual respond to an emergency but it greatly reduces flexibility. Once out the reactive sympathetic nervous system state my clients can then find new ways of thinking and responding. In order to help them to get out of the alarm mode, I teach a variety of skills both directly and indirectly.

Anxiety usually comes from two main sources....anger or fear. Talking with a therapist will help you uncover what is going on in your life now or where you might have unresolved anger about...or what you might fear. Talking through these issues can help difuse your anxiety, and a therapist can be beneficial in offering tools, skills, or simply a new way of thinking about a situaltion. Oftentimes, too, anxiety comes from a negative belief that is sometimes not accurate. You may gain insight and awareness as you challenge some of your belief systems which might be in your way. Looking at the stressors in your life with a therapist will reveal how your liife may by out of balance.

Are you worried about things going out of your control? Do you experience overwhelming anxiety and panic attacks? Are you obsessed about someone or something that is driving you crazy? I can help you find the roots of your fears, worries and anxieties, identify destructive patterns, work through inner conflicts, and move on to peace, and a calm state of mind that you deserve.