Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Manhattan Beach, CA.

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.

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.

Many clients present with increasing levels of stress and anxiety in their lives. Therapy becomes centered around identifying triggers for anxiety symptoms, recent stressors in their lives, and identifying symptoms. Often times, we find together that anxiety has been in their life for a long time and that old patterns of behavior has accompanied it. We explore some of those patterns to identify the triggers and find new coping skills to practice when stress arrives. I find it helpful to collaborate with the client on setting goals and working at a speed that is comfortable to each client. This provides empowerment and confidence in working toward new ways of handling the stresses of living.

We are all going to encounter stress in our lives. Learn how to handle stress in difficult situations and find new ways to manage your response to stress will help you enjoy your life more. I offer a whole person approach with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy skills to work on Stress and Anxiety. Create the changes that you want to better cope with Stress and Anxiety.

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 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 Stress is often a very physical experience. It greatly affects our nervous system. I use a deep processing method called brainspotting to help regulate the nervous system and bring people their minds and bodies into the present. Often after a stimulus, a person's nervous system may still be activated or depleted after it ends instead of being at homeostasis. You can learn to regulate your body after a stimulus shows up.

When working with anxiety, I create a supportive space where you can safely explore your worries, fears, and physical symptoms without judgment. We’ll look at the underlying patterns that fuel your anxiety—whether rooted in past experiences, self-criticism, or daily stressors. I help you develop calming tools, self-compassion, and a deeper understanding of yourself so anxiety feels less overwhelming. Together, we’ll build resilience and confidence, allowing you to approach life with greater ease and balance.

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 both rampant in our modern society. It is my belief that relationships are both the root cause as well as the solution to struggles with anxiety. I take a family systems approach to address these issues by raising the functioning of the relationships in my clients' lives and allowing them to regulate and feel more peace day to day.