Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Petaluma, CA.

Anxiety and stress are so prevalent in today's society. I can help you gather the tools you need to successfully handle those moments when you feel overwhelmed - even if those moments seem like they are all the time. I utilize psychodynamic and/or a cognitive behavioral approach to treating anxiety and stress. I also treat Obsessive Compulsive Disorder using Exposure and Response Prevention.

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.

If you're struggling with anxious thoughts, you may find it hard to focus. The fight or flight alarm is going off in your brain, constantly sending you messages starting with "what if...." If worrying is keeping you trapped in a hamster wheel, tired, but unable to rest, you may find yourself turning to addictive substances or behaviours to cope. As an addiction counsellor, I help clients cope with the anxious thoughts keeping them trapped in addictive behaviours. By uncovering these underlying thoughts, I help you develop coping skills so you can gain a sense of focus, clarity, confidence, and freedom from constantly overthinking. Send me a message and I'll guide you through the next steps.

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.

Anxiety falls along a continuum from acceptable to crippling, debilitating anxiety requiring professional intervention. The major forms that anxiety takes are: Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder, Phobic Disorders, Social Anxiety Disorders and Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD). A variety of proven therapeutic interventions are well established now, eg., Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Yoga, Tai Chi, Breathwork. By diving into therapy clients regain a sense of optimism, courage and confidence in relationships, workplace and career, driving, aging, life transitions and more.

Would you like to feel calmer -- while experiencing more satisfaction in your life, and have closer connections with your loved ones, friends and co-workers? Psychotherapy can be your gateway to a life with more happiness and balance. I am experienced at helping you understand and utilize your strengths as a foundation to help create the life you desire. This isn’t a magical cure - walking this path may take some time, energy and focus. Yet the rewards can be great. For some, the goals are more about resolving old hurts and trauma - for others, improving relationship skills, and communication skills. In all cases, my aim is to increase your ability to create the life you want.

We hold our anxiety and stress in our body. We feel tension, gut problems, hot flashes, disrupted sleep and more. I work with anxiety and stress by helping individuals learn and develop tools to re-regulate their nervous system. When we have a coherent and fluid nervous system, we can do difficult things without feeling paralyzed by overwhelming fear.

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.

Your Higher Self is your wise inner nurturer who is your guiding light. Your ego on the other hand, is the part of you that gives you "monkey mind"- the thoughts that are fearful, stuck on angry, or judgmental. Neuroscience research has proven that our thoughts and assumptions actually create our reality. Anxiety is an SOS from our soul that we need to heal a core wound and a resulting negative pattern of negative thinking that is creating a negative reality for us. In spite of what appears possible, you can create anything you desire to happen in your life. This is the evolution of humanity that we are all awakening to. To learn more you can watch my YouTube video on Manifesting.