Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Topanga, CA.

Anxiety arises whenever someone feels they do not have the ability to handle the situation in front of them. Anxiety can arise seemingly from nowhere, or from past negative experiences. It is both a frustrating and scary experience with accompanying physical symptoms. Anxiety can cause stress, which long term has a detrimental impact on the body. Stress can effect sleep and wake cycles, immunity, gut health, and much more. I teach self-soothing and self-regulatory skills in order to help reduce both anxiety and stress.

I take a practical approach to treating anxiety and stress. I help you identify the sources of anxiety if you do not already know them. I support you in learning skills to regulate your emotions and increase awareness of body sensations and experiences in order to help you be able to control and reduce feelings of anxiety. I also use a combination of exposure therapy, if appropriate, and adjustment to lifestyle to help you reduce or eliminate sources of anxiety or stress. I know that every experience of anxiety or stress is unique and I will work with you to develop a plan of support tailored to your needs. I will provide a safe environment for you to challenge and overcome your fear/stress

Most of us have some relationship with stress and anxiety, and it's no wonder: our society offers us daily opportunities to deepen our anxiety or increase our stress level. One or more sources of anxiety is often quite manageable, but life has a way of throwing multiple stressors at us at once. When several problems work together to conspire against us, it is often overwhelming.

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.

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.

It can be hard for people who experience various challenges to have the confidence or desire to approach a professional. Not only we are generally too embarrassed to ask for help in unraveling our feelings, healthy functional people suffer the double stigma. Since they are used to being highly functional in most, if not all aspects of their lives, when they face unfamiliar emotional challenges it can be hard to accept or understand it. In many occasions it is not easy to say: hey, I am dealing with something that I don’t have the tools to resolve! I truly care about them and want the best possible results.

In treating anxiety, the most impotant issues is interupting the cycle of worry, obessing over worry, fearing the return of worry, and allowing worry to spread to every aspect of your life. Discriminating realistic reasons to worry from irrational reasons can help clients with excessive stress to cope. Interupting and redirecting thoughts of anxiety to more productive thoughts and activities will interupt the cycle that creates habitual anxiety. We will look at times you may over-react to triggers (be it an upcoming social situation, or a stumbling block that creates more stress and predictions of failure). We will take this path together. You are not alone.

Feeling overwhelmed by anxiety? My sessions provide a calming space to understand the root of your anxieties. We'll work together to identify triggers and develop practical tools to manage anxious thoughts and emotions. This might involve cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to challenge negative thought patterns, relaxation techniques to manage physical symptoms, or mindfulness exercises to cultivate present-moment awareness. Together, we'll create a personalized plan to help you navigate anxiety effectively and build a sense of calm in your life.

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.

Anxiety and stress can wreak havoc on our nervous system. Anxiety disorders can directly impact a person's ability to study, work, show up in your relationships or friendships and so much more. It's an awful feeling to experience, to worry about and can be debilitating at times. Thankfully, recovery is possible with treatment. Not only will I work with you to learn and implement anxiety management techniques but I will help you work through what is at the root of the problem. In our space together, I will strive to help you tremendously reduce your anxiety and stress to manageable levels. We are in this together.

Anxiety is an inability to be fully relaxed. It is mental and physical tension. Many things cause it and many things perpetuate it. Not all anxiety is bad or needs to be extinguished. I work with the client to understand the meaning of their anxiety. I find sometimes people are not consciously aware of the real reasons they cannot feel relaxed. Enlisting the client's sense of curiosity about their own thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations I aim to identify their symptoms of anxiety and the origins of them. I utilize cognitive behavioral and mindfulness strategies to identify and replace unhelpful thoughts with more productive ones.

How can therapy help with anxiety and stress? By making sure that your life style does not fuel anxiety… determining necessary changes by implementing relaxation techniques and daily lifestyle habits... exploring past experiences, emotional needs, ways of coping that you developed early on and how they impact everyday reactions (automatic thoughts, feelings, actions)… learning various techniques to take more control of your thoughts and feelings and respond more effectively to emotional triggers.

It takes an act of courage for sensitive young adults to learn to trust and believe in themselves. It takes self-awareness for them to learn to speak their truth. I help sensitive young adults to develop the self-love necessary to fully accept themselves. Ultimately, the key to living a peaceful life lies in knowing who you are and what you feel. I help young people stand strong in what is true for them. I help my clients learn to not waste their time looking to others for approval. Through our work together, I help young people to discover their authentic self-expression and embark on the journey of the dream for their life.

Are you stressed out? Anxiety keeping you up at night? Worried all the time? You want to relax, but don't know how? Your brain going a mile a minute with thoughts racing around, and you can't turn them off. It doesn't have to be that way. I can help. I can teach you ways to reduce the stress and anxiety in your life, be more rational, and once again enjoy your life to the fullest.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by constant anxiety and stress, unsure of how to break free from the cycle? You don’t have to face it alone. In my practice, I offer a safe, supportive space where we can work together to understand what’s driving your anxiety and develop practical strategies to manage it. Using cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and more profound psychodynamic techniques, we’ll explore the patterns that keep you stuck and help you regain control over your thoughts and emotions. My approach is empathetic and collaborative to empower you to lead a calmer, more balanced life.

My primary area of expertise is the treatment of Anxiety Disorders. There are different anxiety disorders such as Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia, Social Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Specific Phobia, PTSD and more. My therapeutic approach for the treatment of anxiety consists of: educating my client about their specific anxiety, teaching coping mechanisms to reduce stress/anxious mood, learning to interrupt the development of anxiety that leads to unpleasant physical manifestation and confronting behaviors and thoughts that maintain ongoing anxiety. It is imperative to work on my client's issues that perpetuates anxiety and distress.

Everyone experiences anxiety at some point, but for some the anxiety is so frequent or intense that it interferes with their lives or even triggers panic attacks. I use Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to help my clients get a sense of control over their own anxiety. We collaborate to learn skills to reduce the frequency or intensity of the anxious feelings, to tolerate the anxiety when it does occur so they can still function through it, and to practice habits that reduce stress and improve general mental health.

Dr. Levine is an expert in treating anxiety and stress-related disorders. Employing cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) he uses what are known as "evidence-based treatments." Dr. Levine received exceptional specialized training in this field by completing a 2-year Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT) at Temple University Medical School in Philadelphia. He was also a clinical psychologist for the hit TV series "Hoarders" on the A&E Network. He specializes in anxiety disorders, phobias and OCD and is a clinical member of the OC Foundation. Call or write to him now for the help you deserve.

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.

Stress or anxiety don’t always get in the way, but sometimes they do. Learn to identify the sources, recognize how they stop you, and change the impact they have on you and your life. Learn how old patterns shape your self-image, self-esteem, and expectations, and discover new ways of dealing with that. Fear doesn’t have to stop you from having what you want in life. And, sometimes it’s a valuable asset, like knowing which is the lion and which is the lamb. Psychotherapy with me helps you to sort out when to listen to the fears and when they no longer apply. You’ll also learn coping strategies that can help when you’re caught up in the fear. Your fears don’t have to control you.

Anxiety and stress are nature made, preparing us to step up our efforts for the important and meaningful tasks which come up in our lives. Sometimes this system needlessly overreacts and responds to everyday stressors in the environment in a paralyzing way. When this happens, it feels distressing and uncomfortable. It is hard to stay focused, concentrate, and finish what we need to be doing. Often physical signs such as rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, and shortness of breath can be present as well. This is the point where many clients come to therapy. I find anxiety and stress symptoms are very well treated with CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and mindfulness.

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.

Everyone experiences stress and anxiety but sometimes it gets to a point where it is hard to manage on our own. My job is to provide you the tools to help you decrease these feelings. Depending on the diagnosis, symptoms and severity, we will come up with a treatment plan that would be most effective for you. All treatment plans will include relaxation techniques and learning ways to manage those "what if" thoughts. Other techniques include exposure therapy, assertive skills and setting limits with others. As a team, we will get you through this together.

While most treatment approaches for anxiety and stress are effective on the surface, they don’t treat the real problem. Mantras, deep breathing, and rational dialogues about your fear being irrational rarely work---for most people don’t believe it or you! Imagine if you can trick the brain into changing without you telling your conscious mind that you are changing it? Problem with anxiety and stress is that the brain in this state knows you want to change it and it resists. Contact Kevin@kevinflemingphd.com for the ultimate stress and anxiety solution that will literally change your brain's autonomic nervous system patterns while you sit on your butt. 877-606-6161.

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.