Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in West Chicago, IL.

If you are experiencing stress and anxiety, I will help you learn strategies to manage the stress while helping you process and work through these experiences. It is my goal to fully understand you and grasp how this impacts your life; I work to integrate each biopsychosocial aspect of your experience when working through anxiety and stress. I will provide you guidance and support while empowering you to overcome these obstacles and helping you growing from them.

Anxiety can be like a feedback loop that repeatedly criticizes you. It can show up as irritability and feeling like you’re on edge all the time. It can present as panic and you feel like you’ll never stop feeling anxious. Maybe you feel anxious about so many different things and you even feel anxious about feeling anxious. With anxiety, my approach is to first listen and create a safe space to express all this energy. We will also examine the thoughts that can increase our anxiety and practice reframing them. We will build a “coping skills toolkit”, as I like to say, to help you navigate when you feel anxious. You don’t need to be “fixed”. It’s okay to struggle. Let’s work on managing it.

Worry is a normal reaction to everyday stress and traumatic life events. Some ways of coping will reduce your discomfort. However, you may be one of the millions who experience anxiety to such a degree that it impairs your functioning at home, work or school. Left unchecked, anxiety will affect your overall quality of life. CBT, Mindfulness, and Exposure Therapy are proven methods for dealing social or performance anxiety, nightmares and sleep fears, intrusive negative thoughts, or OCD. Kari can assist you, your child or adolescent, in controlling anxiety and achieving relief from the mental and physical symptoms that can be debilitating.

Anxiety is an obstacle that keeps people from moving towards their goals and dreams. Anxiety hinders relationships, career opportunities, dreams, and keeps people from being successful. I believe in order to get through anxieties one must change their "yes but" language to "yes and" so that opportunities begin to present themselves. The biggest regrets in life are generally now what we have done, but what we didn't do. I believe it is never too late to do the next right thing. Using evidence based modalities of CBT, ACT, and DBT interventions, I can assist you in moving past the anxiety and back to the life you desire.

Clients seeking therapy for anxiety and stress can benefit from cognitive treatment which aims at changing thinking patterns to ease symptoms and promote positive insight. With cognitive therapy, you will learn to model healthier behaviors and ways of thinking to help change the perception of issues/situations that cause anxiety and stress. The goal of this therapy is for you to gain the ability to differentiate negative or overwhelming thoughts from healthy thoughts to prevent future self-depreciating feelings. Therapy can also help you to assess your need for any anti-anxiety medication to assist with symptom reduction.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by life’s demands? Does your body feel tense and stressed out? Is your heart racing quickly, are you unable to breath? Are you worried that you will never feel safe or calm again? Stress and anxiety present themselves differently to each person. We will help you understand your stress or anxiety, and determine the best course of action that will help you develop skills to manage both the physical and emotional symptoms of stress or anxiety. We not only help you calm yourself through cognitive behavioral approaches but also through our partnership with Nutritionists we can help assess your internal endocrine system and provide support through mediherbs.

Anxiety is what we feel when we worry too much about the future or overthink events from the past in the present moment. It's a physiological experience that can feel overwhelming, even frightening at times, it can prevent us from making good decisions or prevent us from making any decisions at all! Fortunately anxiety is treatable, in many case without medication. I will help you understand anxiety and provide you with tools and strategies you can use to begin to free your mind. Within a few sessions, most clients are able to think more clearly and make better decisions. They feel more at ease and relaxed to do the things they'd like to do to lead a happier life.

I personally have suffered from anxiety and come from a family where anxiety was a pervasive undertow. I know how anxiety can dominate a life and stress the lives of others. Medications may have been tried and and medical services utilized and proven not enough. In counseling I work with my clients individually, sometimes together with a spouse, in a conversational manner to get at the thought patterns contributing to stress and anxiety. Helping the client to get to the base of their anxiety, how they are stressing themselves out in their given life situation and how specifically to change these entrenched patterns is my goal. Referrals are made for other forms of help as necessary,

I specialize in the treatment of Social Anxiety Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (Worry), Panic Disorder with or without Agoraphobia, Health Anxiety Disorder, Specific Phobias, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I would describe my therapeutic approach to be cognitive behavioral (CBT), with an emphasis on the behavioral. I also like to integrate other third wave mindfulness-based CBT approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy when indicated.

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.

Some of the benefits in seeking therapy for anxiety and stress: Ability to reduce physical symptoms that come along with anxiety Learning coping skills to use as soon as you start feeling the anxiety or even mid panic attack Learning various relaxation techniques to over come stress Learn various types of meditation to relax the body Learn various types of breathwork to calm the nervous system

Today's world brings many stressors into our lives. I would encourage the individual to discuss their stressors, and assist them in learning positive coping strategies. Sometimes it is difficult to make these changes after years of habits, but I would stress the benefits of change. I would encourage the individual not to have such impossible standards for their behavior, which often leads to stress and anxiety. I have found that many individuals who are supportive of their friends often over extend themselves, so I would also encourage healthy boundaries.

Is fear stopping you from living your life? Anxiety can be overwhelming. However, it is possible to learn to understand your anxiety and learn to how to get out from under its effects. You can gain control over your anxiety! I will help you learn to relax your body and calm your mind. Together, we can figure out what is triggering your anxiety and relieve it's gripping effect on your life. For information, please don't hesitate to contact me.