Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Poolesville, MD.

Many clients considering psychotherapy are dealing with two levels of anxiety and stress. The idea of consulting with a therapist can be stressful and anxiety provoking. Anxiety and stress can also be experienced when discussing issues of compulsive sexual behaviors, or anger issues, that one has not been successful in managing. I approach my psychotherapy practice with a non-judgmental, compassionate and respectful attitude. You will find a confidential and safe environment in which to discuss the difficult issues that have disrupted your personal and professional lives.

Anxiety and stress steal our time, comfort, confidence, and energy. Whether you are a worrier (ruminating over a problem or something you said/did during the day), or someone who breaks out into a cold sweat thinking about a presentation, getting on a plane, or being exposed to COVID, therapy can help. I use cognitive therapies, behavior modification, compassion, and mindfulness to work with a variety of anxiety symptoms and disorders. I'm also interested in the origin of the anxiety and what maintains it. If you are interested in a pure behavioral approach, I am not the therapist for you. I work to help you understand yourself and lower the baseline level of anxiety in your life.

There are at least four components to reducing anxiety. The first is to learn self-soothing techniques. the second is to become aware of the thoughts and images which are making you anxious and to deliberately choose other thoughts and images. The third is to discover and face what you are most afraid of. Sometimes, when there has been trauma, this fear is something that has already happened and from which you have not recovered. Often it is something out of your control, a fact of life, like death! We need to make peace with these, accept their reality and make the best of what we have. I have some excellent tools from hypnosis and a field of study called NLP to speed your progress.

Anxiety comes when the situations of life create negative ideas about people or things. Once these negative thoughts become frequent, they can prevent you from finding joy in life. In therapy, we work through the negativity, exploring its causes, and then find coping strategies to get around them. Once you know where the negative ideas come from, you can face the situations with a fresh outlook. And we act as a team to create it.