Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Staten Island, NY.

Stress and anxiety are grounded in fear of an anticipated future. The mind makes up a scenario, suggests that it may be true and an anxiety and stress are born. Nothing has actually happened other than the mental event, yet this phenomenon accounts for the bulk of human suffering. As a therapist it is my job to help clients who tend to be anxious recognize the endless stream of stress producing conjecture as a mental phenomenon unrelated to reality. Working together we can often trace their tendency to anxiety to earlier life experiences and have them begin to see the automatic nature of their anxiety's generation - this helps them interrupt the process.

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.

We’ll start by getting on the same page: what is bringing you to therapy, what are our goals for incorporating medication, and what would it look like to truly feel “better?” We’ll discuss your past history with both psychotherapy and medication, the current challenges you’re facing, and what you hope to get out of this process. You and I will collaborate on a treatment plan that maps out how we’re going to get there.

We embrace an expansive view of the individual and collaborate with clients to explore how their sense of self, past experiences, environment, and culture, impacts their current moods, relationships, experiences, and self-beliefs. We will work together in identifying what areas of life you would like to further explore to best reach your goals/growth in this process of self-discovery.

Clients can navigate stressful and distressing events in the present by healing from past painful or traumatic life experiences. Processing the events can decrease emotional response and increase cognitive flexibility. Clients struggling from feeling emotionally hurt, isolated, selfish, helpless, or hopeless can gain insight into symptoms and treatment of depression. Clients can learn emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal relationship skills and heal from past painful experiences that may influence current thoughts and belief systems in an unhealthy way.

Living with excessive worry and uncontrollable negative thoughts may impede your functioning during the day and keep you up at night. When anxiety impacts your ability to live comfortably, therapy can help. Using CBT and concrete coping skills I’m able to help clients to cope with stress, address specific fears, and alter negative self-talk. I also incorporate psychodynamic insight-oriented interventions, to help clients dive deeper to explore and work through the root of their anxiety. Although anxiety can be overwhelming and debilitating, it’s highly treatable. Together, we can help you work through your worries, and find strategies that help you feel calmer, more at peace, and fulfilled.