Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Dale City, VA.

We all go through seasons of life where things going on around us feel out of control and un-manageable. For some of us, this stress and anxiety can feel debilitating and get in the way of us experiencing life to the fullest. Regardless of how severely you experience this, I am here to help. Through our journey together, you will come to realize your ability to thrive no matter what the circumstances are.

Anxiety takes many forms in life, and many activities in life that can be rewarding or meaning can also cause anxiety. When anxiety is too high, it inhibits us from living a life that feels full and worthwhile. Therapy can help you to understand the underlying dynamics of what contributes to feeling anxious and the sense of risk in engaging in your life in a more full way.

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.

When fear is working properly inside us it serves as a helpful warning (e.g., don't touch the hot stove!). But when our insides are overwhelmed fear can get out of control and start to shape our life in all sorts of big and little ways. This makes it increasingly difficult to feel at peace (with oneself, others or our circumstances). The good news is that we are capable of change! I would be honored to help you learn how to work through your fear (and the underlying struggles that fuel it) so that you can experience more freedom, peace and joy in your life and your relationships.

Anxiety disorders develop as a result of long-term and cumulative stress. Recovering from anxiety and coping with stress can be successfully addressed through the use of a holistic and educational therapeutic model. I will help you to: • Learn to counter negative beliefs and self-talk; • Develop skills for coping with stress, panic attacks and phobias; • Adapt mindfulness strategies to decrease stress and worry; • Improve relationship skills; • Develop self-acceptance, self-esteem and assertiveness; and • Cultivate a sense of direction and purpose. I provide a safe and supportive space to help you achieve your goals.

Life can present you with difficult situations which are hard to process and move past. These challenges are not on your timeline and affect everything. Having worked in many healthcare settings, I am familiar navigating life-changing events and grief. I understand the territory of encountering loss, coping with trauma, the complexity of the medical system and living with illness. These issues can have ripple effects on your relationships, sense of self and perceptions of the world. I know how complex things can get, and I will support you during this process.

Everyone talks about stress and anxiety, but for many of us, it gets to be too much — interfering with work, sleep, relationships, health, or just being able to enjoy life. There are many options to help reduce the ways anxiety and stress "hijack" you, and to better manage and reduce your stressors. As a psychologist and a neuropsychologist, I'll work with you using the best strategies and practical ways for you to get past the obstacles that stress and anxiety can cause, making excellent use of the ways your brain and mind can shift your response to stress, and helping you move forward in your life with greater freedom and ease.

Anxiety can take on a variety of different forms depending on the individual. Oftentimes people who come into therapy for anxiety because they experience excessive anxiety and worry (apprehensive expectation) over a number of events in their life (work, children, relationships, finances, activities) and the source of the worry can change from day-to-day. People experiencing this kind of anxiety feel they cannot control or lessen the worry and that they are intruded upon by it on an hourly/daily basis. My recent book, Be Calm Proven Techniques to Stop Anxiety Now-offers strategies to reduce anxiety on the spot and I use these strategies in my client work.

In the fast-paced Northern Virginia area, high levels of stress and anxiety are common. I create an understanding, compassionate therapeutic environment. My approach is to address both anxious thinking and the body’s stress response. You will learn practical skills to help adjust the thought patterns that support anxiety. Because anxiety is also physical I use relaxation and mindfulness techniques to achieve a calmer, more focused state by slowing down racing thoughts. With these skills, we examine all areas of life, including any outside factors that contribute to stress. I never take a “one-size-fits-all” approach to my work. Therapy is a collaborative process, the best results coming from honoring the uniqueness of each person.

I can help you identify and address the thought and situations that are contributing to your anxiety. In a safe, supportive and nonjudgmental environment, you can work through difficult emotions and learn ways to gain more control over your thoughts and your life. In your counseling sessions, you can also develop more self-awareness, breathing techniques and other mindfulness-based stress reduction strategies to reduce anxiety and tension.As you develop more mindfulness, you can also begin to identify, examine and address any self-limiting behaviors or negative self-beliefs that keep you from coping effectively.

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 replace then with other thoughts and images. The third is to face what you are most afraid of. Sometimes, when there has been trauma, this fear is something that has already happened.. 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 for transforming anxiety, Including Accelerated Resolution Therapy, A.R.T, see acceleratedresolutiontherapy.com.

For those who suffer from anxiety and stress it can be difficult to get through a day! I work with my clients to organize the challenges that need to be conquered as well as find ways to manage overwhelming emotions in order to not only survive, but to succeed. Learning how to manage stress, practice self care, and find balance will be key. It's important to not only understand but to also actively practice.