Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Columbia, MD.

From time to time most of us will experience stress and anxiety. From a neuro-biological perspective, some of us are more prone to anxiety when we feel threatened or defensive. We together can use many strategies to lower the level of anxiety and work through the stress. Some of them include meditation and deep breathing, visualizing and 'anchoring' times you felt competent and have gotten though a stressful event successfully, writing journal of your experiences, using EMDR to visualize experiences in a different way changing your beliefs to positive ones.

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 and stress stem from the perception that you are not up to whatever challenges life may present. I help people to take a closer look at the ways in which they think that they do not have the resources they need to meet life's challenges. Sometimes this involves finding strengths and resources inside yourself that you did not realize you had. Sometimes is involves having the courage to look for such strength inside yourself and to ask others (such as fellow members of a therapy group) to help you.

To help you manage your stress and anxiety symptoms, we start with understanding the nature and patterns of your symptoms in relation to environmental triggers, traumatic life events, and unhelpful thinking patterns that influence your daily perspective. Using a collaborative alliance, we will look for better ways to manage both your external stressors and internal reactions. A cognitive-behavioral approach offers practical methods to understand how thought patterns influence emotional reactions and behaviors. By redirecting and re-framing your thoughts with alternative thoughts, you can experience a reduction in unpleasant emotions and an increase in personal effectiveness.

There is normal stress and anxiety and then there are levels which are far beyond what you imagine to be on that range. We live high-stress and fast-paced lives and it is understandable why we sometimes feel overwhelmed and highly stressed out. There is help available to assist you in calming your nerves and finding productive and safe methods for dealing with the many painful stressors around us.

Are you a worrier or are you often nervous? Do you have panic attacks? I can help you feel calmer and more peaceful. I know that worry can be disabling in your life, but with help you can live free of worry. I use cognitive therapy as well as guided imagery to help you feel more grounded and living in the moment. I also use hypnosis which can help uncover your strengths.