Anxiety
Therapy for Anxiety
Every person experiences anxiety during stressful situations. It is a normal reaction to stress. However, when anxiety persists and is left unchecked, it can generalize and intensify over time. Common anxiety symptoms include increased heart rate, feelings of tension or restlessness, trouble with concentration, worries about a future threat, stomach pain or discomfort, insomnia, and/or avoidance of stressful situations or people.
Many people have trouble differentiating fear from anxiety. Although they can feel the same, anxiety is a future-oriented, long-acting emotional and somatic response to a diffuse threat whereas fear is present-oriented, short-lived response to a specific, identifiable threat. For instance, fear of dying or fear that others are judging you, without a known threat, is considered anxiety. When there is an imminent threat, we need fear and our flight or fight responses to protect us in a dangerous situation.
Additionally, it is normal and adaptive to feel worry or nervousness about a stressful situation. The worrying becomes problematic when it is frequent, difficult to control and causes a great deal of distress. Beliefs that are untrue about the act of worrying may include “it will keep something bad from happening,” “it helps me find solutions to the problems,” or “it motivates me.” Often these false beliefs reinforce the worry. Unintentional avoidance behaviors also feed the anxiety, making it worse. If you avoid situations that cause you anxiety, you never challenge the false beliefs and you create a negative feedback loop, strengthening the anxiety, beliefs, and avoidance behaviors.
Collaboratively, we will be examining why you are experiencing anxiety and look at ways you may be reinforcing it. This may be through false positive beliefs, people-pleasing behaviors, all-or-nothing thinking, avoidance behaviors, etc. By investigating and helping you learn and face your anxiety, create healthier boundaries, challenge thinking patterns that no longer serve you, practice more effective coping skills, and enhance self compassion/self care, the intrusive thoughts and accompanying anxiety symptoms will go down and/or disappear completely.
PRICING | THERAPY WITH DR. SEGUIN, Licensed Psychologist
30-minute therapy session: $125 | 50-minute therapy session: $200 | Initial, Intake Session: $245
You have the right to receive a “good faith estimate” explaining how much your medical and mental health care will cost. For questions or more information about your right to a good faith estimate, visit www.cms.gov/nosurprises
“The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.”
— Carl Jung