Anxiety Therapy for Women
Our anxiety keeps us alert to possible threats and drives us to react in ways that help us avoid those threats.
These reactions seem to happen automatically.
They get in the way of life satisfaction.
When I started this practice, I really wanted to narrow my scope of services to what I do best.
For me that is working with women who are dealing with issues that show up as anxiety.
I believe our anxiety gets started as a way to cope, to protect us.
It is a response to something that threatened a basic need like safety, connection, worth, or autonomy.
Our anxiety reactions hijack our peace, our sense of value and identity, our ability to speak up, to be seen and heard.
As adult women dealing with anxiety, we notice internal experiences like worrying, overthinking, indecision, overwhelm, striving, need to be perfect, feeling indequate, and worrying about what others think.
We find ourselves complaining about stress, trouble sleeping, being busy, doing everything for everyone, overscheduling, having angry outbursts, avoiding things we fear, and feeling restless, like we always have to be doing something.
Our relationships suffer.
We work so hard trying to do and be all the things that we don’t remember how to be ourselves.
How I work with anxiety
First I need to understand your experience with anxiety symptoms and how they impact your life.
What are you doing that you wish you weren’t doing?
What are you NOT doing that you wish you were doing?
How would you like to be responding instead?
We explore the things that trigger those responses.
At the same time, I find out how you are already coping.
We work on ways to improve coping which may include:
learning to recognize your unique early signs of emotional distress
learning relaxation and distraction strategies
practicing mindfulness
finding ways to make practical changes in your life that might alleviate some of your distress
With good coping in place, then we get at the roots of where your anxiety started.
I love to do this through EMDR therapy, but that modality is not automatically a good fit for every client so we would discuss whether it is appropriate for you. If not, we work on processing those root beliefs through talking about them.
I am trained to help you find those roots and identify the things we need to talk about so you can free yourself from those automatic reactions.
As you learn to live without those automatic responses, I will support you in adjusting to new ways of interacting with your life.
It can feel weird!
Those responses have been with you for so long.
People expect you to respond with those responses.
You’ll need to learn to catch yourself when those old anxious responses try to pop up and react for you. You will practice using new healthy ways to respond from a place of intentionality.
This will include using your coping strategies, self-care, communication, and setting boundaries.
If this resonates with you and you are a woman in Pennsylvania, please reach out for a free consultation call.