Therapy for Anxiety in Pennsylvania & Tennessee
Descend into your body and make peace.
Your mind is in chaos and your body is in protest.
Despite the way you manage daily life, when certain things or people make their demands of you, your body gives you emergency signals.
There’s a near constant low-grade electric current through your body. There’s your stomach, which never feels fully settled, that at times heightens into nausea. Your ribcage feels locked tight, and your abs feel like a steel belt (and not because you are necessarily slaying your core workouts). There’s this lump in your throat that never really goes away. Your neck and your back always feel sore. Your thoughts easily accelerate to 95 miles per hour, forming multiple thought spirals that turn into dark vortexes.
You shove these parts of yourself in a corner of your mind, far away from your attention and where most people don’t see it.
Maybe it’s never occurred to you that these feelings aren’t just normal. Maybe you do know these feelings aren’t normal, but what you’ve tried to deal with these feelings doesn’t help you in the long term. And maybe you’ve started to wonder if you’ll ever not feel this way.
You’re in the right place.
This gets complicated, considering that you may have brought these physical symptoms to your primary care physician or even ER staff.
Perhaps you are no stranger to these specialists’ doors:
Endocrinology
Cardiology
Gastroenterology
Neurology
Pulmonology
Sleep Specialists
The facts may indeed be that you do have a physiological issue that needs medical care.
Or, confusingly, the scans do indeed show that you’re fine, and you’ve been told, “You don’t have anything to worry about!” (Which only made you feel worse.)
Whichever is the case for you in particular — your relationship with your feelings is playing a part into the aggravation of your symptoms. And? It’s not your fault.
Imagine learning to befriend your body,
learning to stand watch over your mind,
and to be the wise, loving guardian over both.
Today, thousands of people have thousands of strategies and hacks for managing anxiety. There are thousands of products people want to sell you to help you feel better. There are thousands of curated experiences people will say will help you release anxiety. I’m not here to claim that any of those things aren’t helpful, as they may be incredibly supportive for many people on their search for anxiety relief, but… isn’t it kind of disempowering to be sold relief?
Well, I’m here to break a hard truth to you: because fear and anxiety are part of the human condition, there is no cure for it. Just ways to relate to it.
But what about those anxiety symptoms that send you to the doctor?! you ask.
Anxiety (especially health anxiety) does not respond well long-term to hacks or advice. I will invite you to look underneath what’s apparent and straight towards the web of strong emotions, experiences, and beliefs that attack you from within. We will look at your relationship with your body and unpack the stories and beliefs you hold about it. I will face all of it with you. And more importantly, we will reshape your mind-body relationship together in such an effective way that you will not be helpless in the long-term or dependent something or someone outside of you for relief.
I use an integration of Somatic Internal Family Systems, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and EMDR to help you break through the persistent negative emotions and beliefs that fuel and sustain your anxiety.
In session with me…
You’ll be eased into a curious and exploratory attitude towards the connection between mind and body.
You’ll actually begin to work the connection between your mental states and your physical states.
You’ll be paced to make just enough change that you can handle.
And you’ll learn to accept the lifelong relationship with your body — in a softer, more powerful way than you might expect.
We will dig deeply into the logic of your anxiety, find and feel into your stuck points, and
break through them together.
Therapy for anxiety can help you…
Stop ignoring, neglecting, hating, or distrusting your body
Listen to your body as a wise messenger that’s telling you about your needs
Learn how to create your own calm without someone or something else giving that calm to you
Trust your body because you have the skills and the relationship with it to honor it every single day
Respectfully treat your body as your home and your best friend
If you feel like there’s no way you can win against anxiety, here’s what I really want you to know:
Anxiety isn’t just a battle to “win”. It’s a call to listen deeper.
Therapy for Anxiety FAQs
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Therapy for anxiety can look different from person to person, session to session. Come into sessions as you are and be as honest as you can be about what you want to focus on.
I have been trained in multiple modalities that piece together the mental, physical, emotional, and behavioral pieces of your anxiety to help you meet your specific needs and goals.
For example, you and I may utilize Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to learn skills to step out of the streams of anxious thinking, somatic mindfulness skills to learn to attune to your mind-body connection, or EMDR to dive deeper into your emotions and life experiences to finally feel free to live your life.
We will always begin by forming a solid therapeutic relationship as I want you to feel comfortable in our connection. And I always encourage feedback about ways to make your experience better!
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At the beginning of your therapy journey, meeting on a weekly basis will give you the fastest therapeutic gains.
After a period of meeting weekly, we can discuss transitioning the frequency of meetings to every other week.
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There is no universal timeline for when you will no longer need therapy for anxiety. It depends on your goals and how much you’re working through (one issue or multiple issues).
You may get the help you need in the short-term: 1-4 months (4-16 sessions).
You may get the help you need in a 6-9 month periods (24-32 sessions).
You may find that a year or longer in ongoing therapy best supports your mental health.
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Yes, of course. All you have to do is sign some paperwork to authorize your healthcare professionals coordinating with each other.
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Send me an email, leave me a voicemail, fill out my contact form, or directly book a free consultation.
If we’re a good fit, we’ll set up a first session!