Therapy for Anxiety in Pennsylvania

Descend into your body and make peace.

Your body is in protest.

woman with dark hair moving her head quickly | therapy for anxiety in Pennsylvania

Despite the way you function fairly well in life, when life puts its demands on 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 incredibly 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 hacks for managing anxiety. There are thousands of products people want to sell you to help you feel better. Thousands of experiences people will say will help you defeat anxiety. may look like a problem that can be solved with a change of tangible action, the inner experience for each person with depression proves it’s not that simple.

I don’t do techniques. I don’t do advice. Actually, 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?

Instead, I look past what’s visible and straight towards the complex web of strong emotions, experiences, and beliefs that attack you from within. And I will face it with you.

I use an integration of Relationally Focused Psychodynamic Therapy, Somatic Internal Family Systems, and EMDR to help you break through the persistent negative emotions and beliefs that fuel and sustain your depression.

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 physical states and your mental states.

You’ll receive understanding and nonjudgment for the things that are hard for you.

And I’ll help you push your own edge of dysfunction — in a gentler way than you might expect.

We will dig deeply into the logic of your depression, find and feel into your stuck points, and

break through them together.

sunlight shining through a large tropical leaf | therapy for depression in Pennsylvania

Therapy for anxiety can help you…

  • Finally feel like you matter without faking it

  • Come out on top of — and break — cycles of self-hatred

  • Believe that you are worthy of being here

  • Take care of yourself without cringing or procrastinating

  • Enjoy the pleasures of food, connection, and sleep

  • Learn how to refill your own cup when it runs low

  • Give your time and energy to those you care about

  • Find your joy and love for life again

Approaches

  • Somatic Internal Family Systems

    Somatic Internal Family Systems helps you heal your relationship with challenging and wounded parts of yourself.

  • EMDR

    Bilateral stimulation can help you process through beliefs and sensations that were formed out of disturbing and overwhelming events in your past.

  • Relationally Focused Psychodynamic Therapy

    Our focus is on facilitating authentic emotional expression, avoided thoughts and feelings, and recurring themes and patterns in your relationships and in the therapeutic relationship.

  • Therapy Intensives

    Extended sessions for a deep and focused working through of depressive patterns.

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.

FAQs about Therapy for Anxiety

  • Consistency is needed to build the awareness, momentum, and trust in the process that is necessary to break through your patterns. I recommend meeting weekly or biweekly.

    If you have the motivation, insight, and the trust in your own readiness to overcome depression, I recommend meeting for an intensive to make significant progress fast. Read more about EMDR Intensives and Somatic IFS Intensives here.

  • If working through depression with a previous therapist came to no benefit, it might have been the wrong therapist or the wrong timing in your life.

    You can certainly try again with another therapist – with three key considerations.

    1. First, the therapeutic fit between you and your mental health provider is the personal foundation for you truly benefitting from therapy. If you feel that we’re a good fit, follow that feeling. And throughout therapy, if there are fluctuations in that feeling, voice that.

    2. The therapeutic approach for depression is your technical foundation for improving depression. I use relational, body-based, and bottom-up approaches in depression treatment. These are different from behavioral or cognitive approaches. Read more about EMDR and Somatic Internal Family Systems here.

    3. It takes your honest effort. It gets easier to invest your honest effort into therapy when you feel solid in both of the above factors.

  • There is no universal timeline for when you will no longer need therapy for depression.

    Particularly for folks with persistent depression, committing to the process, having patience for the process, moving slower, and focusing on the subtle things often helps you get where you need to go.

  • Email or call me to schedule a consultation to discuss your current goals with me. If we’re a good fit, we’ll set up a first session.