Anxiety Disorders Therapy

Therapy for anxiety, panic attacks, social anxiety, depersonalization/derealization,.

Anxiety disorders can take many different forms. Some people experience constant worry and overthinking. Others struggle with panic attacks, physical symptoms, social fears, dissociation, or a persistent sense of being emotionally disconnected or “unreal.” Over time, anxiety often begins organizing daily life around avoidance, reassurance, safety behaviors, emotional protection, or attempts to maintain control.

I provide evidence-based therapy tailored to the individual that may include behavioral strategies, exposure-based work, mindfulness-based interventions, emotional regulation skills, and approaches focused on reducing shame and self-criticism.

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How Anxiety Disorders Can Affect Daily Life

Anxiety disorders involve more “feeling stressed.” Anxiety can begin shaping decisions, relationships, routines, attention, and the way people move through everyday life. Many people start organizing their lives around avoiding discomfort, uncertainty, embarrassment, physical sensations, conflict, or situations that feel emotionally overwhelming.

Anxiety disorders can sometimes involve:

Chronic worry and overthinking
Panic attacks and fear of losing control
Social anxiety and fear of judgment or embarrassment
Depersonalization or derealization (DPDR)
Hypervigilance and difficulty relaxing
Avoidance of situations, conversations, or responsibilities
Reassurance seeking and excessive checking
Perfectionism and fear of making mistakes
Difficulty tolerating uncertainty
Trouble concentrating, sleeping, or feeling fully present

Many of these patterns begin as understandable attempts to feel safe or regain control. Over time, however, they can gradually narrow a person’s life and increase fear, avoidance, and emotional exhaustion.

Our Approach to Anxiety Treatment

Treatment focuses on understanding the patterns that keep fear active over time. Many anxiety disorders are maintained through avoidance, overanalysis, reassurance seeking, perfectionism, hypervigilance, or attempts to completely eliminate uncertainty and emotional discomfort. While these responses often make sense in the short term, they can gradually reinforce anxiety and narrow a person’s life.

Therapy is tailored to the individual and adapted to the specific ways anxiety shows up in daily life. Depending on the situation, treatment may involve reducing avoidance, changing the relationship to anxious thoughts and physical sensations, improving emotional regulation, building self-compassion, and gradually re-engaging with situations that anxiety has made feel threatening or overwhelming.

My work draws from evidence-based approaches including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), mindfulness-based interventions (MBSR), Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT), and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) skills for emotional regulation and distress tolerance. Different approaches are useful for different problems, and part of our job is helping determine what is most likely to be helpful rather than expecting people to navigate therapy jargon on their own.

The goal is to help people become less controlled by fear, avoidance, and chronic threat-monitoring so they can participate more fully in relationships, work, and everyday life.

Online Anxiety Therapy

Online therapy can work very effectively for many anxiety disorders. Because anxiety often becomes intertwined with daily routines, environments, relationships, work demands, social situations, physical sensations, and patterns of avoidance, virtual therapy can sometimes make treatment feel more directly connected to the situations where anxiety actually occurs.

Telehealth can also make specialized treatment more accessible for people who may not have an anxiety-focused therapist nearby, struggle with commuting, feel overwhelmed by unfamiliar environments, or simply function better from the privacy of their own home. During sessions, we may work on identifying fear-based patterns, reducing avoidance and reassurance seeking, improving emotional regulation, and gradually building a different relationship to anxiety, panic, uncertainty, and uncomfortable internal experiences.

Some people worry that online therapy may feel less personal or less effective. Research suggests that telehealth treatment can still lead to meaningful improvement for many people struggling with anxiety disorders, panic attacks, social anxiety, and chronic overthinking.

FAQs

Anxiety disorders and OCD can overlap, but OCD usually involves intrusive thoughts combined with compulsions, mental rituals, checking, reassurance seeking, or repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing uncertainty or preventing something bad from happening. Anxiety disorders more commonly involves chronic worry, tension, overthinking, panic, or fear-based avoidance without the same obsession-compulsion cycle.
Yes. Depersonalization and derealization (DPDR) are common responses to intense anxiety, panic, chronic stress, or nervous system overwhelm. People may feel detached from themselves, emotionally numb, “foggy,” or as if the world around them feels unreal or distant. Although DPDR can feel frightening, it is usually associated with anxiety and heightened nervous system activation rather than psychosis.
Panic attacks can involve sudden surges of fear or physical alarm symptoms such as rapid heartbeat, chest tightness, dizziness, shortness of breath, nausea, shaking, numbness, or feeling like something catastrophic is about to happen. Many people worry they are losing control, “going crazy,” or having a medical emergency during a panic attack.
Often, yes. Avoidance can provide temporary relief, but over time it tends to reinforce the idea that certain situations, thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations are dangerous or intolerable. Many evidence-based anxiety treatments focus on gradually reducing avoidance and building tolerance for discomfort and uncertainty.
Research suggests that online therapy can still be effective for many anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and DPDR-related symptoms. Virtual therapy can also allow treatment to happen more directly within the environments and situations where anxiety tends to occur.
The timeline varies depending on the severity of symptoms, the degree of avoidance, the presence of panic or dissociation, and how long the anxiety patterns have been present. Many people begin noticing meaningful improvement within the first 8 to 12 sessions of consistent therapy, especially in areas like panic symptoms, avoidance, emotional awareness, and their relationship to anxious thoughts and physical sensations.
More chronic or long-standing anxiety patterns, particularly those involving severe avoidance, DPDR, perfectionism, or significant life restriction, often require longer-term work. The goal is not simply short-term symptom relief, but helping anxiety stop organizing so much of daily life over time.