Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Atherton, CA.

At times excessive worry and difficult situations in life can make just getting through the day feel challenging. Through gaining an understanding of your relationship to stress and the causes of anxiety, I can help you recover and begin to cope. I will provide you with a safe, compassionate and non-judgmental place to explore and practice skills to approach life in a way that reduces stress and anxiety. I use an integrated approach depending on what will best support your needs, using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and DBT, as well as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) practices to support you. We can work together to help you gain the calm, clarity and peace you are seeking.

We hold our anxiety and stress in our body. We feel tension, gut problems, hot flashes, disrupted sleep and more. I work with anxiety and stress by helping individuals learn and develop tools to re-regulate their nervous system. When we have a coherent and fluid nervous system, we can do difficult things without feeling paralyzed by overwhelming fear.

Anxiety and stress are like an evil and corrosive thread that work their way through every aspect of a life. It can rob the joy that can make life worth living. I know from both personal and professional experience how anxiety and stress can take the joy out of life and also how to overcome these issues and put them in your past. With the aid of tools like EMDR CBT and guided visualizations I can help you overcome this issue and heal from the issues that drive it. Additionally, I can provide tools, coping skills, and other resources to help you manage this particular issue, and experience increased relief from these symptoms with each session.

I prioritize creating a supportive and understanding environment where clients can openly explore their sources of anxiety and stress. By employing evidence-based techniques such as EDMR, ACT, IFS, Ketamine Therapy and relaxation exercises, I help clients identify and challenge maladaptive thought patterns while developing practical coping strategies. My approach is tailored to each individual's unique experiences and stressors, ensuring that interventions are relevant and effective. Through collaborative goal-setting and skill-building, clients learn to manage their anxiety and stress more effectively.

Many persons seek the support of psychotherapy or counseling at some point in their lives. Some come for relief from troubling anxiety, stress or depression, while others come to understand reoccurring anger or conflicts with loved ones, or the lingering influences of childhood experiences that still impact their lives. Others come with fears of expressing themselves authentically or trusting others, desperate to liberate themselves from the constraints impeding their lives, but unsure if such freedom is even possible. If you are struggling with anxiety and stress, psychotherapy can help. To learn how, please consider calling me for an introductory conversation at 415-533-9724.

Anxiety is an internal alarm system that gives us information about our internal state as well as possible danger in the external world. Often, anxiety is a signal of deeper, more intense emotions such as sadness, anger, and fear. It can also be a consequence of not living authentically. Once these deeper feelings are identified and expressed, they can be readily released. For example, when we say "Yes" when we really mean "No," we will often experience anxiety. In this case, the anxiety is providing us with a warning that we are not being honest (living authentically) with ourself and/or another. Therapy is the perfect place to explore this common emotion.

Everyone experiences anxiety at some point, but for some the anxiety is so frequent or intense that it interferes with their lives or even triggers panic attacks. I use Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to help my clients get a sense of control over their own anxiety. We collaborate to learn skills to reduce the frequency or intensity of the anxious feelings, to tolerate the anxiety when it does occur so they can still function through it, and to practice habits that reduce stress and improve general mental health.