Stress, PTSD and Anxiety Therapists in Ballenger Creek, MD.

Stress and anxiety have always existed. Our brains encode fear easily as a way to protect us from danger. A small amount of angst can help us feel motivated, but when it grows, it can stop us in our tracks. With the rise of technology, many people feel submersed in stress. Constant emails make us feel like work never ends. We text at meals times instead of having real conversations. Consider the stressful impact of 24/7 access to negative news reports, traffic filled commutes, over-schedulled lives, and its easy to see a recipe for anxiety. Learning to be mindful, taking breaks and truly connecting emotionally can create confidence to face fears and even dissolve them.

In the fast-paced Northern Virginia area, high levels of stress and anxiety are common. I create an understanding, compassionate therapeutic environment. My approach is to address both anxious thinking and the body’s stress response. You will learn practical skills to help adjust the thought patterns that support anxiety. Because anxiety is also physical I use relaxation and mindfulness techniques to achieve a calmer, more focused state by slowing down racing thoughts. With these skills, we examine all areas of life, including any outside factors that contribute to stress. I never take a “one-size-fits-all” approach to my work. Therapy is a collaborative process, the best results coming from honoring the uniqueness of each person.

Are you having stress thinking about going back to work or going to work each day? As your life coach I can help you get a life plan to help decrease your stress. Together we navigate the path to realizing your ideal life vision. During the coaching process, we work to identify your core values, enhance your strengths, and to ensure that we find a life plan.

To help you manage your stress and anxiety symptoms, we start with understanding the nature and patterns of your symptoms in relation to environmental triggers, traumatic life events, and unhelpful thinking patterns that influence your daily perspective. Using a collaborative alliance, we will look for better ways to manage both your external stressors and internal reactions. A cognitive-behavioral approach offers practical methods to understand how thought patterns influence emotional reactions and behaviors. By redirecting and re-framing your thoughts with alternative thoughts, you can experience a reduction in unpleasant emotions and an increase in personal effectiveness.

Ashburn Psychological Services has psychologists and psychiatrists available to diagnose and treat anxiety conditions, which include: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, OCD, Phobias, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Separation Anxiety and Childhood Anxiety Disorders. Typically, cognitive-behavior therapy is a successful therapy approach for anxiety. However, at times, medication may also be needed to reduce symptoms and to bring about positive outcomes. Ashburn Psychological Services is here to help.

There are at least four components to reducing anxiety. The first is to learn self-soothing techniques. the second is to become aware of the thoughts and images which are making you anxious and to deliberately choose other thoughts and images. The third is to discover and face what you are most afraid of. Sometimes, when there has been trauma, this fear is something that has already happened and from which you have not recovered. Often it is something out of your control, a fact of life, like death! We need to make peace with these, accept their reality and make the best of what we have. I have some excellent tools from hypnosis and a field of study called NLP to speed your progress.

While most treatment approaches for anxiety and stress are effective on the surface, they don’t treat the real problem. Mantras, deep breathing, and rational dialogues about your fear being irrational rarely work---for most people don’t believe it or you! Imagine if you can trick the brain into changing without you telling your conscious mind that you are changing it? Problem with anxiety and stress is that the brain in this state knows you want to change it and it resists. Contact Kevin@kevinfleminphd.com for the ultimate stress and anxiety solution that will literally change your brain's autonomic nervous system patterns while you sit on your butt. 877-606-6161.