Online Anxiety Therapy for New Yorkers
Whether you experience severe fear about specific things, causing you to completely avoid certain settings, or your stress and worry are consistent across multiple areas of life, we can help.
Inside your brain, you possess an elaborate emotional guidance system.
When You Feel Fear
Every emotion you experience is a message from this system that contains valuable information about your surroundings or your own internal state. When the emotion is fear or anxiety, the message you are receiving is a warning that something potentially harmful exists, either in your immediate environment or in the future.
Your Body Reacts
To help you respond to this perceived threat, the anxiety response floods your brain with chemicals that increase your heart rate and breathing, preparing your body to escape or fight. The experience can range from mildly uncomfortable to severely distressing.
Both to the Outside World…
Anxiety is often triggered by something in the external world, such as having to perform in front of a group, getting laid off from a job, being near animals, or being in the dark, in a crowd or in an enclosed or high place.
And the World Within You.
Anxiety can also be triggered by something internal, like a traumatic memory, body discomfort or thoughts about financial stress. And occasionally, anxiety can seem to come out of the blue with no clearly identifiable trigger.
However, Anxiety is Natural.
Whether we like it or not, anxiety is a part of life for everyone. When the emotional guidance system is functioning well, the anxiety response promotes healthy living. Not only does it warn against harm, but mild anxiety can motivate you to meet a work deadline, perform well in school, or attend to important medical problems.
But, when the emotional guidance system is not working properly, the anxiety response can misfire, causing anxiety that is either too frequent or disproportionately high for the circumstances.
When anxiety begins to interfere with daily life, therapy can be very helpful.
When Anxiety Becomes a Problem
Anxiety is considered ‘disordered’ when it is severe enough that it interferes with your ability to function or enjoy life.
Life Impairment
Disordered anxiety can cause problems with your work performance, strain relationships and swallow up your leisure time with endless worry. Excitement and planning for the future can fade when you are consumed by the exhausting task of surviving each day’s battle with anxiety.
Fears and Phobias
Anxiety can also block you from things that add fulfillment and meaning to life. For example, if your heart pounds or your gut sinks at the thought of riding a train, you are probably less likely to visit friends or family across town. Or you might decide not to pursue your dream job because it involves public speaking or air travel.
Self-Isolation
Disordered anxiety can make you feel misunderstood in social settings. When encountering these feelings, people tend to pull back from friends and family, leading to increased isolation, which then contributes to an intense feeling of loneliness.
Feeling ‘On Edge’
Following a sexual assault or other act of violence or trauma, you may find yourself unable to enjoy hobbies or activities that once brought you joy. You may even find yourself unable to enjoy a quiet night at home. Unsure of what exactly is causing the worry, you only know that you have an intense sense of impending doom about something.
Feedback Loop
Anxiety disorders sometimes show up through a feedback loop of thoughts and emotions. For example, high anxiety at work can impair your ability to concentrate on tasks, leading you to produce a lower quality of work or miss a deadline. In turn, poor work performance might cause worry about getting reprimanded or fired, which feeds back into and amplifies the anxiety. These loops, where anxiety produces more and more of the same, can take many forms. Once feedback loops are entrenched, it is very difficult to break free.
When Left Unaddressed, the Cycle of Anxiety only Grows.
The Most Common Anxiety Disorders
If you find that your anxiety is keeping you from enjoying your life or carrying out routine activities, you may have one of the anxiety disorders below.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
If you worry without stopping, or you worry when there’s no urgent reason to feel anxious, you may have generalized anxiety disorder. This goes beyond the “normal” worrying of everyday life.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
OCD is characterized by consistent obsessions and compulsions, or behaviors that you must fulfill in order to feel “good.” These rituals provide relief in the short term but fail to address the anxiety lurking beneath.
Panic Disorder
Based on its name, panic disorder involves having panic attacks: moments of intense fear that appear unexpectedly, which add to the anxiety of “when will this happen again?”
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
After a traumatic event, you might find yourself not being able to control when bad memories of the event return. Common events that may trigger PTSD include military combat, accidents, or personal assaults.
Social Phobia
Also called social anxiety disorder, social phobia makes a person extremely uncomfortable in certain social settings (like dates or conversations) and renders some aspects of daily life impossible.
Do I Have an Anxiety Problem?
Many signs and symptoms of anxiety disorders can mimic the symptoms of other problems. Only a trained mental health professional can make an accurate diagnosis of anxiety disorders.
Cognitive Symptoms
Excessive worry (about finances, relationships, social pressures, etc.)
Racing thoughts or difficulty ‘quieting the mind’
A sense of impending doom
Difficulty concentrating
Hypervigilance or a state of ‘high alert’
Severe self-consciousness or perfectionism
Compulsive behaviors (things you ‘have to do’ to feel better)
‘Irrational’ or disproportionate fears (about social settings, being in a crowded or high place, taking the train or elevator, specific animals, etc.)
Panic attacks
Avoidance of possible triggers
Physical Symptoms
Sudden body changes (such as racing pulse, hyperventilation, sweating, trembling, tingling or numbness in the limbs, gut discomfort, dry mouth, etc.)
Restlessness (with effects like darting eye movement, restless legs, fidgeting)
Frequently feeling tense or on edge
Muscle tension
Fatigue
Insomnia
Irritability
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety
As its name suggests, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy aims to examine how your thoughts and your behaviors cause anxiety. Our thoughts and the way we see the world are actually the biggest influences on how we feel, not external pressures or events.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy aims to restructure our thought process in order to help us get out of a vicious circle of anxiety.
Identify Distorted Thoughts
In order to understand your thought process, it’s important to go through a specific scenario and identify any negative thoughts that arise from the given situation.
What It Sounds Like
Example Situation: “I don’t want to do this work presentation because everyone will laugh and think I’m bad at my job.”
Challenge Negative Thoughts
Once we have identified a negative thought, we can evaluate its veracity. Where do these negative thoughts come from?
What It Sounds Like
“When I think back, no one has ever laughed during a presentation of mine, and my boss actually praises me often.”
Replace Negative Thoughts
Finally, the goal is to arrive at a much more manageable place with your negative thoughts and replace them with realistic thoughts.
What It Sounds Like
“Presenting in front of people can be intimidating, but I know my colleagues will see how much work I put into this.”
Disordered anxiety can take a toll across multiple areas of life. Whether you experience severe fear about very specific situations, or you have a general sense of worry and stress that carries through most of your daily life, therapy can make a major difference.