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Therapy for Anxiety

Anxiety is one of the most common reasons people seek treatment, and luckily there are numerous therapies — including EMDR, IFS, CBT, DBT, and somatic therapy — that can help you learn to both manage symptoms and heal the root cause.

What is anxiety and how do I know if I have it?

Feeling occasionally stressed is a completely normal, healthy part of being human. We all face difficulties in life, and our stress response can actually help us in those situations. But when our stress becomes chronic or is disproportionate to the situation, it can start to resemble anxiety.

Anxiety is when our “fight-or-flight” response is overactive. You may find yourself ruminating over past experiences, thinking about worst-case-scenarios, or fixating on mistakes you think you made. Anxiety can make us feel guilty, irritable, distracted, ashamed, or panicked in situations that aren’t actually threatening.

You may be experiencing anxiety if you find yourself:

  • Feeling tense, on edge, or unable to fully relax

  • Overthinking conversations, decisions, or “what-ifs”

  • Struggling to slow your mind down, even when you’re tired

  • Feeling easily overwhelmed by everyday tasks or responsibilities

  • Noticing physical symptoms like tightness in your chest, jaw, or stomach

  • Having trouble sleeping or waking up already feeling anxious

  • People-pleasing, second-guessing yourself, or worrying about being a burden

  • Feeling like you’re always bracing for something to go wrong

How does therapy for anxiety work?

Addressing anxiety in therapy is two-fold: first, we want to make sure you have the tools, skills, and resources to manage symptoms. Skill-based therapies like CBT and DBT can be great for this because they teach clients important coping and distress tolerance skills to make life feel more manageable.

Second, we want to address the root cause of your anxiety so that those coping and distress tolerance skills are needed less and less. Ultimately the goal isn’t just to know how to deal with anxiety, it’s to feel less anxious in the first place. That’s where the deeper work comes in — we want to understand the experiences, relationships, and negative core beliefs that are driving your anxiety so that we can process and heal them.

What types of anxiety can therapy help with?

Getting started

We invite you to book a free, 15-minute intro call to learn more about therapy at Flatiron Wellness. We’ll use this time to review your reasons for seeking therapy and discuss what working together could look like.