Anxiety
Anxiety is a natural and often helpful response to perceived threats or stressors. It's your body's way of alerting you to potential danger and preparing you to respond. However, sometimes anxiety can become overwhelming or disproportionate to the actual threat, leading to feelings of worry, fear, or unease that persist even when there is no immediate danger.
Anxiety can manifest in physical symptoms such as a racing heart, sweating, trembling, or feeling tense. It can also affect your thoughts, leading to excessive worry, difficulty concentrating, or expecting the worst to happen.
In therapy, we'll work together to identify and challenge negative thought patterns and develop coping strategies to manage anxiety. I will also teach you mindfulness skills to decrease the physiological distress you are experiencing.
Common Anxiety Disorders Include:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): Characterized by persistent and excessive worry about a variety of things, such as work, health, or family, that is difficult to control.
Panic Disorder: Characterized by recurring panic attacks, which are sudden feelings of intense fear or discomfort that peak within minutes.
Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia): Involves an intense fear of social situations and scrutiny by others, leading to avoidance of social interactions.
Specific Phobias: Involves an intense fear of a specific object or situation, such as heights, spiders, or flying, leading to avoidance behavior.
OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, is a mental health condition where a person has recurring, unwanted thoughts, ideas, or sensations (obsessions) that drive them to do something repetitively (compulsions). These obsessions and compulsions can interfere with daily activities and cause significant distress.
Obsessions are intrusive and often irrational thoughts, urges, or images that repeatedly occur. Compulsions are repetitive behaviors or mental acts that a person feels driven to perform in response to an obsession or according to rigid rules. The aim of these compulsions is to prevent or reduce distress or prevent a dreaded event or situation.
Exposure and Response Prevention therapy (ERP)
ERP is the ‘Gold Standard’ and highly effective in the treatment of OCD.
Here's how ERP works:
Exposure: The "exposure" part of ERP involves intentionally exposing yourself to the thoughts, images, objects, and situations that trigger your obsessions. This exposure is gradual and systematic, starting with situations that cause mild anxiety and gradually progressing to more anxiety-provoking situations.
Response Prevention: The "response prevention" part of ERP involves not engaging in the compulsive behaviors (or rituals) that you would typically perform to reduce your anxiety or prevent a feared outcome. This means resisting the urge to engage in the compulsions, even though it may be uncomfortable or anxiety-provoking.
By repeatedly exposing yourself to the triggers of your OCD and resisting the urge to perform compulsions, you can learn that these triggers are not as threatening as they seem, and your anxiety will decrease over time. This process is known as habituation, and it helps to retrain your brain's response to these triggers.
I will work with you to develop a hierarchy of feared situations or triggers, starting with the least anxiety-provoking and working up to the most anxiety-provoking. I will then guide you through the exposure exercises, providing support and guidance along the way. It can be challenging, but many people find it to be extremely effective in managing their symptoms and improving their quality of life.
If you think you have OCD, you can complete the YBOCS Symptom Checklist below. This will help you gain insight into your symptoms and if OCD may be something you are struggling with.