Do you stay up at night worrying about that thing you said/did/didn’t do/remembered/forgot/found on WebMD's symptom checker? Do you worry about (or avoid) certain situations for fear of panic attacks/shortness of breath/stomach distress/intrusive thoughts of anticipated catastrophe? Do you have specific fears that paralyze you? You may have an anxiety disorder. Anxiety sucks, therapy can help! I specialize in helping you put anxiety in its rightful place. Every emotion needs a place at the table, but when anxiety is the loudest (or only) voice life becomes out of balance, and our choices no longer feel like conscious decisions.

My approach is based on balancing acceptance and change. I operate from a person-centered humanistic perspective. That means I offer a non-judgmental safe place to work on issues that don't always feel so safe, using warmth and humor to assist the process. I incorporate EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), mindfulness based therapy, self-compassion, attachment work, and CBT/DBT anxiety reduction strategies. Assuming you don't have an advanced degree in psychology let's break that down a little!

EMDR

Anxiety often has roots in trauma, which can cause the brain to interpret the world as universally unsafe. I use EMDR therapy in my practice to allow for processing of material and events your brain has categorized as traumatic. Sometimes my clients come in with identified and clear trauma. EMDR works exceptionally well with this. However, some clients come in without these clear traumas, but have a number of smaller events, or big events that they judge as not being worthy of the amount of emotional charge they hold. EMDR works well with these memories as well.

Mindfulness Based Therapy

When I initially talk to clients about mindfulness the big response I get is “I can’t meditate, I have too many thoughts”.  My response to this is, of course you do! A well-functioning brain is a thought machine.  From a therapy perspective the idea of mindfulness is not to be a champion meditator, or to rid your brain of thoughts, it is to be able to focus the brain on what you want to focus on more often. It’s not to never have that worry thought again, it’s not having to follow that thought into the usual anxiety spiral when it does come up. Mindfulness practice is like going to the gym, we can look at each thought that comes up during practice as a rep rather than as evidence that you’re “doing it wrong”. You wouldn’t expect to be able to run a marathon without training your body, but we expect ourselves to be able to stop anxious thought loops without training the brain, and get mad at ourselves when we fail!  Mindfulness practice is how we train the brain.

Self-Compassion (Compassion Focused Therapy)

Do you find that you are able to understand the mistakes of others with kindness, while your own missteps are met with vigorous self-criticism? Are you able to be there for others when they are in moments of pain, put meet yourself with a hardy “man/woman-up wussy”. Our self-criticism and self-judgment often feel productive, how else are you going to make yourself change?  But in reality when we can give ourselves the compassion we pass on so freely to others we can lower our own emotional reactivity, and then there is more space for change to occur.

Attachment Work

Connection is a human need, like food, oxygen, and wi-fi.  Unfortunately our ability to connect can be negatively effected by past stuff (traumas, difficult relationships, neglect, etc.), and connection becomes a source of anxiety. Difficulties with human connection are often a core part of therapeutic work. Sometimes this is explicit, as in talking about your attachment style and how that effects your relationships and mood, exploring past attachments, and gaining insight into how you developed your current patterns of attachment. Sometimes it’s going to be a more in the moment sort of a thing, as in exploring the human connection present in the room.  Moving towards more secure connections, and greater ability to trust is not an easy process, but it is possible, and the benefits are worth the pursuit!

CBT/DBT Anxiety Reduction Strategies

The work I have described above is how we reduce and manage anxiety in the long run, but how do we manage in the short run? My answer to this question is to incorporate coping strategies for anxiety found in Cognitive Behavioral and Dialectical Behavioral Therapies (CBT and DBT).  While I consider myself neither a CBT nor DBT therapist I do find a lot of the strategies for dealing with anxiety to be super useful in short-term and immediate management of distress.

 

I believe in this work, and have seen the healing that is possible when people find the right treatment. If the above treatment model speaks to you, and time has come for you to move toward change and create some balance I would love to help! You can email me at [email protected] to ask questions or set up an initial phone consultation. I look forward to working with you!

 

 

About Jenni

I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT License no. 98050) and I hold a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles. I am a training junkie, and my style evolves as I learn new things. My training includes: EMDR, Gottman Method, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Perinatal Mental Health. I am both trained in mindfulness as a therapeutic modality, and have an ongoing personal mindfulness practice. In my free time I enjoy being outside, watching scary movies and cartoons, and playing overly complicated board games.