Therapy for Anxiety in Westchester, NY
Offering in-person and virtual therapy for individuals, families, and couples.
Anxious thoughts can influence every area of your life in negative and unhelpful ways- taking a toll on relationships with others, functioning at home or in the workplace, how you view yourself, and your ability to reach your personal and professional goals.
It is amazing how much our thoughts can affect our lives; specifically, how much our thoughts may steer or intensify our mood in negative directions.
These thoughts can be so intense at times that they paralyze us and dictate the choices we make in our lives.
How often have you thought of leaving that job you are so unhappy with but worry about making the wrong decision? Or about ending an unhealthy relationship but fear you won’t find someone better?
What if I told you that you don’t have to remain in this crippled emotional state?
While we can’t predict the future, we can learn to pay attention on purpose to how we are feeling, and identify and listen to the current facts to help us make a change/decision and embrace the lessons we learn from the failures and mistakes we all make in life.
Evidence-Based Anxiety Treatment
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Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)
CBT is based on the theory that people’s thinking influences their emotions and behavior. By creating an awareness of where these thoughts/beliefs derive from, evaluating their accuracy using a variety of effective therapeutic tools, and employing skills to change dysfunctional or unhelpful thinking, you will start to feel lasting changes in your mood, behavior, and life.
It may sound like a lot of work, but CBT is similar to an exercise routine for your brain– hard at first, but with repetition and practice you gain muscle memory.
When you start a new exercise routine, your muscles may start to ache more at first, you may have second thoughts of “is this worth it?”, you may not see results as quickly as you wish. However, if you continue to persevere, and make incremental changes, you will start to see and feel a real difference in your body…and mind; that change will motivate you to keep going until it becomes a habit. And habits are not easy to break!
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Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT teaches how to be in control of your attention- specifically, what you pay attention to in the moment and for how long you pay attention to it.
Anxiety is typically a response to looking into the future. What-if statements and thinking we can predict the future cause and/or exacerbate our anxiety. When we are mindful of the moment we are in, most of us can say we are under no actual threat to our safety or our well-being.
Through the practice of mindfulness, one of the core modules in DBT, we learn how to condition our mind to staying in the moment and experience reality as it is (not what our anxious mind perceives it to be), which in turn increases our ability to regulate our emotion , decrease our anxiety and increase our sense of well-being.
In addition to Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation skills, another module in DBT, will allow you to feel more in control of your emotions rather than feeling like you are ruled by your emotions. Many of us struggle with controlling our emotions due to factors such as biology, lack of emotion regulation skills, moodiness and/or emotional overload…not to mention the stressors in today’s world! Learning how to observe your emotions without acting on them, changing parts of a situation (like your reaction to it), and participating in activities that mitigate anxiety rather than intensify it, can all help to make you feel more in control of your emotional responses and your life.