Anxiety Therapy in Westlake Village

Clients often arrive in therapy suffering from painful anxiety, but with no idea about its causes or origins. For these clients, all the unknown and complex feelings swirl together in an agitating mass of unsettled worry. They examine their daily lives in search of something that will help them make sense of the nagging, persistent sense of unease they feel. Sometimes it’s easy to identify the cause —financial stress, physical safety, germs. These are very real concerns for many people, but can also become the false container for negative, confusing and overwhelming feelings that get expressed as anxiety. I work with anxious clients to help them slow down and really connect with feelings and thoughts beyond and beneath simply “anxious”. Together we make sense of the role anxiety plays in their lives, and the purpose it serves in protecting them from feeling difficult and perhaps overwhelming emotions. These feelings tell us the story of their unique life experience. As this knot is untangled, permanent resolution of anxiety unfolds. This is a much different process than teaching anxiety-control techniques and tools, although these are certainly useful as supplements. My approach to treating anxiety uses the presenting symptom as a window into the often unknown and unarticulated inner world of the patient.