I help you learn coping strategies and
relief from your anxiety and live a
more empowered life.
Have you been a perfectionist for as long as you can remember? Do you constantly second-guess yourself and worry that others are judging you? At night, when you just want to go to sleep, does your brain have other ideas?
Whenever worrisome thoughts begin to surface, it can be hard to stop them. Soon, you can feel a pounding in your head as you ruminate over “What if” scenarios without ever finding a solution. Perhaps you’re crippled with self-doubt and question your own decisions, which causes you to lose sleep, impacts your focus at work, and leads to mental exhaustion.
As much as you may try to outrun these incessant worries, potential negative outcomes, and fears, they eventually catch up with you. What’s frustrating is that the more you focus on ridding yourself of this torment, the more it reinforces unwanted thoughts.
The voice inside your head may be your worst enemy, deriding everything you say and do. This voice may be a coach, a parent, or even your own. If you feel like you never quite measure up, your harsh inner critic may cause you to freeze around others. Rather than feeling confident, you might take on guilt unnecessarily and find yourself apologizing for everything.
You find yourself wishing for relief, for respite, and the ability to tap into a sense of calm. Therapy with Dr. Bradford Stucki, licensed marriage and family therapist, can teach you skills to manage your anxiety. Therapy can not only alleviate your most troublesome symptoms but also help you break away from people-pleasing behaviors, thereby improving low self-esteem or feelings of low self-worth.
Anxiety is one of the most common mental health challenges people face. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that “anxiety disorders are the world’s most common mental disorders, affecting 301 million people in 2019.” [1] In 2022, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) estimated that “nearly 40 million people in the United States—18 percent—experience an anxiety disorder in any given year.” [2] What’s more, women are 1.5 times more likely to experience an anxiety disorder than men. [3]
Those of us who suffer from anxiety can often feel bullied, isolated, rejected, and dismissed by the world. Whether this messaging was instilled by our cultural background, religious institution, early childhood experiences, or family dynamic, we have been made to feel that something is inherently wrong with us and that we don’t belong. No matter how hard we try to be perfect and fit in, we can’t escape the nagging sense that we are flawed and need to work harder than everyone else to keep up.
Today’s adults live in a fast-paced world where juggling all of the facets of daily life has become increasingly challenging. Because we are often conditioned to push past the pain and avoid our emotions, we are not equipped to handle the stressors we encounter. We may perceive vulnerability in sharing feelings as a weakness and, rather than acknowledge that we are struggling, opt to internalize these feelings. Left unexpressed and unchecked, our anxiety grows until even the most mundane tasks become overwhelming.
But life doesn’t have to be this way. Therapy can help you uncover the root causes of your anxiety, allowing you to flip the script and write a new story for yourself where self-doubt is replaced with self-compassion.
Anxiety in and of itself isn’t “bad”—it is a vital component of the human survival instinct. As an internal alarm system that detects potential threats, our species would have perished long ago without it. Therefore, the goal of therapy isn’t to eliminate anxiety completely. Rather, we aim to reduce its debilitating symptoms so that you feel more confident, calm, and comfortable in your own skin.
Therapy is a safe place to connect with your emotions openly and unapologetically. You will receive validation that it’s okay to have a human response to stressful situations and learn to grant yourself permission to react, feel, and express what’s happening inside without judgment. As part of treatment, we will trace your anxiety back to early childhood experiences and then take steps to shift your perspective about those memories.
Throughout therapy sessions, we will explore your relationship with anxiety—not only its origin, but also its ongoing impact on how you think and feel and the ways you’ve attempted to deal with it. Through psychoeducation, you will learn how the brain and body are affected by anxiety and begin to recognize your triggers. From there, I will teach you coping strategies to manage the symptoms that currently affect you and find relief. Afterwards, we address anxiety and its root causes.
The approach we take in anxiety counseling will depend on your specific needs, goals, and circumstances. Each evidence-based modality I utilize focuses on how emotions and thoughts are interconnected. Learning skills that incorporate mindfulness, self-compassion, and self-soothing will help you recognize healthier ways to relate to yourself.
I use evidence-based approaches to treat anxiety, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT), and narrative therapy. By utilizing thought recognition and self-check-ins, I will encourage you to focus on facts rather than going down rabbit holes that imagine worst-case scenarios, through using CBT. You may be invited to shift the words and language you use to describe your situation, which is a component of ACT.
EMDR is an evidence-based treatment that helps people with anxiety and using it can help you to reprocess disturbing memories that exacerbate anxiety, such as feelings of abandonment, neglect, or abuse. EMDR is a powerful modality that helps you to change your relationship with past memories, current events, or future experiences from negativity and internalization to objectiveness. Additionally, we will address your values and the story you want to believe about yourself. You will have opportunities to rewrite your story without fear and worry being prominent actors, through narrative therapy.
When you learn how to shift away from “black-and-white” thinking and begin to notice the gray areas, your thoughts become more flexible and less intrusive. With practice, you can acknowledge an anxious thought without actively engaging in it, both your body and mind. Rather than Anxiety being at the helm, you can be the captain of your ship. When you restore the belief that you are capable of handling whatever life sends your way, you can feel confident in your journey through life.
It’s common to worry that even after attending therapy, nothing will change. However, the fact that you are willing to consider getting help means that you are open to finding solutions. Successful anxiety treatment is contingent on building a trusting relationship with your counselor as well as identifying an approach that resonates with you. That’s why I will periodically check in with you to ensure that you are noticing improvements along the way. If something is not working for you, you can let me know and we will make adjustments.
Just like attending therapy to treat your anxiety, the decision of whether or not to take medication, is a personal one. While medication can help some people with anxiety, it’s less effective for others. Although medication isn’t a silver bullet, some people benefit from combining therapy with anti-anxiety medication. If you are curious about medication, I recommend you talk with your doctor to explore your options.
If you’ve been dealing with your symptoms for a long time, it’s understandable that you’re eager to experience relief sooner rather than later. In psychotherapy, you and I will explore how your symptoms developed, review the efforts you’ve made so far, and discuss strategies you can use to rewire your brain and alleviate anxiety. Actively and consistently practicing strategies outside of therapy can propel your progress and help you form new interactions that gradually eliminate anxiety-inducing thought patterns.
It’s never too late to find solutions. If you would like to find out more about anxiety counseling with Dr. Bradford Stucki, licensed marriage and family therapist, at BridgeHope Family Therapy, come visit my contact page to schedule a free 15-minute call.
[1] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/anxiety-disorders
[2] https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/facts-statistics
[3] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/generalized-anxiety-disorder
