ANXIETY
Getting Your Anxiety Under Control
Living with anxiety can be crippling. It can make doing daily activities such as grocery shopping, going to work, or dining out difficult to impossible. Anxiety symptoms include restlessness and a feeling of being on edge, uncontrollable feelings of worry, increased irritability, difficulty concentrating, and sleep difficulties, such as trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. While these feelings might be normal to experience on occasion, some people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) will experience them persistently and to the extreme. Psychologist Shannon Stepan works with New Yorkers who are experiencing signs of debilitating anxiety, helping them find peace of mind.
Is Anxiety Therapy Right for Me?
Having trouble sleeping? Afraid to leave the house? Having frequent panic or anxiety attacks? Always feeling like you’re in danger?
If this is how you’ve been living your life, it’s important to seek help. Therapy is a highly effective and long-lasting treatment to help you develop skills to manage your anxiety. Mental health professionals like psychologist Dr. Shannon Stepan can provide you with the necessary tools to manage your anxiety and get you back on the road to living a fulfilling and satisfying life.
Anxiety Therapy with Psychologist Shannon Stepan
Anxiety is the most common mental health disorder in the United States, causing both psychological and physical symptoms. Whether you are living with frequent bouts of anxiety, panic attacks, or phobias, working with an experienced therapist can help you gain control over your anxiety. Therapy offers the tools you need to manage your anxiety and take back your life.
What Are The Different Types of Anxiety?
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a chronic disorder involving excessive, long-lasting anxiety and worries about non-specific life events, objects, and situations. GAD is the most common anxiety disorder.
Panic disorders involve a brief or sudden attack of intense terror and apprehension. These attacks can lead to shaking, confusion, nausea, dizziness, and breathing difficulties. Panic disorders occur after frightening experiences or prolonged stress but may also occur without these triggers. In some cases, a person experiencing a panic attack may misinterpret it as a life-threatening illness.
Specific phobia (i.e. agoraphobia; social phobia; separation anxiety disorder; selective mutism) is an irrational fear and avoidance of a particular object or situation. Phobias relate to a specific cause, differentiating them from other anxiety disorders.
What Are The Symptoms Of Anxiety?
Anxiety causes both physical and psychological symptoms. Physical responses to anxiety include shortness of breath, dry mouth, nausea, dizziness, heart palpitations, and tense muscles. It can also cause cold, sweaty, numb, or tingly hands or feet.
Psychological responses to anxiety include panic, fear, uneasiness, inability to concentrate, intensely or obsessively avoiding feared objects and places, and being unable to stop thinking about a problem over and over again.
What Issues Does Anxiety Therapy Address?
Anxiety disorders differ considerably, so therapy is tailored to your specific symptoms and diagnosis. Overcoming an anxiety disorder takes time and commitment. Therapy involves facing your fears rather than avoiding them. Your therapist will address your anxiety utilizing the following techniques:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on helping people identify and change negative thinking and behavioral patterns that can activate or exacerbate their anxiety. CBT is a practical, problem-solving therapy involving practicing skills, language, and ways of thinking that help empower individuals to have an active role in their treatment.
Exposure Therapy involves the gradual and controlled exposure to situations that people find fearful. The aim is to assist people in developing healthy coping strategies that will help reduce their fear response.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) educates people on mindfulness and acceptance techniques to help them cope with negative thoughts, sensations, or feelings.
Put an End to Panic and Fear with Anxiety Therapy
Don’t lose another day of your life to fear and anxiety. Schedule a consultation with leading New York City anxiety therapist Dr. Shannon Stepan today.
