Anxiety
Are you struggling with anxiety, worry or stress?
anxiety
How Anxiety Can Feel
Importantly, anxiety is an emotion and is not a problem in and of itself. The points below refer to anxiety when it is a problem. That is, when you experience fear in the absence of something to be afraid of. For example:
- Having uncontrollable worries about daily life issues represents an excess of anxiety
- An anxiety disorder can include having fears of your emotions themselves or of losing control of your emotions
- Experiencing anxiety about becoming ill that interferes with your quality of life
- A preoccupation with fears of losing a loved one, which can represent excessive anxiety
- Frequent worries of being embarrassed or humiliated, evaluated harshly, punished, abandoned, or rejected are linked to OCD and social anxiety
- Chronic feelings of inadequacy & failing, self-criticism or perfectionistic tendencies and fears of making mistakes or disappointing others can lead to intense feelings of anxiety and can also be linked to OCD and social anxiety
- Pervasive anxiety can lead to physical tension, restlessness, or difficulties relaxing and staying calm
- If you experience anxiety described above, you likely also endorse feeling overwhelmed or burnt out
How We Address Anxiety
- Provide you with a compassionate therapeutic relationship so that you can explore distressing thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and relationship patterns associated with your anxiety and stress
- Help you to understand and change the emotional, behavioural, cognitive, and relationship factors that might contribute to and maintain heightened anxiety
- Collaboratively set your treatment goals with you to ensure treatment is relevant to your concerns and needs
- Help you to develop healthy coping strategies to deal with anxiety and stress
- Challenge the beliefs about yourself, other people, and the world that maintain the anxiety cycle
- Help you to build a greater sense of confidence and competency by challenging you to experience the emotions that cause discomfort
- Help you to understand and change your response to anxious thoughts, sensations, and emotional reactions, and alter behavioural patterns related to obsessions and compulsions
- Access and explore emotions and needs associated with anxiety and stress
- Provide psychoeducation to help you develop skills to feel more resilient and secure self (self-soothing skills, emotion regulation skills, distress tolerance skills and mindfulness skills)
Ready to Start?
Frequently Asked Questions about anxiety
Please reach us at info@bridgetobetter.ca if you cannot find an answer to your question.
Yes. Anecdotally, we feel this is true based on the clients we see -but we still fact check. According to the World Health Organization, there has been a 25% increase in anxiety and depression in the wake of the pandemic. That's why we created this page.
Firstly, anxiety is perfectly normal. As mentioned above, it is simply an emotion. In fact, we need it to survive. The fight-or-flight response that anxiety produces provides our body with the adrenaline we need to deal with threatening situations.
Well, that is up to you. The anxiety response can become maladaptive when it interferes with your daily life. This occurs when you find yourself "on alert" more than you would like to be, when you feel anxious in the absence of actual threats, or when you often find yourself to be overwhelmed.
Anxiety can manifest in many different ways. Social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and specific phobias are just a few.
Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based treatment for the behaviours associated with anxiety, so we incorporate this. However, we believe that having a full understanding of the development of your anxiety should form the basis of your treatment plan. Accordingly, we gently explore your experience and avoidance of the emotions associated with your anxiety. This incorporation of emotions and specifically your awareness of them represents a Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) approach.
Want More Info?
Bridge to Better Psychotherapy
2425 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario M6S 4W4, Canada
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Want a Fresh Start for Summer?
Chelsey Goorbachan, RP(Q) is now offering sessions on a sliding scale for new clients. Pay as low as $100/session for your first 6 sessions