Anxiety, one of the most prevalent and challenging symptoms, serves as a signal urging the individual to initiate efforts to escape despair (EED). While many are familiar with occasional anxious feelings, for some, anxiety escalates to a conviction of facing a life-threatening event requiring immediate emergency attention.
The Nature of Anxiety
Psychiatric Contributions and Medications
Psychiatry has significantly contributed to anxiety treatment, with medications like Valium, Ativan, and Klonopin providing relief. While clearly effective they can be compared to aspirin a fever which while helpfully working on the symptom does not address the underlying illness.
Early Warning Signals in Life
Anxiety emerges as one of the earliest emotional warning signals in life. Individuals who experienced extreme neglect in early life may interpret bodily distress as a physical attack, with anxiety signaling a need to fight for survival. This can manifest as psychosomatic symptoms, representing the body’s primitive effort to endure.
Uncovering Real Causes in Analytic Treatment
Significant anxiety often suggests the individual feels pressured by unconscious aggression or repressed sexuality, or a combination of both. In the course of analytic treatment, revealing and addressing these real causes can have a profound and often curative effect on the symptoms, allowing the patient to accept previously repudiated feelings as part of themselves.
Triggers and Varieties of Anxiety
Various situations trigger anxiety, ranging from specific fears like agoraphobia and acrophobia to more generalized feelings of dread. Frustratingly, individuals often struggle to understand the root cause of their symptoms, leading to a mounting sense of helplessness.
Empowering Transformation Through Personalized Psychotherapy
Discover the transformative power of personalized psychotherapy designed to meet your emotional needs. Unlike a one-trick magician, I specialize in adapting effective methods to address various conditions. However, this process relies on your active participation and commitment. Our sessions, held at least twice a week, foster a close connection crucial for your healing journey. There’s no distant advice here—just compassionate, personalized support.
If you’re ready to explore, I introduce a shared vocabulary that spans different conditions: BTE (Basic Trust Erosion), EED (Efforts to Escape Despair), and FAT (Failure at Loving). With over thirty years of experience in dynamic psychotherapy, I guide patients towards their own personal ‘tricks’—RAR (Repair and Renewal), ANP (Allowing New Possibilities), FOT (Forgiving over time). Instead of giving advice, I create a space where you can freely express yourself, fostering acceptance and joy in embracing all feelings, enabling healing from hidden emotional barriers
Compulsive Rituals and Control
The sense of helplessness can drive individuals to develop compulsive rituals, offering a semblance of relief and control. These rituals may involve safety concerns such as repeatedly checking locks or an obsession with cleanliness, reflecting the psychoanalytic perspective of preventing aggressive or destructive ideas and addressing forbidden sexual desires.
Book an Appointment
To begin treatment is not a simple matter but it takes a first step. I encourage you to call me so that we can meet and you can decide first-hand if our work is right for you. We can’t succeed without your participation so I need you to freely decide this is what you want.
Insurance Questions?
I recognize treatment can be financially burdensome. I will work with you and any commercial insurance plan you may have to obtain reimbursement and cover therapy costs. I am not on any insurance panel, however I do offer a sliding scale to be individually determined.