What to Expect from Anxiety Therapy in Oakland
Understanding Anxiety: A Common Struggle in Oakland
As an anxiety therapist in Oakland I have found that so many people tried to manage their anxiety by suppressing emotions, ignoring physical symptoms, or overextending themselves to mask their discomfort. For many, anxiety can feel like a constant companion—so present in your day to day life that it becomes your “normal”. In fact, friends and family may recognize your anxiety as a problem long before you do. This is likely because anxiety can be easily picked up from those around us and it can make us feel uneasy. If you relate to this, know that you're not alone. Anxiety is the most common mental health condition. Anxiety rates have surged since the COVID-19 pandemic across many different groups of people and continue to rise.
Exploring the Sources of Anxiety: The Role of Anxiety Therapy in Oakland
So how’d you get to be such close friends with anxiety? Anxiety can stem from a variety of sources, and understanding these can be crucial in therapy. Key contributors include:
Environmental Stressors: Media saturation, political unrest, climate change, and societal pressures, systemic oppression and inequity can all heighten anxiety levels.
Personal Circumstances: Work-related stress, financial worries, and identity-based discrimination and traumatic experiences are significant triggers that affect mental well-being.
Health Factors: Both physical and mental health conditions, as well as medications or substance use can contribute to feelings of anxiety.
Biological and Genetic Influences: Your unique biology and genetics play a role in how you experience anxiety.
Psychological Aspects: Personality traits, neurodiversity, negative thought patterns, and adverse childhood experiences.
Social Connections: Lack of social support and community and being from an individualist culture can intensify feelings of isolation and anxiety.
As a therapist, I will work with you to find tools for managing anxiety more effectively. In addition to understanding the broader context of what might be contributing to feeling anxious, reflecting on early childhood experiences and past events can offer deeper clarity into your current struggles.
Why Childhood Experiences Matter in Anxiety Therapy in Oakland
Toxic Stress in Children
Many of my clients with anxiety talk about their past. Early childhood experiences are crucial for mental health, shaping how children develop and influencing their well-being into adulthood. During these formative years, neural pathways are established, forming the foundation for how individuals interact with the world throughout their lives. Adversity in childhood can significantly disrupt this neurobiological development, making it difficult for children to regulate their emotions. Anxious children may have cognitive issues (hard to think, remember, concentrate, etc.) as well as behavioral challenges. As a result, they may experience heightened anxiety and struggle with emotional regulation well into adulthood. This ongoing difficulty can affect their ability to manage stress, form healthy relationships, and solve problems and potentially lead to the development of mental health conditions such as depression.
Cognitive Restructuring: Changing Your Thoughts in Anxiety Therapy Oakland
We have nearly 70,000 thoughts every day and the majority of them are negative and that’s where anxiety can come in. We may not even be aware of them, and furthermore, when we do have positive thoughts, they are less likely to stick with us. A therapeutic technique called cognitive restructuring can be effective at reducing negative thought patterns that fuel anxiety. To begin, we’ll try to identify unhelpful thoughts or negative beliefs like something VERY bad is going to happen to that you aren’t good enough. When we recognize negative self-talk or other ways of thinking that make you feel worse about a situation, we can challenge them and then replace them work more neutral, balanced or positive thinking. Close examination of your thought patterns and testing them for accuracy can help you see situations in a more balanced light. Having clarity around how your thinking process is contributing to your feeling negatively or behaviors you’d like to change reduces the overall intensity and power of your negative emotions. This process helps you see situations more clearly and reduces the power of negative emotions. Cognitive restructuring enables you to think differently, and even more positively about your experiences. You can directly address anxious thoughts by thinking about your anxious thoughts in a different way, and ultimately make room to feel more positive feelings in your life.
Identifying Your Triggers: How Anxiety Therapy in Oakland Supports You
When I offer anxiety therapy I focus on identifying your personal triggers and patterns related to anxiety. Together, we’ll explore the specific situations, thoughts, or feelings that tend to provoke your anxiety, so you gain a better understanding of what sets it off.
Some common types of triggers:
Stressful Situations: Public speaking, work deadlines, workplace issues, unexpected or expected life transitions can intensify anxiety.
Social Interactions: Meeting new people, social gatherings, being in large or unfamiliar groups, etc. can make you feel uneasy or self-conscious and trigger your anxiety.
Negative Thoughts: Negative thought patterns to overemphasize danger, threat, catastrophe or things just not working out can make you feel powerless, afraid or self-doubt, all contributing to a state of heightened anxiety.
Past Experiences: Reflecting on past traumas or stressful events can transport you back to those moments, both mentally and physically, allowing you to re-experience the emotions and sensations associated with those experiences. While these feelings can be intense, it’s crucial to communicate with your therapist if it starts to feel like you are reliving the trauma. Sharing this information helps ensure that you feel safe and supported during the therapeutic process.
Environmental Factors: Our brain stores memories through our senses and in our bodies. Specific smells, sounds, places or things we see may trigger anxiety based on past associations.
Health Concerns: Worries about your own health or well-being or the health and well-being of others can also trigger anxiety
Psychodynamic Therapy in Oakland: A Unique Approach
In contrast to other effective forms of anxiety therapy, I offer psychodynamic psychotherapy which offers a unique approach that helps you understand how your earliest experiences have shaped your emotional self. The insight you develop can help you address unresolved issues from your past and can be a catalyst for healing. As an anxiety therapist in Oakland, I will guide you in exploring the potential causes of your anxiety, focusing on the interplay between your past experiences and your unconscious mind.
While you may be aware of certain life events that contribute to your anxiety, much of our mental processing is unconscious, or occurs beneath the surface and outside of our conscious awareness. The psychodynamic therapeutic process aims to bring these hidden thoughts, beliefs, memories, and emotions into your awareness.
As emotional beings, many of our daily decisions and actions are influenced by our unconscious mind. A significant portion of our distressing thoughts and fears often arises from hidden memories, desires, and emotions that we are not aware of and may not fully understand. Psychodynamic psychotherapy aims to uncover these layers by exploring your past experiences, especially those from childhood. By bringing these underlying causes to light, I can help you gain insight into the roots of your anxiety, fostering deeper understanding and facilitating healing.
Your Therapeutic Journey: Feeling Accompanied and Supported in Oakland
If this feels like uncharted territory, that’s completely normal! I encourage you to seek a culturally competent therapist. It’s important to me that you feel safe and supported throughout the therapy process. One way that I can do this is by working to understand your anxiety and what you are needing from therapy. From the very beginning, we will collaborate to create your goals and make progress on the the issues that brought you to therapy.
I've noticed that people frequently feel isolated in their pain, as if others cannot or do not understand what they're experiencing. This fear of being misunderstood, or feeling that their struggles are unique, can prevent them from reaching out for help. While there is no one else just like you, all of us experience anxiety.
Effective Strategies for Managing Anxiety in Oakland Therapy
Together, we'll conduct an inventory to identify the various aspects of your life that support your mental health, as well as areas that may need attention. Through the mind-body connection, we recognize that our emotional states and physical health are closely intertwined. Healthy relationships and a connection to your spiritual self are vital for overall well-being. Nurturing your physical body can lead to significant and immediate improvements in your mental health. While making certain lifestyle changes may be challenging, caring for your physical health is essential for reducing anxiety and enhancing your mood and resilience. In our therapy sessions, we can pinpoint manageable areas to focus on that will help alleviate your anxiety and feel achievable.
Sleep - Meeting your sleep needs is not only super important for brain function and your overall physical health, but good quality and enough sleep are necessary for emotion-regulation. If you wake up feeling anxious, it may have to do with how well you are sleeping. Making other lifestyle changes will also significantly improve your sleep quality.
Nutrition - A healthy diet that offers your brain all of the nutrients it needs is important for brain function and anxiety. Prioritizing eating a more balanced diet and reducing how much highly processed food you consume can have a positive effect on both your physical health and anxiety.
Phsyical Activity - Regular movement and staying active is another way to tackle anxiety. Physical exercise also burns up some of those stress hormones that keep us anxious.There’s lots of research that shows that regular physical activity is related to good mental health.
Stress Management - Do what you can to reduce stress when you can. This doesn’t have to involve a lot of time or effort. Simple coping techniques like grounding or breathing exercises can help reduce stress. Listening to music, spending time in nature, spiritual practices, or anything that helps you feel calmer or more relaxed can help settle your nervous system too.
Begin Your Healing Journey with Anxiety Therapy in Oakland
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by anxiety, you are not alone. It’s likely that anxiety therapy can provide you with the tools and support your need to understand your anxiety and make meaningful changes in your life. By identifying and working to understand your triggers and past experiences you can gain a clearer understanding of what sets off your anxiety and the ability to navigate your emotions more effectively. There’s hope that you can find relief, healing and more fulfillment in life.
As an anxiety therapist in Oakland, I’ll help you stop your anxiety from running you! Together we’ll get to the roots roots of your anxiety and so you find relief and healing. Contact me for a free 15-minute consultation to regain control over your emotions and free yourself from your anxiety.
Author Bio:
Lara Clayman is an anxiety therapist in Oakland who specializes in working with anxiety, counseling multiracial and second-generation adults and trauma.
Contact her for a free 15-minute consultation to find relief from the grip of anxiety and begin to feel like yourself again.
