What is Anxiety?
Discover the path to better coping and resilience when you need it most
Understanding anxiety: what sets it apart
Anxiety is a normal part of life, everyone feels occasional worry or stress about life situations. When these worries become so intense or frequent that they interfere with your life or become difficult to control, you need help to manage this anxiety. Our experienced therapists have a deep understanding of anxiety: how you use avoidance to self-medicate, your anxiety can be highly situational or how anxiety is like an iceberg (you only share a fraction of all the anxious thoughts you actually have). We collaborate with you to explore the underlying causes and triggers, empowering you to develop effective coping mechanisms.
Common anxiety symptoms
Difficulty controlling thoughts or worry
Excessive worry or nervousness
Trouble concentrating
Trouble sleeping
Avoidance of triggers
Restlessness
Breathing rapidly
Fatigue
Short-term goals: identify triggers and reduce impact
In therapy for anxiety, our short-term goals focus on helping you feel immediate relief from symptoms. We work closely with you to identify triggers and develop personalized strategies to manage anxiety in real-life situations. Using evidence-based techniques and practical tools, we teach you how to navigate through challenging moments, reducing the impact of anxiety on your daily life.
Long-term goals: resilience, practice skills, create healthy patterns
While immediate relief is crucial, we aim to help you achieve long-term well-being. We equip you with skills that create a foundation for lasting change. Depending on the treatment approach, we change the way you experience anxiety by challenging the irrational beliefs that perpetuate your anxiety, tracing the root of the anxiety to your attachment patterns or healing the trauma that intensifies your anxiety. Regardless of the approach used, we help you build resilience, practice coping skills and create patterns of thought that lead you to thrive despite the anxious thoughts that flood your mind.
Anxiety therapy: Tailored to your unique, specific needs based on your identity
Adults in 20s/30s
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Anxiety shows up in dating, school, work and then there’s the existential part about establishing who you are as a person. A therapist helps you discover your values, navigate the transition to new responsibilities, gain self-awareness, develop coping strategies for managing the stress and anxiety
High Achievers
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Anxiety shows up at work but also creates more pressure in the aspects of life that don’t get enough attention: family, friends, dating or health. A therapist helps you overcome burnout, learn skills to manage anxiety, create a schedule to prevent stress that makes it difficult to control your anxiety and holds you accountable to maintain a healthy work-life balance
Women
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Anxiety can be present in work and expectations related to body image, dating, relationships, marriage, having children or parenting. A therapist helps you process your thoughts openly without judgment, set boundaries and limits, redefine expectations for yourself around your own beliefs and core values and develop communication skills like assertiveness
South Asian
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Anxiety shows up with internalized pressure from your community, feeling shame for making decisions that go against the grain or feeling guilt for not adopting certain values and traditions. A therapist helps you process the feelings that perpetuate the internalized pressure, redefine expectations for yourself around your own beliefs and live according to your core values without common feelings like guilt and self-judgment
Anxiety therapy: Several treatment methods to choose from based on your needs and our training/experience
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Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)
Anxiety is rooted in distorted thoughts that make you worry more than you need in response to a trigger. Your therapist helps you understand the root cause of your spiraling thoughts, recognize the problematic patterns in your thoughts and use logic to challenge automatic thoughts & assumptions so you can establish healthier patterns
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Attachment/ Psychodynamic Therapy
The first anxiety you feel is the worry you experience as a child when your parents are scrambling to meet your needs. Your therapist helps you realize the patterns present in your current relationships, trace the source of these patterns back to past relationships & traumas and heal these relational wounds and establish new patterns to align with your values
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Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT)
The overwhelming anxiety we experience in response to triggers requires self-regulation and building an increased tolerance for these situations. Your therapist helps you practice mindfulness and emotional regulation skills to help calm your nerves in these situations while also practicing setting boundaries and limits to help you tolerate the discomfort
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Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
An anxiety disorder is a disorder of thoughts, which means sometimes thinking too much about the problem or the past is the problem itself. Your therapist helps you stop overthinking / overanalyzing, practice embracing the discomfort caused by your thoughts, establish your core values and hold you accountable to daily / weekly goals that serve you
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Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Feelings of anxiety rarely come alone; usually we have parts of ourselves that are more reasonable but become muted when anxiety takes over. Your therapist helps you achieve balance between these parts of yourself by creating limits and boundaries, which allows you to control your thoughts and feelings effectively instead of letting them control you
Anxiety therapy: Made efficient, convenient and effective with Align
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Highly trained
A highly trained therapist will be more effective in properly assessing for anxiety, normalizing thoughts of anxiety that are common, identifying thought patterns that cause anxiety for you in different situations and making the correct treatment recommendations. Having the proper tools and techniques to work with anxiety prevents wasted time and helps you find solutions that work
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Diversity
A therapist who appreciates your cultural similarities and differences is more likely to ask the essential questions that help them understand how your anxiety looks different from the average person. For Align, culture is more than just ethnicity; we also consider age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, financial situation and any other aspect that affects the way you feel and react to your anxiety
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Relatability
Anxious thoughts are like an iceberg; we only see a fraction of them on the surface. Anxious thoughts also create a feedback loop where the more intense or frequent the thought, the less comfortable we feel sharing it with anyone else. A relatable therapist provides you with the comfort and security to truly open up and let someone help you heal. A relatable therapist, more than anything, enables you to feel validated without being judged
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Online
Anxiety almost always involves avoidance. Online therapy for anxiety provides you with the ultimate flexibility and convenience by removing as many barriers as possible. You can see a therapist in a private, secure session by using your phone or computer in any space you are comfortable. You are also able to practice the self-regulation and coping skills where you need them, such as at work or in a social place the coping skills you practiced in a neutral setting often seem much more difficult to implement
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Availability
Therapy for anxiety needs to be scheduled around your availability, and it helps to schedule sessions around specific situations, such as between work meetings, before difficult conversations or confronting triggering situations. To get the help when you need it most, It helps significantly when therapists are flexible on timing and offer days/times that are convenient for you
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Flexibility
When anxious situations come up or when we anticipate one, we usually need therapy the most. Therapists with flexible times but also flexible fees ensure your sessions are consistent even if you have to reschedule for a particular time or require more sessions without adjusting your budget too much
The importance of finding the right fit: Anxiety therapy is all about your connection with your therapist
The research is clear: the alliance between therapist and client (characterized by trust, mutual respect, shared understanding, and collaboration) remains the best predictor of positive outcomes in therapy. Specifically with therapy for anxiety, this connection is crucial to you building the trust you need to open up and implement the solutions that the therapist is recommending but probably go against all the beliefs you have adopted in response to your anxious thoughts. You come to therapy with your own experiences, beliefs, values, and preferences. A good fit between you and your therapist ensures therapy is comfortable even in the discomfort and aligns with your goals and objectives.
Describe your anxiety and how it affects you. Then, try asking them:
What is your initial assessment of my anxiety?
Have you ever worked with someone who has anxiety like mine before?
What treatment method would you recommend?
How would that help me feel less anxious?
What do you emphasize in therapy that is unique?
Our diverse team of experienced, relatable and flexible anxiety therapists
If you still don’t know who would be the right fit and would like our help, contact us directly and we can help you find the best fit by asking just a couple of questions about your needs and goals
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![An anxiety therapist who is direct, compassionate, and uses humor to create a structured and effective therapeutic environment]()
Fidel Quintanilla
Anxiety therapy with me is direct, structured and includes humor
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![An anxiety therapist who is passionate about helping others, approachable and relatable. Anxiety therapy is about you]()
Stephanie Gonzalez
Anxiety therapy with me is passionate, approachable and relatable
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![An anxiety therapist who is committed to reflection, empowerment, and non-blaming. Anxiety therapy with her is an open space]()
Julia Melvin
Anxiety therapy with me is reflective, empowering and non-blaming
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![An anxiety therapist who is direct, compassionate, and uses humor to create a comfortable and effective therapeutic environment]()
Molly Binenfeld
Anxiety therapy with me is direct, compassionate and includes humor
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![An anxiety therapist who is supportive, reflective and focused on solutions. Anxiety therapy is casual and approachable]()
Nazzi Vazira-Bhullar
Anxiety therapy with me is supportive, reflective and focused on solutions
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![An anxiety therapist who is understanding, empowering, and non-judgmental. Anxiety therapy is supportive and non-blaming]()
Judy Tam
Anxiety therapy with me is supportive, empowering and non-blaming
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![An anxiety therapist that helps you reflect, be comfortable and focus on solutions. Anxiety therapy emphasizes progress]()
Jasmeet Bhullar
Anxiety therapy with me is reflective, comfortable and focused on solutions
