Help for Fears, Phobias, and Failure to Launch in Ventura
Gain Mastery Over Your Fears and Worries
Anxiety disorders go beyond normative worries or stress that help us improve performance and stay safe from threat. What makes an anxiety disorder a “disorder” is how it significantly impacts an individual's daily life. Anxiety disorders limit your ability to function in important areas, like relationships, school, and work, gradually shrinking life as more and more things feel too risky to pursue.
Anxiety disorders are characterized by excessive fear or worry that compromises functioning in significant areas socially, cognitively, and occupationally. Anxiety disorders can be accompanied by somatic or physical symptoms, such as rapid heartbeat, sweating, and feeling dizzy. Executive dysfunction, or the ability to concentrate, plan, making decisions, and prioritizes, is also impaired by anxiety, which can make everyday tasks and choices extremely difficult. The types of anxiety disorders treated in my practice include Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Social Anxiety Disorder, and Specific Phobias.
Treatment for Anxiety Disorders and Phobias including Failure to Launch
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is marked by persistent and excessive worry about many aspects of life, generalized beyond a single area, making it difficult to participate in everyday activities. GAD includes intense mental rumination, or spiraling thoughts, about a variety of situations. Rumination maintains and increases anxiety. I practice Rumination-Focused ERP, an integrative Exposure-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to treat Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
Social Anxiety Disorder is characterized by an overwhelming fear of social situations due to concerns about how you will be perceived by others. This leads to social avoidance and can severely impact child, adolescent, and adult development and life satisfaction. Untreated social anxiety may lead to depression and limited opportunities due to social avoidance. I use Exposure-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy when treating social anxiety disorder.
Specific Phobias are an anxiety disorder that include intense fears of specific objects or situations, such as heights, flying, vomiting (emetophobia), or spiders, for example. The object or situation can trigger significant anxiety, rumination on ‘what ifs,’ and avoidance behavior, which maintains the fear. I treat specific phobias with gradual exposure therapy, specifically Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP).
Learn to Feel Grounded
Treatment for anxiety disorders often involves a combination of psychotherapy and medication. The choice to take medication is a personal decision between you and your prescriber, and risks should be weighed with potential benefits. While it is not within my scope to prescribe medication, I recommend working with a prescriber you trust if you are considering psychopharmacological interventions. I have a list of several Ventura County providers who can advise on medication on my Resources Page.
How to do you recover from an anxiety disorder?
Evidence-based therapy approaches such as Exposure and Response Prevention have been shown to be highly effective in managing specific phobias and social anxiety disorders that create patterns rumination and avoidance in sufferers.
ERP assists individuals in gradually confronting their fears while choosing to not engage with compulsive avoidance. This helps to teach anxiety sufferers they are capable of tolerating uncertainty and discomfort, and gives them tools to learn to stop the mental spiral that increases anxiety. Gradual exposure may reduce the feeling of anxiety that are associated with the particular fear over time. Exposure promotes new learning, courage, and restores agency.
How does exposure therapy work?
Exposure-Based CBT changes the way we engage with our fears and worries by teaching us to walk towards rather than run away. We learn that running away or avoidance serves to maintain our concerns and overtime shrinks our lives. Exposure-based CBT teaches new skills to manage discomfort. People with phobias and anxiety commit to a better life through action. Therapy can promote meaningful changes and help you live a life aligned with your personal values and goals, despite your vulnerability to hypervigilance.
Get Professional Help for Phobias and Anxiety
It is essential for people suffering from an anxiety disorder to seek professional treatment. The more we give into anxiety’s demands of rumination and avoidance, the stronger it gets. Engaging in treatment can provide critical tools needed to effectively reduce symptoms, improve overall well-being, and ultimately lead a more fulfilling life.
Whether through in person sessions in Ventura or online therapy via secure Zoom across California, help is available to navigate the challenges associated with anxiety and phobias.
Start a New Chapter With Therapy
If phobias and anxious distress has decreased your quality of life, it may be time for therapy with a specialist. I have advanced training and experience helping sufferers confront fears in a trusted therapeutic environment. It’s possible to interrupt the fear-and-avoidance cycle and start living your life again. Contact to learn more about therapy for specific phobias and anxiety.