You’re consumed by a nagging feeling that something bad will happen. It’s as if you’re living your life constantly looking over your shoulder, thinking about the past, or worrying about the future. So much so that you never have the chance to just sit and be.
Overcoming Adult Anxiety: Reclaim Your Peace of Mind
You’re really looking to be able to relax again and worry less so that you can become the best version of yourself, but you’re not sure how to do this with all of the uncertainty you live with.
The Isolating Impact of Anxiety: Breaking Free from Avoidance and Overwhelm
You can’t recall the last time that you freely engaged in your passions. It’s become so bad that you’re hesitant to leave the house or engage in social activities with others. Lately, you feel like avoiding people or situations, and you find yourself hiding out rather than taking risks. You worry about failing at work and in relationships and just want to run away rather than try to regain some sense of control.
Dealing with stress is hard, but your anxious feelings add even more strain to an already complicated mix of unpleasant symptoms. It’s as if your thoughts and emotions are working against you, and all you feel is overwhelmed.
So here you are, wondering if you’ll ever look toward your future with hope and excitement.
Often, you feel like the uncertainty in your life is going to keep you from ever moving forward.
You truly want to find peace and be able to break free from your anxiety, feel more in control of your life, and live with less fear. But, you have no idea how to calm your overactive mind and emotions. You never imagined you’d feel so scared, worried, and stressed. And you certainly didn’t expect that you’d be feeling like withdrawing from the things that you used to enjoy in life.
Signs That You Might Be Struggling with Anxiety
- Behavioral: you are irritable or pay extra close attention to your surroundings; you avoid things that your peers are engaged in; you frequently seek reassurance from others to calm your anxious mind
- Cognitive: you have trouble concentrating or have racing and unwanted thoughts; you often think of worst-case scenarios
- Mood: you often feel worried, dread, or like you are doomed
Benefits of Anxiety Support at The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management
- Learn how to structure your thoughts, actions, and environment to overcome stress and anxiety
- Experience growth in self-confidence
- Acquire effective coping skills to manage troubling symptoms
- Discover ways to function better in your daily life
- Find more peace and gain a sense of focus and calmness
- Develop a less threatening perspective of your world
- Rediscover joy in your day-to-day experiences
- Explore evidence-based treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)
When You Seek Support for Anxiety from The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management
- You will learn how to structure your thoughts, actions, and environment to help you overcome stress and anxiety
- You will grow in self-confidence
- You will learn effective coping skills to manage troubling symptoms
- You will learn how to function better in your life
- You will feel more peace and gain a sense of focus and calmness
- You will see your world as less threatening
- You will find more joy in your day-to-day life
The Adult Anxiety Counseling Process
Therapy for anxious adults is intended to help you gain the skills and tools necessary to more effectively manage your fears, feelings, and thoughts. Together, you and your therapist will work with scientifically-backed, evidence-based therapies to help you gain control over your stress, worry, and doubts.
Here’s what to expect…
FIRST CONTACT: Free phone consult
Prior to beginning treatment with us, we want to make sure that we are a good fit for your needs. For this reason, we offer a free 15-minute initial phone consult to learn more about your current circumstances and to determine if we are the best resource for you. Assuming that we are a good match, you would then set up an intake session.
WEEK ONE: Intake Session
During this initial 90-minute session, the assigned therapist will meet with you to gather background information and have you fill out rating scales to provide an assessment baseline upon which to build our treatment plan and goals.
WEEK TWO: Feedback Session
Now that we’ve thoroughly assessed your needs, we will meet with you to discuss the diagnoses, to identify starting goals, and to provide education on the apparent causes and factors which are leading to your symptoms.
WEEK THREE: Anxiety Therapy for Adults
At this point, you will attend regular weekly therapy sessions. A typical course of treatment calls for 12 to 16 weeks of therapy sessions, but treatment length depends on many factors and, therefore, could require more or less weeks. Additionally, your therapist may determine that you need to come more or less frequently, depending upon your presenting symptoms.
Together, in each subsequent session, you and your therapist will use evidenced-based psychotherapy models to help you learn to identify trigger situations and thoughts that contribute to your worry and panic. This typically includes the integration of techniques from Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy (ERP), or other evidence-based modalities.
Each session is designed to help you overcome the symptoms of anxiety that are keeping you stuck. You and your therapist will work to overcome sleep issues, extreme emotional burdens, and to provide you with effective solutions. You will also spend significant time exploring your negative coping patterns and developing more helpful strategies for managing the overwhelming feelings.
TERMINATION: The Final Sessions
As you get closer to your therapy goals, you and your therapist will develop a plan for successfully transitioning you into a life without weekly therapy. This often means moving sessions from once a week to every other week, to monthly sessions, or to finishing out services completely. Your therapist also works with you to develop a relapse prevention plan at this time. Our goal is for you to be able to retain what you have worked on and to implement all that you have learned in therapy outside of sessions in your everyday life.
Are we the right providers for you?
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More About The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management
As a team of licensed therapists, we are experts at teaching you to make the behavioral choices that get you closer to your goals.
We work from an evidence-based perspective. This means that our job is to help you understand your struggles and provide solutions proven to be very effective. Negative thoughts, distressing feelings, and unhelpful behaviors don’t have to be part of your life, and anxiety therapy at The Center for Anxiety and Behavior Management is about changing the way you think, recognizing how your beliefs are holding you back, becoming informed, seeing the world more accurately, and engaging in behaviors that you won’t regret later.
We make it our mission to help you regain control of your life by providing effective strategies supported by science. We are dedicated to being on top of the most recent knowledge and helping you solve problems based on what the research says is effective. It is our passion to educate you on what is and isn’t working in your life so that you can get back in the driver’s seat and take yourself where you want to go.
Who Benefits Most from Anxiety Counseling
Therapy for adults with anxiety is best for those who need relief from the constant battle against stress, anxiety, overwhelming feelings, and perfectionism.
Anxiety can often be debilitating and get in the way of your enjoyment of life. It doesn’t have to rob you of your ability to reach your goals.
You will benefit from anxiety therapy if:
- You are tired of struggling to control overwhelming fears
- You are ready to learn how to overcome panic attack symptoms and the other unpleasant feelings that are holding you back
- You want to learn how to control stress and better manage your environments
- You want to learn positive coping skills to better calm your overwhelming emotions
- You want to live your life on your own terms, not let fear direct your course
- You are ready to calm your overactive, anxious mind
There are certain situations in which you might not be ready for counseling sessions with us.
These include, but are not limited to:
- When you do not have time to attend sessions on a weekly basis
- When you are not ready to practice the techniques provided in therapy
- When you cannot commit to the process of therapy for the full course of treatment
- When you want a quick fix
If you are currently experiencing any of these issues, we can provide you with appropriate referrals for your level of care.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everyone experiences stress and anxiety at times. Anxiety becomes more concerning when worry is persistent, feels difficult to control, or begins interfering with sleep, concentration, work, relationships, or everyday life. You may also notice yourself avoiding situations, repeatedly seeking reassurance, overthinking decisions, or changing what you do because of anxiety. A good question to ask isn’t simply whether you feel anxious, but how much anxiety is affecting the way you are living your life.
Yes. Anxiety can cause very real physical symptoms, including a racing heart, shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea or stomach discomfort, headaches, sweating, trembling, and muscle tension. When we interpret these sensations as dangerous, we can become even more anxious, which can intensify the physical symptoms and create a cycle of anxiety. Therapy can help you understand this connection and learn to respond differently to physical sensations. New, unexplained, or concerning physical symptoms should still be discussed with a medical provider rather than automatically assuming they are caused by anxiety.
Yes. After experiencing a panic attack, many people become understandably afraid of having another one. They may begin monitoring their body for signs of panic, avoiding places where an attack previously occurred, or avoiding situations where they worry it would be difficult to leave or get help. Unfortunately, these strategies can reinforce the belief that panic is dangerous and that you aren’t able to handle it. Treatment can help you better understand what is happening during a panic attack, change how you interpret physical sensations, and gradually reduce the avoidance and safety behaviors that keep the fear of panic going.
Sometimes. Avoidance often provides relief in the short term, but it can make anxiety stronger over time by reinforcing the belief that the situation is dangerous and that you aren’t able to handle it. Depending on what you’re struggling with, treatment may include gradually approaching situations, thoughts, uncertainty, or physical sensations you have been avoiding. This is done collaboratively and in manageable steps. The goal isn’t to make you feel anxious for the sake of feeling anxious but to help you learn that you can tolerate discomfort and handle situations even when anxiety is present.
Yes. Some people make significant progress with therapy alone, while others benefit from combining therapy with medication. Medication can reduce symptoms, while therapy focuses on understanding and changing the thoughts and behaviors that contribute to anxiety and developing skills you can continue using over time. Whether medication should be part of treatment depends on the individual, including the severity of symptoms, how much anxiety is interfering with daily functioning, treatment history, and personal preferences. Medication decisions should be made in consultation with a qualified medical provider.
Our office is conveniently located at 259 Main Street in Chester, NJ, 07930.
Sessions are currently held by appointment only Monday – Saturday.
Your Next Steps
You absolutely can learn to manage your worries, stresses, fears, and phobias.
Freedom from anxiety may feel impossible, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start to take back control. You just need the support of a caring professional and evidence-based treatment to help you figure out how to best manage it all.
You will get the tools you need to be more successful in overcoming your worries. And you’ll also grow in your ability to self-manage with the use of good coping skills.
Ultimately, you will know that even when things aren’t going your way, you will get through them. We can help.
Call or text (908) 883-4173 or book an appointment to schedule your 15-minute phone consult to see if we’re a good fit for your anxiety treatment needs today!
Our Team
Meet our experienced & professional team
Our therapists’ commitment to providing quality treatment and giving you practical, action-oriented strategies are why we are one of the most sought after mental health practices.
