Therapy for Anxiety
Do you feel overwhelmed with stress or worry? Have anxious thoughts kept you up at night, tossing and turning while thinking about the future? Are you on-edge, irritable, or unable to relax? Does it seem like, no matter what you try, nothing seems to help?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you might be struggling with anxiety.
I am Mark Veldkamp, and I am a private practice therapist based in Downtown San Diego. I work with college students, teens, and adults who are struggling with anxiety because no one should have to face their fears alone.
If you are interested and ready to work together, contact me today. To learn more about anxiety and how therapy can help, read on.
Anxiety isn’t always a bad thing!
If you didn’t feel worried about your grades, you might not do your work or show up to class. If you weren’t a bit anxious about being hit by a car, you might not look both ways when crossing the street. Anxiety can be helpful when it motivates us to do our best and helps keep us safe from harm.
Unfortunately, many people struggle with unhealthy and unhelpful anxiety. – the kind that keeps us from feeling calm, happy, and well.
Here are a few common signs of unhealthy anxiety:
Feelings
Nervousness
Tearfulness
Irritability
Racing heart
Tension
Nausea
Thoughts
Constant worry
Cyclical thinking (also called rumination)
Poor concentration
Frantic thinking
High alertness
Actions
Avoiding things
Nail-biting
Stress eating
Difficulty sleeping
Fidgeting / squirming
As you can imagine, unhealthy anxiety causes problems.
If you struggle with unhealthy social anxiety, for example, you might avoid and miss out on important opportunities for connection and friendship. Or, if you experience overwhelming worries about academic or career success, the anxiety might keep you from being able to focus and do your best. Unhealthy anxiety makes us feel miserable, think inefficiently, and act in ways that keep the fear in place.
That’s why therapy is the first line of treatment for issues related to anxiety. I provide therapy for anxiety to help teens, college students and faculty, and other adults from all over San Diego and California – and I would love to work with you. If you or a loved one are struggling with unhealthy anxiety, contact me today.
How will therapy help?
When people feel anxious, they tend to avoid whatever it is that makes them feel that way. Over time, this leads to a nasty pattern known as the cycle of avoidance:
When we avoid the things that make us anxious, it makes us feel good (“Whew, I avoided it”). Our brains then learn to reinforce and build on those anxious feelings; that way, we feel encouraged to avoid it again in the future. This cycle leaves the fear unaddressed, which allows it room to grow and spread. Sometimes avoidance means using drugs, food, or other distractions to take our mind off the problem, which is truly what makes unhealthy anxiety so unhealthy.
Therapy for anxiety is all about breaking the cycle.
You can learn new skills for managing anxious feelings. You can discover new ways to think about fear and discomfort. And, you will experience encouragement and support for confronting your anxiety. Over time, you can overcome the fears that hold you back.
I started my therapy practice to help people who struggle with anxiety – people just like you– find freedom from anxiety and live well.
Don’t wait and hope for the anxiety to get better on its own. You deserve a life free from stress and full of meaning.
Contact me today to get started.
Interested? Let’s Work Together!
Ready to get scheduled for your first session? Interested in learning more about me? Let’s connect– I would love to hear from you.
I provide individual therapy for people from all over the San Diego area - Downtown San Diego, Little Italy, Point Loma, Pacific Beach, La Jolla, Hillcrest, North Park and beyond. Additionally, I offer virtual therapy, also known as teletherapy, to residents of California.
I founded my own practice because I believe that no one should have to face life’s challenges alone.
I know that, together, we can get things back on track.