When your mind is always bracing for something
Anxiety is the 3 a.m. replay of a conversation from Tuesday. The tightness in your chest that never fully lets go. The checking, the planning, the preparing for a disaster that hasn’t happened, and being too tired to enjoy the days when nothing goes wrong.
Some people call me after a panic attack that scared them. Some have been “a worrier” their whole life and are finally done managing it alone. Many look completely capable from the outside, with a good job and a good family, and nobody knows how much effort it takes to hold that together.
Anxiety is one of the most treatable things I work with.
How I treat anxiety
I use approaches with solid research behind them, adapted to you rather than read from a manual. Our work usually includes:
- Understanding the pattern. What triggers it, what you do in response, and how those responses (avoiding, over-preparing, asking for reassurance) quietly keep the anxiety going.
- Calming the body. Anxiety lives in the nervous system as much as the mind. You’ll learn practical ways to settle your body so you aren’t trying to think your way out of a physical alarm.
- Changing how you relate to the thoughts. Not forcing positive thinking, which doesn’t work, but learning to notice anxious thoughts without obeying them.
- Facing what you’ve been avoiding, gradually, so your world can get bigger again.
- Looking at the roots when it helps: perfectionism, old experiences, or a life that is genuinely asking too much of you.
Anxiety rarely travels alone
It often comes with grief, with depression, with a chronic illness, with a trauma history, or with a big life change. Because I work with all of those, we don’t have to separate your anxiety from the life it’s happening in. If your worry is mostly about your body or a diagnosis, the page on health anxiety therapy in Houston may fit better. If work is the main driver and you’re in healthcare, see therapy for Houston healthcare workers.
Getting started
Sessions are by secure video from anywhere in Texas. If you’ve been waiting for the right time to deal with this, this is what the right time usually looks like: ordinary, a little nervous, and ready enough.
Book an online anxiety therapy session, or send Laura a question if you’d rather talk first. Costs are on the insurance and fees page.