Anxiety Therapist in New York & California

Your physical and mental well-being relies on a sense of balance—one that anxiety can quietly or dramatically disrupt. Anxiety often surfaces differently for each person, making it difficult to recognize when “normal stress” has crossed into something more consuming. If you’re exploring this page, you may already sense that anxiety has begun shaping your thoughts, relationships, or daily life in ways that feel limiting or exhausting.

Anxiety therapy offers space to slow down, understand what’s happening beneath the surface, and develop a more grounded relationship with your mind and body. If you’re seeking anxiety therapy in New York or California, the information below can help you determine whether this support feels like the right next step.

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What Is Anxiety?

Anxiety is a complex and deeply individual experience. When anxiety takes hold, it can become difficult to distinguish between a healthy response to stress and something that feels overwhelming, confusing, or out of your control. Many people live with anxiety for years before naming it—despite the fact that only about one-third of those who would benefit from anxiety treatment ever seek it. Simply being curious about your experience is already a meaningful step.

At its core, anxiety is a natural defense mechanism—your mind and body’s way of trying to protect you from perceived threat. Over time, however, especially when stress, relational experiences, or unresolved emotional patterns accumulate, anxiety can shift from a situational response into a pervasive mental and physical state. What once felt manageable may begin to feel intrusive, destabilizing, or exhausting, impacting your sense of safety, self-trust, and agency.

Anxiety rarely looks the same from one person to another—and it can even change from day to day within the same individual. One day it may show up as fear of being judged or rejected; another, it may manifest somatically as a racing heart, tight chest, shallow breathing, sweating, or a restless, unsettled feeling in your body. For some, anxiety operates quietly in the background, influencing decisions and relationships. For others, it arrives in intense waves of panic or dread.

Anxiety is not always centered on worry about oneself. In conditions such as OCD-related anxiety, it may present as intrusive thoughts and persistent fears that harm could come to someone you love. When left unaddressed, anxiety can build on itself—shifting from specific concerns into a more global state of hypervigilance, fear, or emotional burnout.

Anxiety Therapy Support

Support for chronic worry, panic, overthinking, and anxiety-driven patterns that impact daily life. Anxiety therapy can help identify the underlying emotional, relational, and nervous system dynamics that keep anxiety active—while developing tools that allow you to feel more present, regulated, and connected.

Special Focus Areas

While anxiety is always personal, certain patterns commonly emerge. Therapy may be helpful if you experience:

Fear of judgment, embarrassment, or saying the “wrong” thing—often accompanied by avoidance, masking, or people-pleasing in social or professional settings.

Sudden surges of fear or bodily alarm, along with the ongoing worry about having another panic episode. Therapy focuses on understanding the panic cycle and reducing fear of physical sensations themselves.

Persistent concern about physical symptoms, body scanning, reassurance-seeking, and worst-case spirals that make it difficult to feel safe in your body.

Anxious attachment patterns, hypervigilance in relationships, fear of abandonment, and the push–pull dynamic that can emerge in close connection.

Intrusive thoughts, compulsive checking, mental rituals, and an intense need for certainty—addressed by strengthening tolerance for ambiguity and reducing compulsive responses.

Anxiety related to meaning, mortality, identity, or “big picture” fears, often surfacing during major life transitions, grief, burnout, or periods of self-questioning.

Anxiety that hides behind achievement—over-responsibility, perfectionism, pressure to perform, and difficulty resting even when life appears “fine” on the outside.

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A Holistic, Somatic, and Psychodynamic Approach

Anxiety does not exist only in thoughts—it lives in the body, nervous system, and relational history. My approach to anxiety therapy is holistic, somatic, and psychodynamic, meaning we explore how your emotional experiences, past relationships, and physiological responses interact to shape your present-day anxiety.

Rather than attempting to eliminate anxiety entirely, therapy focuses on understanding its role, listening to what it communicates, and gently shifting the patterns that keep it in control. This may include developing nervous system regulation, increasing emotional awareness, addressing unconscious dynamics, and building a greater sense of internal safety and flexibility.

Therapy is collaborative and paced with care. Your experiences guide the process, and together we work toward helping anxiety take up less space—so you can feel more grounded, connected, and at ease in your life.

Anxiety Therapy in New York & California

I offer anxiety therapy for adults in New York and California. Whether anxiety shows up as chronic worry, panic, overthinking, relational fear, or high-functioning pressure, therapy can provide support tailored to your unique experience.

Begin Anxiety Therapy

If anxiety is impacting your quality of life, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Therapy offers a space to explore what you’re experiencing with curiosity, compassion, and care. To get started, schedule a consultation or reach out to learn more about anxiety therapy in New York or California.

Your Anxiety Therapy Experience

Anxiety therapy is a focused, collaborative process shaped around your internal experience. Sessions are guided by how anxiety presents in your body, thoughts, and relationships, and by what feels most supportive at each stage of the work. Together, we slow things down to better understand the patterns sustaining anxiety and create space for change.

Our work often explores the emotional, relational, and somatic dimensions of anxiety—helping it feel less overwhelming and more workable over time. The aim is not to eliminate anxiety entirely, but to reduce its influence so you can move through your life with greater steadiness, clarity, and self-trust.

  • Sessions are 45 minutes, typically held once weekly.
  • Some individuals engage in shorter-term work, often three to six months, when focusing on a specific anxiety concern or transition.
  • Others choose longer-term therapy to explore deeper patterns and nervous system responses, continuing for as long as the work remains meaningful.
  • The pace and duration of therapy are always guided by your needs.

How Care Is Shaped

Effective anxiety therapy depends on a sense of emotional safety and attunement. In my private practice, care is tailored to the individual rather than driven by a standardized protocol. Attention is given to both the symptoms of anxiety and the underlying emotional and relational contexts in which it developed. Our work together is shaped by:

  • Your specific anxiety patterns and triggers
  • How anxiety is experienced somatically and physiologically
  • Your emotional history and relational dynamics
  • Your temperament, communication style, and pacing needs
  • A thoughtful integration of somatic awareness and psychodynamic exploration

The therapeutic relationship itself is central. Creating a space where you feel sufficiently supported to explore, reflect, and shift long-standing patterns is an essential part of the process.

Support Between Sessions

Therapy is the primary space for working with anxiety, though some people benefit from gentle, supportive practices between sessions. These are not intended to manage or control anxiety, but to offer moments of grounding and regulation within daily life. Supportive practices may include:

  • Mindfulness or body-based practices focused on present-moment awareness
  • Gentle movement, such as yoga, approached without performance pressure
  • Time in nature to support nervous system settling
  • Slow, conscious breathing with an emphasis on extended exhalation
  • Nourishing movement, rest, and nutrition approached with consistency rather than rigidity

These practices are optional and explored with care. The intention is not to add more to your plate, but to support a sense of internal steadiness and ease.

FAQs About Anxiety

There are several therapy options for anxiety, many include natural and eastern-based, holistic methods. These include, but aren’t limited to, guided visualization, dream analysis, breathing-work, role-playing, and Reiki.

Anxiety changes from moment to moment, person to person, and interaction to interaction making it very evasive and often unnoticed for extended periods. It becomes difficult to determine what a healthy reaction is alone, because of its everchanging nature.

Being concerned about your anxiety depends on what normal, healthy functioning has previously meant to you throughout your life. If you can see your daily experiences are becoming more strained, stressful, fearful, exhausting, or involve any other negative emotional/physical response, it seems likely anxiety is straying you away from the healthiest version of yourself.

Stress is a massive trigger for anxiety of all shapes and sizes. The body and mind react to stress as an urgent priority, reducing the ability to compartmentalize anxious feelings or acknowledge them as unnecessary. Stress oftentimes means a lack of control in life, adding to the already worrisome and fearful nature of anxiety.

For some people, interpersonal/social anxiety is the norm. It becomes almost phobia-like where speaking to a new person, entering a group, or even leaving the house seems impossible (Agoraphobia). Social anxiety is just one manifestation of anxiety, just as OCD manifests itself with compulsive actions (i.e. counting, hand washing, etc.).

A panic attack is an extreme physical anxiety reaction that has bodily symptoms similar to a heart attack. People oftentimes call an ambulance with chest pain, fainting, difficulty breathing, etc. Physical reactions to anxiety can be very serious and should be addressed as quickly as possible.