Anxiety Treatment

Is Anxiety Been Interfering With Your Career Or Personal Life? What is the best Anxiety Treatment for you?

by Mihaela Ivan Holtz, Psy.D. LMFT

When you suffer from anxiety, it can feel impossible to show up fully in your own life.  If you want to live a life of authentic expression of who you are, have true connections, be in touch with your creativity and sense of agency you may find that anxiety gets in the way.  

Your relationships, your career, your creativity are all affected.

Is anxiety keeping you from leading a rich, fulfilling life?

Maybe you realize that persistent feelings of anxiety are interfering with who you really are or what you could be. Anxiety doesn’t allow you to connect, show up, work, or create with authenticity and presence.

Perhaps anxiety doesn’t allow you to access your gifts and skills. Anxiety can keep you “playing small,” unable to share your voice and talents with the world. It holds you back and makes it impossible to fully invest yourself in your goals and dreams.

You might not even know what you could accomplish, create, or achieve if you’ve been trapped in cycles of anxiety for a long time. What kind of connections or life experiences could you have if anxiety wasn’t holding you back?

The Reality of Living With Anxiety

Yes, anxiety can leave you feeling unconnected and inauthentic. You’re only partly present in your relationships and your work when you’re anxious. You avoid activities that could make your life more beautiful or meaningful. Due to anxiety issues – maybe social anxiety or some other anxieties – you tend to hide (with or without awareness) and keep yourself in an emotional prison, unable to live a full life.

Taking a healthy risk is out of the question. Or, when you do dare to get out of your comfort zone and take a chance, the anxiety kicks in suddenly. You feel out of control, with racing anxious thoughts, full of confusion as your heart pounds so hard you’re afraid it will burst out of your chest. All these physical responses leave you feeling even more afraid to try again.

Perhaps you are easily agitated and prone to feeling anxious or having panic attacks—particularly before a special event or moments when you want the most to be yourself. Maybe you’ve experienced this at an important meeting or social gathering or a performance, audition, or a show. Perhaps you find yourself too anxious when you attempt to meet new people or you feel the anxiety kick in when you sit down to create something new.

The kind of anxiety you’re experiencing is more than just the ordinary jitters or butterflies. You may feel so nervous that you’re unable to function. In addition to the bodily responses like shaky hands, sweaty palms, shortness of breath, dry mouth, trembling voice (all of which can make you even more worked up ) anxiety can trigger feelings of shame, inadequacy. All of this pushes you further into fears and self-doubts. Instead of feeling excitement and happiness in the face of something new, you feel overwhelmed.

Anxiety can make you obsess over upcoming social events, creative opportunities, performances, or auditions. You end up second-guessing yourself and over-thinking how you did long after it’s over. This over-thinking is making you dread upcoming events even more. You lose out on opportunities to build your life and career.

Are you tired of avoiding opportunities that could bring you joy or advance your career as a result of your anxiety? Whatever form of anxiety you’re experiencing – whether it is caused by moving out of your comfort zone, or you tend to be anxious in general, or you have social anxiety or performance anxiety – there is help, including options like anxiety treatment without medication.

Therapy for Anxiety Can Help You Find Emotional Freedom

When you find emotional freedom and step away from anxiety, you can show up in life with all that you are. You can connect, work, create, or perform with authenticity and presence.

Psychotherapy is highly effective for helping people heal, work through, and shift from being trapped in anxiety to living with emotional freedom. With the help of an anxiety therapist – who is particularly skilled at working with anxiety symptoms -you can transform your life both personally and professionally.

Therapy for anxiety is the beginning of a journey of self-discovery. You’ll learn more about who you are, undo unhealthy or destructive coping mechanisms, and start to function in a more authentic way.

To get to the origins of anxiety, including the trauma that may be at the root of the problem, I use a variety of anxiety therapy techniques from:

• relational psychoanalytic approaches combined with the neuroscience of psychotherapy and relationships
• EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
• CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
• Solution Focused Therapy

In every case, psychotherapy is a unique journey that is attuned to you – your own needs, hopes, and dreams.

Using this diverse set of approaches and anxiety therapy techniques, I will help you work through painful memories and unhealthy patterns that fuel anxiety and keep you stuck. By bringing unhealthy or painful memories into awareness, you can face them head-on, overcome them, and heal. These memories don’t have to control you. You can move forward.

As a result of your inner growth you can start channeling your strengths, gifts, skills, and talent into developing healthier relationships, and becoming more effective when it comes to your work, your art, and your performance.

One of my specialties as a psychotherapist is working with artists and performers.

I have helped many creatives and performers work through the underlying causes of anxiety. I can help you work through emotional issues, creative blocks, or performance anxiety that may be stunting your personal and creative growth.

As an artist, you work hard to hone your craft and touch your audience with your talent. Psychotherapy for anxiety can help you hone your emotional skills so anxious thoughts don’t stand in the way of your artistic career. I have worked with many creatives and performers who have found great professional and personal success after confronting their anxieties.

You May Have Some Questions About Getting Anxiety Treatment…

Isn’t anxiety therapy expensive?

Anxiety therapy can be an investment, an investment in both your personal and professional future. With help, from a therapist for anxiety you can stop repeating self-defeating cycles and heal emotional pain. Reducing your anxiety and learning better coping mechanisms will lead to a happier, healthier inner life and professional life.

I’m so busy, how can I make time to see an anxiety therapist?

Your mental health is too important to your personal and professional success to put on hold. Once you target the anxiety that holds you back, you can invest yourself more fully in your relationships, your career, goals, or dreams.

Can I do my anxiety therapy online?

Online therapy can be an effective way to get the anxiety counseling you need. I have been working with clients online or via phone therapy for years, and, of course, this has increased dramatically over the last year of the COVID-19 crisis. My approach to online therapy sessions follows a similar outline as they would in the office, and I draw from the same set of evidence-based treatments (including EMDR).

I’m an artist. What if I stifle my creativity or performance? What if my anxiety has actually helped me move forward?

Therapy targets suppressed memories that are at the root of your anxiety symptoms. Doing so can unleash even more creative potential and greater ability to be in touch with your talents, abilities, and your performance. Therapy for anxiety can also help you access different parts of your mind from which to draw creativity. You will end up feeling happier and more at ease with yourself, your creativity, and performances. You can become a better performer, remove creative blocks, and achieve new career opportunities. Consider making time for therapy the same way you make time for developing your talents.

Heal anxiety so you can show up fully in life.
Connect, work, create, and perform with authenticity and presence.

Schedule Your Appointment For Anxiety Therapy

If you are ready to begin psychotherapy to treat your anxiety or explore anxiety treatment without medication, I offer a free 15-minute consultation by phone. You can reach me at 310-424-0292, or through the contact page.

Learn more about me and my approach.