Anxiety therapy in Boulder, CO

Maybe it's the worry that won't shut off at night. Maybe it's the racing heart before a class presentation, the stomachache every Sunday, or the way you've started saying no to things you used to love just to avoid the knot in your chest. Anxiety can be loud and obvious, or it can be quiet and constant, the background hum you've almost stopped noticing because it's been there so long.

Wherever you're at with it, you're in good company. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health condition in the U.S., affecting around 19% of adults in a given year, and they usually first show up in the teens and early twenties (National Institute of Mental Health). So if this snuck up on you somewhere around high school or college, that's not a coincidence. It's actually the most common time for it to start.

And here's the part I really want you to hear: being anxious doesn't mean something is wrong with you, and it doesn't mean you can't handle your life. Often it just means you care a lot, and your brain's alarm system is a little quicker to go off than you'd like. That's a very human, very fixable situation.

How CBT for anxiety actually works

I mostly use cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, for anxiety, because it works and it doesn't waste your time. The basic idea is that your thoughts, your feelings, and what you do all feed each other, so when anxiety hijacks your thoughts, it changes how you feel and what you avoid, which then feeds the anxiety right back. CBT gives us a way in.

In session, that looks less like talking in circles and more like building an actual toolkit. We'll figure out the thoughts that spin you up and practice ways to talk back to them (I'm a big fan of "playing both movies": you've already imagined the worst, so what does the realistic best case look like?). We'll work on facing the things you've been avoiding in small, doable steps, so your brain gets to learn firsthand that it can handle them. And you'll leave with things to try between sessions, because that's where a lot of the change actually happens. To be clear, this isn't about forcing yourself to "think positive." I'm not going to hand you an affirmation and call it a day. It's about getting your thoughts to be a little more accurate and a lot kinder.

What our first steps look like

We start with a free 15-minute consult so you can get a feel for me and I can hear what's going on. If it feels like a fit, the next step is usually a longer evaluation session where we get clear on what kind of anxiety we're working with (they're not all the same) and where to begin. From there we meet weekly or every other week, in person here in Boulder or online.

Who I work with

I work mostly with people in the years when anxiety tends to first take hold. That's often a teen who's more anxious, irritable, or withdrawn than usual, especially around school. It's often a college student or young adult dealing with pressure, big transitions, and the "shouldn't I have this figured out by now?" spiral. And sometimes it's a parent who can see their kid struggling and wants to help the right way.