On this page:

Anxiety vs Worry

Types of Anxiety Disorders

Symptoms of Anxiety

Treating Anxiety with EMDR Therapy

What Can I Expect from Treatment?

What Are Anxiety Disorders?

Anxiety—persistent worry or fear—is a recognizable emotion and a common part of life. Sometimes, though, anxiety becomes excessive or all-consuming, and out of proportion to the situation at hand. When your anxiety is intense enough to interfere with your daily life, it may indicate an underlying anxiety disorder.

Anxiety vs. Worry

Worry is a part of life. “Worry” that describes a temporary, short-term state brought on by an outside trigger—say, a looming work deadline or a conflict with a friend—is a common experience. There’s no denying that worry can disrupt your life: being unable to sleep the night before a job interview or being too nervous to eat before a date are common, unpleasant experiences.

If you have an anxiety disorder, however, the level of worry—even fear—that you feel is often out of proportion to the situation at hand. Sometimes, there may not even be a clear outside trigger to explain your anxiety—maybe a normal everyday situation causes excessive worry, or maybe you feel worried all the time, with no identifiable reason.

Types of Anxiety Disorders

There are many types of anxiety disorders, each with its own symptoms and/or triggers:

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder is a condition where you feel excessive or persistent worry nearly every day, often about ordinary, routine things. The worry is out of proportion to the actual situation, may feel impossible to control, and interferes with your ability to get things done.

• Social Anxiety Disorder, which used to be called social phobia, is a condition where you feel excessive anxiety and self-consciousness about everyday social situations. You may avoid social situations entirely out of a fear of being embarrassed, judged, or viewed negatively by others.

• Panic Disorder causes repeated attacks of extreme anxiety and terror, known as panic attacks, which tend to peak within minutes but can last up to 20 minutes or even an hour. They usually involve feelings of impending doom, heart palpitations, chest pain, and shortness of breath. Panic attacks may be triggered by a specific event or they may start randomly.

• Separation Anxiety Disorder is a condition where you feel excessive worry or fear about being separated from the person or people you’re closest to. You may feel great distress that these people will be hurt or not come back to you when you are apart. This condition often starts in childhood, but can persist through adulthood.

• Specific Phobias are excessive fears about a specific object, situation, or activity that’s generally not harmful. These phobias may even cause panic attacks. Common phobias include flying, blood, injections, specific animals or insects, or public speaking.

• Agoraphobia is a condition where you avoid situations or places where you might feel trapped, or where escape might be impossible or embarrassing. People with agoraphobia may have extreme aversions to public transportation, open spaces, enclosed spaces, crowds, or being outside of the home.

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a condition in which a person experiences uncontrollable and recurring thoughts (obsessions), and engages in repetitive behaviors (compulsions), or both.

What Are the Symptoms of Anxiety?

• Feelings of nervousness or restlessness

• Being unable to control your worry

• A sense of impending doom or danger

• Rapid or increased heart rate

• Rapid breathing or hyperventilation

• Trouble sleeping

• Nausea, muscle tension, and fatigue

Healing Anxiety with EMDR Therapy

Anxiety is the body’s alarm system when our brain detects a real or perceived threat via activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Real threats pose a serious threat to our existence, while perceived threats are psychological and can cause unnecessary anxiety.

Perceived threats activate unprocessed thoughts and feelings from the distant past—formed under distress—that are stored within negative neural networks in the brain. Having been formed under distress, they are often irrational, implicit, and over time become solidified as “automatic thoughts and beliefs.”

When triggered, automatic thoughts and beliefs impair our ability to accurately perceive and respond to life—as it actually is—in the present moment, and can significantly increase our anxiety.

While a diagnosis can help us understand our symptoms, the truth is many anxiety disorders are driven by automatic thoughts—triggered by perceived threats—that stem from unprocessed and often irrational thoughts and feelings.

EMDR therapy works by desensitizing, reprocessing, and reconsolidating the neural networks responsible for automatic thoughts and beliefs, effectively healing the root cause of anxiety, often within the first few sessions.

What Can I Expect From Treatment?

• Enhanced Anxiety Resolution: EMDR's ability to rapidly desensitize and reprocess anxiety-related memory networks leads to profound and lasting anxiety resolution.

• Increased Self-Awareness and Integration: EMDR fosters greater insight into one's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that resolve and eliminate anxiety.

• Holistic Healing: This comprehensive approach promotes holistic healing by addressing the root causes of anxiety and promoting mind-body integration .

Most Major Insurance Providers Offer Out-of-Network Coverage to Help Pay for Therapy.

Ready to chat?