What’s the difference between worry and anxiety? How can I best parent my anxious child? How do I date after a divorce? Does my child have OCD? Are your thoughts intrusive?
If you’re asking these types of questions, you’re not alone. Welcome.
stop worrying, start living
Stop worrying,
start living
Tell me about your situation
- I’m an adult experiencing anxiety.
- I’m a parent who wants to help my anxious child.
- I’m an adult with obsessive compulsive disorder.
- I’m a parent of a child who has obsessive compulsive disorder.
- I’m divorced and want tools to help me adjust to this new life.
- I’m not looking for therapy but would like career or life coaching.
My specialties and expertise are focused on treating adults who have anxiety disorders or obsessive compulsive spectrum disorders, are going through life transitions (like life after divorce), or who would like help with their parenting skills.
I prefer the down-to-earth approach, so I translate the evidence-based research and give you useable solutions. I listen to your needs and then together we develop a plan that feels doable and that includes milestones to note improvement. Believe it or not, therapy shouldn’t be boring or stodgy, and it shouldn’t last forever.
Conversations with Joanna
7 Myths of Anxiety Relief, Part 2
There are a lot of anxiety myths out there. In my last blog post, I dispelled 3 of them. Here are the final 4. Myth: Thought stopping (or replacing, suppressing) is an effective anxiety management technique. I think these were techniques used in the 80’s or sometime, because I still get the random client who…
7 Myths of Anxiety Relief, Part 1
There are a lot of anxiety myths out there. In my next 2 blog posts, I dispel 7 of them — and give you better solutions for dealing with excessive worry or anxiety. Myth: Anxiety is bad. Anyone who’s been reading my stuff knows the answer to this one. False! Anxiety is neither good nor…
Stop the Chatter in Your Head
Well, this has been a pretty shitty year, hasn’t it? I’m hard-pressed to find a silver lining, but I do feel moved when my clients say things like “having worked on my anxiety helped me face this situation so much better than my friends and family” or “for once, I am the one coping, and…
What Do I Say When My Child Asks When Coronavirus Will Go Away?
If you haven’t gotten this question yet as a parent, I’d bet it’s coming. Parents are more anxious, and so are kids. Remember that you can’t control your own anxious thoughts and feelings let alone those of your child. They’re going to happen. What you can do, however, is respond to your child in ways…
Positive Growth from Negative Experiences
Most of us have heard of Post-Traumatic Stress, but not as many of us are aware of Post-Traumatic Growth. It’s a theory that explains a transformation that can happen after experiencing trauma. Developed in the mid-1990s, by psychologists Richard Tedeschi, PhD, and Lawrence Calhoun, PhD, Post-Traumatic Growth “…holds that people who endure psychological struggle following…
5 Steps to Get Better at Being Anxious
I really don’t get people whose temperament isn’t naturally anxious — who now call me and say things like “Wow, Joanna. I now know what you’ve been talking about all these years when you describe waking up anxious” or “not being able to stop the worry.” I feel like I was born anxious. I’ve always…