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 Tips to Get Through 2020’s Holiday Season: A Therapist’s Advice
I have to be honest. My general feeling about the holidays usually leaves me wanting to go to sleep around Thanksgiving and wake up after New Year’s. Thanks to the pandemic, those feelings have only intensified this year. That being said, I’m going to take some of my own advice … Expect to feel a…
Defining Choice Points & What They Mean for the Anxious Mind
I’d like to talk about the term “Choice Point.” It comes from the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT model. A Choice Point refers to a moment in time when you can choose behavior that moves you toward your values or behavior or one that moves you away from them. In the most simplistic terms,…
10 Actions to Help You Stop Singing Anxiety’s Song
A client of mine had the greatest metaphor for her obsessive compulsive disorder. She said that when she came to see me, she had been singing “OCD’s song” for 50+ years. Through our weekly sessions and A LOT of work between sessions, she was able to learn “a new song which gave her freedom.” A…
Find Freedom in “Sure Enough”
I often tell my clients to practice being “sure enough.” While this might initially sound a bit negative, it’s quite the opposite. It’s less about the ho-hum “the best you’re going to get” and more about making a choice that helps lower your anxiety. Here’s the thing. Anxiety wants you to seek out certainty, a…
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…