Anxiety Therapists / registered Psychotherapists: Anna Wolanczyk and George Hartwell provide:
Therapy for Anxiety
We make use of several methods to deal with Anxiety:
- Systematic Desensitization: We can use systematic imagined practice to unlearn the triggers of anxiety. This works well especially where the anxiety has a limited scope. It works well for social anxiety and test anxiety, for example.
- Core Issue Psychotherapy: Often a web of events and beliefs underlie the anxiety. Exploring these issues can discover and resolve the core issue. There can be obsessiveness related to a need to protect others based on a sense of being unprotected by one's parents as a child. One example we have seen is a younger brother who was not protected from abusive physical domination by his older brother.
- Personality Transformation: personality traits such as People Pleasing lead to anxiety. The core beliefs within People Pleasing will need to be addressed as part of the therapy for anxiety.
Anxiety Can Undermine Your Life. Like a fire growing in size anxiety needs to be dealt with before it gets out of hand and more difficult to control.
If you have experienced panic attacks then it is natural for you to start feeling anxious about the events that might trigger a panic attack.
Anxiety undermines our life:
- by interrupting sleep,
- by effecting appetite and digestion,
- by fogging up our thinking,
- by interfering with learning,
- interfering when you are taking a test or
- hurting your performance at a job interview.
Life Conditions that set off Anxiety
There are two conditions that are in the life of one who develops Anxiety or Panic Attacks. One will find that anxiety becomes a problem when a person feels alone and believes the world is a dangerous world. Be feeling alone we mean that one has lost a significant parent or loved one.
Just having a therapist in your corner can be enough to enable you to cope with that sense of being vulnerable because you are alone.
Healing of Anxiety
A guide who you can trust is important for healing. The love and wisdom that your counsellor brings is a big part of the healing you are looking for. Both Anna and George have client reports and the support of other professionals that allow us to assure us that we listen with compassion, understanding and empathy. We will also bring our sound experience, professional credentials and high quality education to your side on this journey to healing.
The journey to healing begins with a plan, a good guide and taking the first steps in the right direction. If it was something you could do alone you want have found a solution by now. Getting professional help is a wise move at this time..
Contact us to get started.
If you'd like an initial consultation where you may ask any questions you might have and we can explore if we'd be a good match, then we suggest give us a phone call . If you're interested in talking and finding out more, call us, we are here for you.
A question about social Anxiety and Avoidant Personality Disorder
Is Avoidant Personality the same as social anxiety?
The Avoidant Personality is easily distinguished from Social Anxiety. They are not the same. They are not on some continuum for less severe to more severe.
When you look in depth at social anxiety the person does not find comfort in people or being with people. It is not about being shy or unable to deal with people in social situations. It is that such situation create anxiety because people have never been a source of comfort. People are a source of anxiety.
That means that social anxiety is a learned avoidance response. Some of this learned anxiety can be dealt with using a simple fear desensitization program. I did this once with a teacher who approached me because I was doing a test anxiety project with some students. I used the systematic desensitization protocol with him and he liked the result.
The person with social anxiety feels anxiety around people and does not associate contact with people as calming. He or she feels better apart from people. The fantasy of the socially anxious is a cabin out alone in a wilderness place far away from anyone else.
The person with social anxiety may function fine in their present life but it is just very uncomfortable being them and being around people. They may avoid social situations that they should be part of and that may hinder them. I have hope that with fear desensitization and psychotherapy they can find greater comfort with loved ones and grow out of the social anxiety.
This is different from the avoidant personality whose avoidance is focused on bonding, connection, intimacy with others and especially with one’s spouse. Non-intimate social contact is not an issue with the avoidant personality as it is for the one with social anxiety.
The avoidant Personality does not complain about anxiety around people or dream of getting away from people. They simply craft their social interaction so that they are never open or vulnerable to others. For example, they will not share anything to do with their feelings. Nor will they acknowledge other’s feelings. They have a way of participating in the world while living in deep detachment from it.
Every aspect of social interaction is modified by the avoidant personality so as to eliminate the risk of close personal interaction. This involves controlling appearances. In marriage it prevents intimacy. With friends it creates distance.
I would compare the avoidant personality with a psychopath because of the complete separation of social interaction - the persona - from the real inner person. Like the psychopath there appears to be underlying hostility toward others who might expose them. They are completely desperate in their need to avoid exposure or vulnerability.
In summary I would say the person with social anxiety may have treatable learned anxieties about social contact. These would be open to unlearning the fear responses. The avoidant personality has a much deeper commitment to people avoidance that becomes rooted into their personality and identity and is expressed in avoidance of authentic communication - anything with the possibility of creating real connection, closeness and intimacy.
The avoidant will avoid authentic change or therapy because it risks breaking their shell and creating intimacy.
Is Avoidant Personality the same as social anxiety?
The Avoidant Personality is easily distinguished from Social Anxiety. They are not the same. They are not on some continuum for less severe to more severe.
When you look in depth at social anxiety the person does not find comfort in people or being with people. It is not about being shy or unable to deal with people in social situations. It is that such situation create anxiety because people have never been a source of comfort. People are a source of anxiety.
That means that social anxiety is a learned avoidance response. Some of this learned anxiety can be dealt with using a simple fear desensitization program. I did this once with a teacher who approached me because I was doing a test anxiety project with some students. I used the systematic desensitization protocol with him and he liked the result.
The person with social anxiety feels anxiety around people and does not associate contact with people as calming. He or she feels better apart from people. The fantasy of the socially anxious is a cabin out alone in a wilderness place far away from anyone else.
The person with social anxiety may function fine in their present life but it is just very uncomfortable being them and being around people. They may avoid social situations that they should be part of and that may hinder them. I have hope that with fear desensitization and psychotherapy they can find greater comfort with loved ones and grow out of the social anxiety.
This is different from the avoidant personality whose avoidance is focused on bonding, connection, intimacy with others and especially with one’s spouse. Non-intimate social contact is not an issue with the avoidant personality as it is for the one with social anxiety.
The avoidant Personality does not complain about anxiety around people or dream of getting away from people. They simply craft their social interaction so that they are never open or vulnerable to others. For example, they will not share anything to do with their feelings. Nor will they acknowledge other’s feelings. They have a way of participating in the world while living in deep detachment from it.
Every aspect of social interaction is modified by the avoidant personality so as to eliminate the risk of close personal interaction. This involves controlling appearances. In marriage it prevents intimacy. With friends it creates distance.
I would compare the avoidant personality with a psychopath because of the complete separation of social interaction - the persona - from the real inner person. Like the psychopath there appears to be underlying hostility toward others who might expose them. They are completely desperate in their need to avoid exposure or vulnerability.
In summary I would say the person with social anxiety may have treatable learned anxieties about social contact. These would be open to unlearning the fear responses. The avoidant personality has a much deeper commitment to people avoidance that becomes rooted into their personality and identity and is expressed in avoidance of authentic communication - anything with the possibility of creating real connection, closeness and intimacy.
The avoidant will avoid authentic change or therapy because it risks breaking their shell and creating intimacy.