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Anxiety Therapy in Chicago

Meet Our Anxiety Therapists

Does Anxiety Keep You On Edge?

  • Do you struggle to silence intrusive thoughts that make you ruminate and worry?

  • Are you buckling under the pressure you impose on yourself to succeed?

  • Is anxiety the reason why you have difficulty maintaining healthy relationships, avoid socializing, or don’t go after what you want in life? 

Perhaps without even realizing it, your mind is always stuck in future tense, imagining worst-case scenarios that generate fear and panic. Because your body can’t tell the difference between what is made up and what’s actually happening, you may experience rushes of adrenaline that mimic what it feels like when you are in danger.  

Whenever your fight-flight-or-freeze response gets activated, it may culminate in panic attacks. As a sense of impending doom takes over, you might break into a sweat, hyperventilate, and feel your heart race uncontrollably, feeling as though you’re having a heart attack.

You May Be Overwhelmed With Too Many Responsibilities

Maybe the expectations at work you have set for yourself—or have allowed others to set for you—have left you too stressed to enjoy quality time with friends, go on dates, or engage in self-care. If you feel stuck in a job you don’t like, insecurity and self-doubt might prevent you from going after the career you want. 

Anxiety feeds on itself—you may fear that you will feel this way forever and never get out of the anxiety spiral you are trapped in. But even though you know you are at a breaking point and something has to change, it can be difficult to go it alone.

Fortunately, therapy will pair you with a supportive counselor who can help you navigate the challenges you face and offer helpful strategies for getting your anxiety under control.


Women Often Feel Under Pressure In Today’s Society

According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “27.3 percent of Americans aged 18 and over have symptoms of an anxiety disorder.” In the right moments, anxiety can be helpful keeping us safe or motivating us to succeed. However, anxiety becomes problematic when it is too intense or goes on for too long.

The pressures and expectations placed on women in our culture can fuel anxiety. We are constantly bombarded by messages about the lives we should be leading, but these expectations aren’t always consistent with who we are. For example, most women of childbearing age are expected to get married and have kids while balancing a rewarding career.

But what if that’s not what we want to do? The discrepancy between what’s expected of us and what we actually want can keep us stuck in a cycle of worry that we’re not measuring up to society’s standards.

Self-Comparison Contributes To Anxiety

Because humans are highly social creatures, much of our anxiety stems from our desire to make others happy, oftentimes at the expense of our own needs. In particular, women are wired to be relational and often the ones responsible for the emotional labor within our families. However, these days, social media has changed the flavor of how we relate to our peer group, prompting us to constantly compare ourselves to others. But, as Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

Although relationships have the potential to harm, they can also heal. By cultivating a close connection with a therapist, you can examine the root causes of anxiety and learn effective ways to manage it.

Anxiety Therapy Can Help You Discover Who You Want To Be

You might become anxious when you think about the pressure you’re under to achieve success and ensure others are pleased with you. But have you ever stopped and asked yourself what you truly want out of life? If someone else’s opinion wasn’t influencing you, how would things be different? 

In therapy, no one has an agenda for you and you won’t have to people-please. If, through habit, you find you want to please your anxiety therapist, they are trained to bring it to your attention and help you shift the focus back to what is best for you. Anxiety counseling acts like a buffer between you and outer influences, giving you space to embark on objective self-discovery. Connecting with your internal compass will help you understand your authentic feelings once you peel away the layers of external forces.

What To Expect In Sessions

Our anxiety therapists are here to facilitate whatever you would like to accomplish in therapy to ensure anxiety is addressed. Short-term treatment goals may include things like sleeping better, going out with friends more often, or, by reducing anxiety attacks, freeing up more time to be productive. By providing you with a toolbox of different skills to manage stress relief, your anxiety therapist can offer you techniques that are tailored specifically to you.

We will also explore the underlying reasons why you get anxious—including your history—to help guide us toward the best treatment options for you. By providing you with a better understanding of how anxiety affects the body and mind, you can demystify your symptoms so that they become more easily manageable. In the long term, we aim to help you imagine what your best life looks like and determine the steps you can take to get there.

The Modalities We Use 

Behavioral approaches to treatment are particularly helpful if you suffer from social anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), or other specific phobias, but can also be applied to other situations. With exposure therapy, you will face the fears that cause anxiety, either by imagining them or by reenacting real-life scenarios, within a safe and controlled environment. Through repeated exposure, your body’s anxiety response will gradually diminish.

Additionally, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for anxiety will help you identify and challenge the negative self-talk that perpetuates anxious feelings and behaviors. And Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) will help you connect with your values and then make lifestyle adjustments to align with what matters most to you. Depending on your needs, we might also incorporate breathing techniques and other coping skills.

You may be feeling restricted by anxiety right now but the counselors at Balanced Awakening hold the hope and vision that you won't have to struggle with its symptoms forever. There are many options for overcoming the impact anxiety has on your life and we have the tools and knowledge to help you live a more rewarding life.

But Maybe You’re Not Sure If Anxiety Therapy Is Right For You…

My anxiety is too severe for treatment with a therapist to work.

It takes a lot of courage to come to therapy when you have anxiety. After all, talking with a new anxiety therapist could temporarily raise your anxiety level even higher. Although you may experience a spike of anxiety initially, once you establish rapport with your counselor, you should begin to feel much more comfortable. With each subsequent session, your baseline for anxiety will continue to decrease.

What if I’m too busy to schedule anxiety counseling?

We understand that people who struggle with anxiety usually have a lot on their plates already. Fortunately, by committing to anxiety therapy that only amounts to one hour per week, you can make inroads in managing your anxiety that will benefit your well-being. Perhaps you will use anxiety therapy sessions to determine how to re-prioritize your time and create a little more space for yourself. Or, if you struggle with panic attacks, the treatment you receive will free up time that’s currently taken up with recovery.


I worry that in anxiety therapy, I will either have nothing to say or talk too much.

Our anxiety therapists in Chicago specialize in treating anxiety, catering to individuals at any point on the readiness spectrum. We are here to support you, meeting you wherever you are in your journey. If you're unsure of what to say, we can provide guidance to help you get started. On the other hand, if you feel overwhelmed with thoughts, we can assist you in determining the most beneficial topics to discuss.


Don’t Let Anxiety Dim Your Inner Light

With anxiety in check, you can live the life you’ve always dreamed of. At Balanced Awakening, we are committed to helping you live the fulfilling life you've always dreamed of. If you'd like to learn more about anxiety therapy in Chicago or schedule a free 15-minute call, please visit our contact page. We offer both in-person and virtual services throughout Chicago, IL, as well as virtual services in Miami, FL.

1  https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/mental-health.htm

Balanced Awakening Lakeview
4043 N Ravenswood, Ste 301 & 302
Chicago, IL 60613
 
Balanced Awakening Andersonville
5215 N Ravenswood, Ste 201 & 208
Chicago, IL 60640
 
Balanced Awakening Loop
25 E Washington, Ste 1505
Chicago, IL 60602
 

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Anxiety Therapy FAQs

  • Anxiety therapy is a type of talk or cognitive behavioral therapy to help you better manage anxiety so it interferes less with your day-to-day life. In anxiety therapy, we work with you on how to cope better with anxiety, giving you tools and ways to approach anxiety so that it is less prominent in your life. Imagine a day where you don’t think much about your anxiety - we can help you get there!

  • Worry is perhaps one of the most common and pervasive ways that anxiety can show up - worry that things will go wrong, worry that you won’t be liked, worry that you won’t do well on a test or work task. There’s also things like social anxiety, where one might be afraid to be with or connect with others. Panic attacks and obsessive compulsive disorder fall under the umbrella of anxiety as well. Anxiety therapy can help with all of the ways that anxiety might be showing up for you.

  • The frequency and duration of anxiety therapy often depends on how pervasive anxiety is in your life. Your therapist will assess your symptoms and experience of day-to-day life and advise you on how many sessions you may need to feel better and how frequently those sessions may occur. Most people benefit from weekly anxiety therapy sessions for a few months in order to see bigger changes in their life.

  • In the first two sessions, your therapist will ask you questions about your life currently, your history, and where you hope to be in the future. From there, you and your therapist will discuss goals for anxiety therapy and a plan of action to help you feel better sooner. Some sessions may focus on understanding your anxiety better, learning tools to cope with anxiety, or possibly even engaging in exposure therapy, an effective anxiety treatment.

  • If in doubt, give it a try! Our anxiety therapists are not only trained to help you with anxiety, but to help you improve your overall life in other ways. So even if you’re not sure how much anxiety is impacting you, if you have a hunch that you could feel better, we can help you.

  • Yes! But with some exceptions. There are 3 situations where, legally and ethically (whether we want to or not) we would have to break your confidentiality. These include if we learn of any potential child or elder abuse from you, we determine that you are at risk of harming yourself or someone else, or we receive a court order for your medical records. Also, some of our providers are under supervision and regularly consult with their supervisor about their client sessions. Supervisors have the same obligation to client confidentiality.

  • All therapists at Balanced Awakening have a strong foundation in psychotherapy and mental health concerns of women. Our anxiety therapists have additional training specifically in anxiety treatment, and routinely see clients who are working on managing anxiety.

  • Our anxiety therapy rate for the first two sessions is $245. After that, 55 minute sessions are $220. Most of our anxiet therapists accept BCBS PPO and Aetna insurance.

  • Absolutely! If your symptoms or presentation of anxiety has been narrowed down to a specific anxiety disorder, your therapist can immediately take a more focused treatment approach based on the diagnosis (if you’d like help with the specific diagnosis first). There are specific treatment protocols that match up with specific diagnoses - and that have been proven through research to work. So in the situations where a specific anxiety diagnosis is agreed upon, your therapist can consult the research for the most effective treatment route to take.

  • Yes! We offer virtual trauma therapy sessions as well as in-person. Sometimes for scheduling reasons or otherwise, it’s easier for clients to engage in anxiety therapy virtually.