Depression & Anxiety

Depression is often characterized by sadness, lack of motivation, crying spells, despair and/or preoccupation with death or suicide. People with depression also can exhibit irritability symptoms that tend to alienate others.  Depression is a real thing and when it hits hard it's not so easy to "just get over it". The hurt and despair can put you in a rut and really suppress the ‘person you were’.

Your depression may be situational (including Grief & Loss) or Clinical; either due to recent life circumstances or long term issues. The good news is there are really good outcome measures treating these symptoms with good evidenced based techniques combined with strong foundations and philosophies.

Anxiety is part of our normal functioning. Some anxiety is a great thing; like when you get butterflies from being close to someone for the first time or the excitement and anticipation you get before starting something new or performing. What happens is for a lot of people it gets out of control and makes their lives unmanageable.

Different symptoms across the anxiety spectrum include 

• Generalized Anxiety (feeling on the edge)

• Obsessive Compulsive (counting, obsessions with contamination, symmetry, rituals...)

• Panic Attacks (palpitations, pounding heart or accelerated heart rate; sweating, trembling or shaking, sensations of shortness of breath or smothering...)

• Agoraphobia: anxiety about places or situations where escape might be difficult or embarrassing...)

• Social Phobia: (fear of social or performance situations in which embarrassment may occur...)

• Specific Phobia: (elevators, shots/injections, spiders...)

• Posttraumatic Stress: (traumatic event is persistently reexperienced, avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing, symptoms of increased arousal *see Trauma section)

You may not have enough symptoms to qualify you for any whole "Disorder" but enough symptoms in one section or across the spectrum that you feel of your functioning is out of control. Whatever your situation is, the goal of therapy is to significantly reduce and/or eliminate these symptoms and as mentioned above with Depression, there are really good outcomes when addressing these symptoms with evidenced based techniques combined with strong foundations and philosophies.

Anxiety & Depression combined has recently been presented by some clinicians to be its own "animal" operating on a continuum and requiring specific interventions. Suffering from both Anxiety and Depression can be extremely debilitating to one's mental and physical health. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) has good evidenced based outcomes for treating Anxiety/Depression combined.