Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety can take many forms, including but not limited to feeling nervous/on edge, distressing physical sensations, panic, frequent worries that are difficult to control, or discomfort and avoidance of social situations, specific places, animals or objects.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has strong empirical support in the treatment of anxiety. CBT helps you to gain insight on how anxiety maintains itself in your life, and most importantly learn strategies to break the anxiety cycle and regain control of your life.

Post-Traumatic & Acute Stress Disorders

A traumatic event is an exceptionally stressful experience that causes a sense of horror, utter helplessness, serious injury, or threat of serious injury or death to oneself or loved ones. After experiencing a traumatic event, it’s normal to have upsetting memories, feeling on edge or experience difficulty sleeping.

For most, these symptoms subside over time. If symptoms that cause significant distress or impair your functioning persist (> 1 month), treatment may be indicated. The good news is that there are effective treatments, including Prolonged Exposure (PE) and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), which both have strong empirical support and are recommended by the American Psychiatric Association.

Evidence-based treatments for PTSD involve education about symptoms and how they are maintained, processing thoughts and feelings associated with the traumatic event, and learning skills.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Obsessions are ideas, thoughts, images or impulses that are unwanted, senseless, and interfering. While all people experience unwanted thoughts from time to time, obsessions may persist even though a person may try to ignore or forget about them. They are experienced as unpleasant and distressing, and may elicit feelings of anxiety, guilt, shame or other uncomfortable emotions. Obsessions vary widely in their content, including but not limited to contamination, violence, sex, religion, mistakes, or fear of causing or failing to prevent harm.

Compulsions consist of thoughts and behaviors that an individual engages in to neutralize or eliminate obsessions. While they may temporarily reduce discomfort, compulsions can become habitual and excessive, making them difficult to control.

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is the gold-standard treatment for OCD and has strong empirical support. ERP involves identifying and ranking obsessively feared and avoided situations and compulsive rituals. This personalized list is then used to guide treatment and allow individuals to overcome obsessions gradually while preventing engagement in compulsions.

Sleep Disorders

Insomnia

Insomnia is characterized by persistent problems with sleep that may include difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up too early or feeling poorly rested.

Did you know that insomnia is the most common psychological health problem?! Despite how common it is, insomnia is not a minor concern and should not be ignored. Chronic insomnia ( > 1 month) can result in mood changes, impaired memory and concentration, anxiety, impaired work and social functioning and reduced quality of life.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is the gold standard treatment for insomnia, demonstrating improvements in sleep quality in as little as 5 sessions! CBT-I involves learning skills to change sleep habits and improve sleep quality. Although CBT-I is a short-term treatment, its benefits are long-standing.

Nightmares

The experience of nightmares from time to time (e.g. monthly) is completely normal. However, if you experience nightmares frequently, accompanied by a high level of distress and/or a negative impact on your daily life then seeking treatment to reduce nightmare frequency may be beneficial. The frequent experience of nightmares may be a symptom of another problem (e.g. PTSD) or may occur as a stand alone problem.

Imagery Rehearsal Therapy is an effective short-term treatment that has demonstrated effectiveness in reducing the frequency of nightmares, regardless of their origin.

Gastrointestinal Disorders

Irritable Bowel Syndrome & Functional GI Disorders

For individuals with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or other functional GI disorders the bowel doesn’t work the way it should, causing painful and sometimes debilitating physical symptoms. In IBS the nerves and muscles of the bowel are hypersensitive to triggers, such as certain foods, hormones, and stress. While triggers are not the cause of IBS, they can aggravate  symptoms.

Cognitive behavioral therapy helps individuals with IBS and functional GI disorders gain awareness of triggers that impact their symptoms and learn strategies to manage triggers, mitigate stress and improve functioning and quality of life.

Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder

Characterized by an avoidance or restriction of food intake that results in failure to meet nutrition needs, often resulting in significant weight loss, malnutrition, and impaired social/work functioning. While causes may vary, individuals with ARFID may avoid foods because of unpleasant sensory characteristics, or a learned fear of the consequences of eating food, such as pain or nausea.

Behavioral therapy is used to help individuals with ARFID understand factors that maintain the disorder and relearn through corrective experiences that foods are safe and can be tolerated. As with all effective therapy, treatment for ARFID is gradual and tailored to an individual’s specific needs and concerns. .

Rumination Syndrome

Rumination syndrome results in the reflexive (involuntary) regurgitation of recently eaten food, resulting in difficulties with eating and digestion.

Diaphragmatic breathing retraining paired with the systematic reintroduction of soft and solid foods allows individuals regain control of their diaphragm (the muscles responsible for regurgitation) to prevent regurgitation and allow for normal digestion to take place.