Anxiety and Depression

Understanding your anxiety and depression means

• looking at how your thoughts, behaviors and feelings interact to decrease anxiety and depression, while promoting growth and meaningful connection;

• exploring your relationships and your ability to be your true self within these relationships;

• examining your core beliefs and becoming more authentic.

How will therapy help?

In therapy, we will examine how your thoughts and behaviors impact your feelings. More specifically, we will look at how your core beliefs and automatic negative thoughts impact your feelings and behaviors. Restructuring these thoughts results in improved coping, mood and anxiety. All of this occurs within the context of your relationships.

Why are relationships important?

We are hardwired for connection. Neuroscience—Including brain imaging studies— shows us that the brain grows within a connecting relationship. When we have supportive, nurturing relationships, we function better not only cognitively, but emotionally. When we have stressful, disconnecting relationships, we can experience sadness, anxiety, disconnection and isolation.

How are our brains related to our emotions?

Our emotions are housed in the limbic system of our brains. Various parts of the limbic system affect how our emotions are triggered, how we respond to this triggered emotion, how we interpret and remember events, and how we regulate our expression of emotion. More information about the brain and our emotions can be found here.

Can I be depressed and anxious and still have supportive relationships?

Of course! However, if our relationships are not healthy, we may continue to feel depressed and anxious. In therapy, we have the ability to empower ourselves through cognitive behavioral techniques to improve our symptoms of depression and anxiety, and it also is important to address relationship issues that may be contributing.

Do I need to have a lot of supportive relationships?

No. The experience of even one mutually empathic relationship where we feel connected is enough. What does a mutually empathic relationship look like? You will know because it is one that makes you feel energized, creative, and strong. In a healthy, mutually empathic relationship, times of struggle are met with responsivity and the relationship itself experiences growth.

What does it mean to be “genuine”?

Being genuine, or authentic, means that you have the capacity to be your real self—feelings thoughts and all—in your relationships. It means that you have the space to be accepted and not judged so that you can feel comfortable to be intentional in your relationships, while being sensitive to how you are impacting the other person.

Being genuine does not mean what Jordan (2018) describes as “total reactivity (what we might call amygdala authenticity).” Instead it is the ability to not keep parts of yourself hidden from your experiences for fear of invalidation, judgment and disconnection. When you alter yourself to “fit in” for fear of judgment or to meet others expectations, you lose mutuality and authenticity.