Anxiety Therapy in Newport Beach, Fullerton & Online Throughout California
Your Anxiety Is Trying to Tell You Something
Anxiety is one of the most exhausting things to live with, especially when you can't figure out what it is actually about. It shows up uninvited, it doesn't respond to logic, and it has a way of making everything feel more uncertain than it needs to be. Anxiety a signal. And signals, when we learn to read them, have something worth hearing.
What Anxiety Can Look Like
Anxiety does not always announce itself as anxiety. For many people it is not the dramatic, acute kind. It is quieter and more pervasive:
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A persistent hum of worry you can't quite turn off
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Difficulty trusting what is good: relationships, praise, moments of rest and peace
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A strong need for control or routine that makes spontaneity feel impossible
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High standards and relentless achievement driven more by fear of failure than genuine desire
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Overthinking decisions or replaying conversations afterward
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Difficulty relaxing, even when nothing is actually wrong
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Procrastination, avoidance, or staying very busy to outrun a feeling
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Feeling like an imposter, waiting to be found out
Many of the people I work with have been anxious for so long that it feels like just who they are. It does not have to be. Anxiety is a pattern that developed for reasons, and those reasons are often worth understanding.
How i work with anxiety
Anxiety Is Trying to Tell You Something.
Let’s Find Out What.
I approach anxiety with curiosity rather than urgency. Not because the experience of anxiety is not real or serious, but because the fastest path through is rarely the one that tries to manage it from the surface.
My work draws on psychodynamic and attachment-based principles where anxiety is understood to have a specific relationship to underlying feeling. When a genuine emotion begins to rise, particularly one that has been historically dangerous to experience, anxiety is what intercepts it. It lives in the body: in the tightening of muscles, in constrained breathing, in the bracing posture of someone who learned early that the world required constant vigilance.
Rather than focusing primarily on coping skills or thought restructuring, we go a layer deeper: exploring what your anxiety is signaling, how early relational experiences have shaped your nervous system's sense of what is safe, and what feelings or relational patterns might be living just out of awareness.
Beneath anxiety, there is almost always something else. Grief that never found a place to land. Anger that felt too dangerous to express. Longing for connection that carries an old memory of loss. Love that feels too big or too vulnerable to let in. Anxiety is not the problem itself. It is what happens when those underlying feelings have nowhere to go.
The goal is not to make you someone who never feels anxious. Anxiety is part of being human, and some anxiety is useful. The goal is to help you develop a different relationship with it — one where you can hear what it is trying to say, rather than just trying to make it stop. As things become clearer, you will find you have more real choices about how to respond, and more confidence that you can handle what comes your way.
If any of this resonates, I encourage you to reach out! We can start with a conversation to see if we’d be a good fit and take it from there.
who i work with
High-achieving people who carry anxiety quietly beneath a composed, functional exterior
People whose anxiety lives in the body: chronic muscle tension, shallow breathing, difficulty sleeping, a persistent sense of bracing
Creatives and professionals whose anxiety has taken the shape of perfectionism, procrastination, or creative block
Those who have tried to logic or manage their way through anxiety, only to find that it keeps returning
People who have always been "the anxious one" and have begun to wonder whether that is actually changeable
People who overanalyze relationships, worry about being too much, brace for disapproval, or sense the closeness they want might feel overwhelming
People navigating life transitions that have stirred up deep uncertainty: new careers, moves, marriages, parenthood, graduate school
Those who grew up in environments where anxiety was the weather: constant, unpredictable, requiring vigilance just to feel safe
What to Expect in Our Work Together
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Getting Oriented
In our early sessions, we'll work to get to know you. Not just the anxiety itself, but you! Your relationships, your history, when the anxiety shows up, how long it has been with you, and what your life has looked like around it. Understanding you and the particular shape of your anxiety is where we begin.
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Going Deeper
As we build trust and find a rhythm together, we start to explore what is underneath the anxiety. The patterns, the stories, the relational histories that may be quietly running the show. This is where the most meaningful work tends to happen.
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Noticing Change
Over time, many people find that their relationship to anxiety begins to shift — it becomes less in charge. You may find yourself responding rather than reacting, able to sit with uncertainty without bracing or coming undone, and more in contact with what you actually want underneath the worry.
next steps
Anxiety does not have to run the show. If you are ready to understand what yours is really about, I would be glad to hear from you.
I offer a free 15-minute consultation where we can talk about what brings you to therapy, how I might be able to help, and whether this feels like a good fit. No pressure, no commitment.
I offer anxiety therapy in person in Newport Beach, CA and Fullerton, CA, and online throughout California.