Anxiety therapists in Rockwood, Tennessee TN
Anxiety or Fears
Life Connections Counseling Services, PLLC
Licensed Professional Counselor, LPC-MHSP, NCC, RPTS
We provide individualized treatment for individuals that are affected by anxiety.
12 Years Experience
Anxiety or Fears
Brett Swords
Psychologist, Ph.D.
Anxiety can be overwhelming and get in the way of what is important to us. I specialize in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness-based approaches for anxiety, which are evidence-based treatments that are proven to work. Together, we will address thoughts and behaviors that may be feeding your anxiety.
16 Years Experience
Anxiety or Fears
Dr. Caroline Hicks
Psychologist, PhD, LP
Anxiety and fear can be approached from a variety of therapeutic techniques. Depending on severity, we can stay flexible in approaches to your anxiety and fear that you are experiencing. I like to note that many anxieties and fears are rooted in real experiences that are worthy of unearthing and healing. For those who come with anxieties that are based in reality, such as experiencing oppression or aggression from society, we will work together to find a path that allows you to feel like you get to live a life of value and finding ways to decrease your anxiety without necessarily losing access to safety.
7 Years Experience
Anxiety or Fears
Jayson L. Mystkowski
Psychologist, Ph.D., ABPP
While Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT) is highly effective in the treatment of anxiety disorders (e.g., Panic Disorder, Social Phobia, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), clinicians do see some “return of fear,” or partial relapse, in some patients due to a variety of factors. Over the past two decades, treatment researchers, with whom Dr. Jayson Mystkowski had the pleasure of working with at UCLA for over 10 years, have studied “return of fear” and discovered some key variables that may optimize the effects of learning during CBT for anxiety disorders (Craske et al., 2008).
First, evidence suggests that focusing on tolerating fear versus eliminating fear yields better clinical outcomes in the long term. Namely, teaching clients that fear and anxiety are normal feelings, rather than attempting to “down-regulate” such feelings all the time, is more realistic and seems to engender “hardier” clients. Second, helping clients to generate an expectancy that “scary things will not happen,” is very powerful. To do this, it is important for clinicians to create more complex exposure exercises (i.e., tasks in which a client confronts a stimulus of which they are afraid), using multiple feared stimuli instead of one at a time. Then, the lack of a feared outcome becomes particularly surprising and memorable for a client and fear reduction is more potent. Third, increasing the accessibility and retrievability of non-fear memories learned during treatment are powerful factors in mitigating against a return of fear. Craske and colleagues demonstrated that exposure to variations of a feared stimulus, using a random schedule across multiple contexts or situations, is more effective than exposure to the same stimulus, on a predictable schedule, in an unchanging environment. The former paradigm, it is argued, creates stronger non-fear memories that are easier for a client to access when subsequently confronting feared objects or situations outside of the therapy context, than the later scenario.
In sum, clinicians have long been aware that some fear or anxiety returns following very successful CBT treatment. As mentioned above, there are some clear, empirically supported ways to modify the therapy we provide to further help clients generalize the gains made in therapy sessions to the real world.
20 Years Experience
Anxiety or Fears
Meghan McCoy-Smith
Psychologist, PsyD
Anxiety and fears can be managed through understanding, evidence based approaches and exposure. I am skilled and trained in working to help individuals reduce and cope with anxiety and fear.
9 Years Experience