Anxiety is a normal response to anticipating or experiencing uncomfortable situations. It becomes a problem when your emotional and physical sensations overwhelm you to the point that it interferes with your day to day life. Extreme anxiety causes intense fear and avoidance. Post-traumatic stress (PTSD) occurs when you are or believe that your physical and or emotional well being is threatened.

• Have you experienced a traumatic event including fear and threat of personal injury or harm?
• Do you have intense anxiety in social situations or relationships because of past childhood bullying or adult relationship abuse
• Does your body freeze? Do you have sweaty palms, shortness of breath? Do you feel your heart racing?
• Do you avoid places, situations, people because of past experiences?
• Do you have any negative beliefs about yourself that you carry the stress about?
• Do you remember past events and feel nervous or distressed by them?

We develop a plan, as partners, on how to heal your trauma and reduce or eliminate anxiety. Using eye movement therapy (EMDR), I act as a guide to remove fear and anxiety from a file in the “flight or flight” part of the brain and into the frontal lobes where it is processed and placed in a new file with a positive label like “I am okay”. The result is that you can now live without distressing memories and acute physical sensations.