Anxiety

McLean Counseling Center

Anxiety Disorders

While it is normal for people to feel anxious or nervous, anxiety disorders consisting of prolonged anxiety, excessive worrying, and persistent feelings of dread can cause physical and emotional distress, interfering with a person’s ability to live a normal life. At McLean Counseling Center, we work closely with each patient’s individual needs to design a treatment plan to help with a variety of anxiety disorders:

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized anxiety disorder (or GAD) is marked by excessive, exaggerated anxiety and worry about everyday life events for no obvious reason. People with symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder tend to always expect disaster and can’t stop worrying about health, money, family, work, or school.

Anxiety Treatment Methods

We offer a variety of treatments for anxiety that help people lead the life they want. Our caring therapists use clinically-proven methods to treat the deep, underlying causes of anxiety, facilitating lasting change and healing.

We work with each individual to replace deep-seated emotional reactions with peaceful, healthy responses. By breaking cyclical patterns of worry, patients feel empowered and enjoy a positive outlook.

Our team uses a variety of treatment methods to help our patients:

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Medications

Medication can be one of the most valuable tools to treat anxiety disorders, especially in tandem with other treatment methods.
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Psychotherapy

Also known as “talk therapy,” psychotherapy helps patients open up about their disorder so they can better control their symptoms and learn how to cope with their symptoms as they arise in everyday life. There are several forms of psychotherapy, including behavioral therapy, family therapy, and psychoeducation

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Lifestyle Changes

Even simple lifestyle changes can help manage anxiety symptoms. This can include:

  • Switching to a healthier diet
  • Avoiding foods that raise your blood sugar
  • Avoiding substances that cause energy bursts and crashes (like caffeine)
  • Incorporating daily exercise into your routine
  • Avoiding drugs and alcohol, which can exacerbate anxiety

While it’s possible to implement these changes on your own, many patients find it helpful to walk through these changes with a therapist who can offer support, troubleshoot obstacles, and find sustainable ways to make lasting changes.

Panic Disorder

The core symptom of panic disorder is the panic attack, an overwhelming combination of physical and psychological distress. During an attack several of these symptoms occur in combination:

  • Feelings of intense terror
  • Dizziness
  • Nausea
  • Difficulty breathing
  • Uncontrollable shaking or tremors
  • Confusion
  • Intense feelings of dread or foreboding – these can be focused on a specific fear but can also be general

Phobias

A phobia is an overwhelming and debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal. Phobias are more pronounced than fears. They develop when a person has an exaggerated or unrealistic sense of danger about a situation or object. Examples of common phobias include:

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Social phobia (or social anxiety disorder)

For people with social anxiety disorder, everyday social interactions cause irrational anxiety, fear, self- consciousness, and embarrassment. Symptoms may include excess fear of situations in which one may be judged, worry about embarrassment or humiliation, or concern about offending someone.

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Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is an extreme or irrational fear of entering open or crowded places, of leaving one’s own home, or of being in places from which escape is difficult.

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(703) 821-1073

admin@mcleancounselingcenter.com

1307 Vincent Place McLean, VA 22101

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