Anxiety Therapy - a mind-body approach
RELEASE TENSION. FEEL MORE GROUNDED.
Medicare Rebates
in the Northern Beaches & online
What is anxiety?
Anxiety is more than just feeling stressed. Stress is typically caused by an external trigger and disappears when the stressful situation resolves. Anxiety, on the other hand, is defined by persistent, excessive worries that don’t go away even in the absence of a stressor and interfere with daily functioning. Some anxiety disorders may lead a person to avoid enjoyable activities or make it challenging to keep a job.
Anxiety symptoms
Anxiety can manifest in different ways, including:
excessive worrying about everyday situations
persistent feelings of fear or dread
finding it difficult to calm down
panic attacks
feeling tired easily
difficulty concentrating
muscle tension
sleep disturbances.
Anxiety types
Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Generalised Anxiety Disorder is characterised by excessive, hard-to-control worry occurring most days. The worry may jump from topic to topic and is accompanied by physical symptoms.
Panic Disorder
In Panic Disorder, the person experiences recurrent unexpected panic attacks. Panic attacks are a sudden surge of intense fear accompanied by physical symptoms such as trouble breathing, pounding heart, dizziness and sweating.
Social Anxiety Disorder
Social Anxiety Disorder is marked by a strong fear or anxiety about one or more social situations in which the person is exposed to other people’s scrutiny.
Specific phobias
A phobia is the fear of a specific object or situation (such as spiders, heights, flying, etc.) which the person avoids or endures with intense anxiety.
What causes anxiety?
Like many other mental health conditions, anxiety results from a complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors. Individuals may inherit a genetic predisposition or certain personality traits, which, when combined with external stressors or life experiences, can contribute to the development of anxiety disorders.
When to seek help
If stress or anxiety is affecting your daily life and you are finding it hard to cope, it may be time to talk to a therapist.
My mind-body treatment approach for anxiety
When you first come to see me, I take the time to really get to know you. In our first one or two sessions, we’ll explore what’s been happening for you, what you’re struggling with right now, and what your broader life story looks like — including any past or traumatic experiences that may be relevant.
I draw from different therapeutic approaches and take into account your preferences, needs, and pace. Together, we shape the therapy so it feels supportive, meaningful, and right for you.
I generally approach anxiety from 2 angles: the mind and the body.
The mind
I offer practical cognitive and behavioural strategies from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). These tools can help you relate differently to anxious thoughts and feelings, so you can start coping more effectively from early on in therapy.
From an ACT perspective, anxiety often shows up as getting caught in worry, feeling disconnected from the present moment, and responding in ways that don’t really help in the long run. At the heart of anxiety is often experiential avoidance — the understandable but exhausting effort to control, avoid, or get rid of uncomfortable internal experiences. Over time, this can shrink life, limiting choices, activities, and the sense of freedom to live fully.
Rather than fighting anxiety, ACT focuses on gently noticing and making room for inner experiences, while moving towards what matters to you. Depending on your situation, this might include approaches such as graded exposure for phobias, where feared situations are approached gradually and safely, at your own pace.
The body
Alongside this, I work with the body through Focusing. Anxiety doesn’t live only in the mind — it’s also experienced physically, often as tightness, restlessness, pressure, a knot in the stomach, or a sense that something isn’t quite right. In Focusing, we gently turn towards these bodily experiences rather than pushing them away.
Focusing is a process of listening inwardly for the body’s felt sense of an issue — a whole, often subtle bodily knowing that carries more information than thoughts alone. By slowing down and giving careful, compassionate attention to these sensations, the body often begins to shift on its own. This can bring relief, clarity, and a sense of steadiness that feels deeply grounding.
For people experiencing anxiety, Focusing can help reduce the intensity of physical symptoms, increase tolerance for uncomfortable sensations, and lessen the cycle of fear about anxiety itself. It offers a way to relate differently to bodily sensations, so they feel less overwhelming and easier to stay with, while also allowing difficult experiences to be explored in a gentle and contained way.