Anxiety and Depression
I work with adults in Suffern, NY and via telehealth throughout New York State and Florida, drawing on approaches including EMDR, DBR, CBT, talk therapy, and relational work to address anxiety and depression and the issues that may be contributing to them.
Anxiety and depression are common. So is the stress that major life transitions and changes can bring. Not every hard season is a disorder. But when certain emotional states persist and begin affecting how you function or how you feel about yourself, it is worth paying attention.
Anxiety and depression rarely look the same from one person to the next. One person may constantly brace for something to go wrong. Another may have been going through the motions for so long that they no longer remember what it feels like to care about what they are doing.
What Anxiety Feels Like Beyond Panic Attacks
Many people associate anxiety with panic attacks, but anxiety can be quieter and more constant. It may show up as:
Anxiety may be connected to current stress, other conditions, earlier experiences, or some combination.
What Depression Feels Like Beyond Sadness
Sadness can be part of depression. For many people, though, it is not the most noticeable part. Depression may include:
When Anxiety and Depression Happen Together
Anxiety and depression frequently occur together, which can be confusing to experience. You can be restless and exhausted at once, or worried about everything yet feel hopeless about changing any of it.
Anxiety can wear a person down while depression can make anxiety harder to manage. Over time, the two may reinforce each other, and the cycle can become a problem in its own right, separate from whatever started it.
Looking at What Is Underneath
Symptom relief matters and can be an excellent starting point for treatment. Sometimes it takes a while to understand the whole picture: both the more obvious symptoms and the issues that may be contributing to them. Those may include:
Understanding It May Not Be Enough
Many people come to therapy with an idea of why they feel the way they do. They can name stressors and trace related history and patterns. Despite that understanding, they may still find that their body stays on alert and their feelings do not shift.
You may struggle to feel emotionally safe even when you know you are safe. You can understand that a harsh belief about yourself is inaccurate while still experiencing it as true.
Insight is useful, but for some people it is not sufficient on its own. That can be the point when considering a different approach becomes relevant.
Treatment Approaches for Anxiety and Depression
We begin by understanding what you are experiencing and what may be contributing to it. Depending on what is going on for you, treatment may include:
Not everyone needs all of this. The approach should fit what is going on with and for you.
When It Is Connected to Trauma
Anxiety and depression often arise without any trauma history. For some people, however, they may be tangled up with unresolved experiences, chronic conditions, or early attachment wounds. Signs that may point in that direction include reactions that seem out of proportion to what is happening now, emotional shutdown under stress, persistent shame with no clear source, and behavior or relationship patterns that do not change no matter how well you understand them.
If this describes your experience, my pages on trauma therapy and childhood trauma and attachment wounds may be worth reading.
What Change Can Look Like
Change often looks less dramatic than “getting your life back,” and it can be much more useful:
Is This Work Right for You?
This work tends to fit adults who want to understand troubling experiences and the factors that may be contributing to them, while also working toward more effective ways of coping with daily life and more lasting relief from symptoms.
If you are currently in an acute mental health crisis, need intensive addiction or crisis stabilization services, or are court-ordered to attend therapy, a different setting will serve you better right now.
If you are in immediate danger or thinking about harming yourself, please call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or go to your nearest emergency room.
Ready to talk?
You do not need to figure out on your own whether what you are experiencing is anxiety, depression, trauma, or something else. Sorting that out with a mental health professional is part of what the first conversations in therapy are for.
I offer a free phone consultation. You can reach me at 845-202-9774 or through the contact page.
I am a therapist in Suffern, NY offering in-person and telehealth therapy for anxiety and depression to clients across New York State and Florida.
Curious if this feels like the right fit?
I invite you to start with a consultation. There is no pressure, just a conversation to see whether working together makes sense.