Expertise
Anxiety & Depression Therapy in Florida
Depression and anxiety feed each other, and both show up in the body long before most people name them.
What it looks like
Depression often arrives physically first — stomach pain, headaches, sleep that's either broken, or endless, a body that feels slow to move. Anxiety brings its own version: a chest that won't settle, a mind that won't stop rehearsing. People commonly find it hard to hold a conversation or finish a task, and some start drinking a little more, or eating differently, just to get through the day.
What You Might Notice
- Sadness that doesn't lift
- Apathy, or nothing feeling worth it
- Exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix
- Irritability with people you love
- Guilt that circles back
- Trouble concentrating
- Appetite or sleep changes
- Panic that peaks and passes
About Panic Attacks
Panic attacks are brief episodes of intense fear that are often mistaken for a heart attack. They usually peak within ten minutes and pass within twenty to thirty. If you've had more than one and now live partly in fear of the next, that's panic disorder — and it responds well to treatment.
How I Work with It
Usually some combination of CBT, which works on the link between what you think, how you feel, and what you do, and DBT skills for riding out intense emotion without acting on it. Where the low mood is tangled up with something that happened, the trauma work comes first.
Medication is sometimes part of the picture and sometimes isn't. I'm not a prescriber, but I'll talk it through honestly, and coordinate with your physician if that's useful. Anxiety and depression are among the most treatable things people bring to therapy.