Our therapists provide anxiety therapy in Greenville, SC

I work with clients to identify coping skills, determine triggers, collect personal data related to anxiety and coping throughout the week, and practice skills and techniques in anxious situations.

I teach the following tools in anxiety therapy:

• 5 Senses grounding technique: Identify 5 things you see, 4 things you feel (physically), 3 things you hear, 2 things you smell, 1 thing you taste. This will help you focus on your surroundings, distract from the stressor, confirm you are safe and not in danger, etc. You can do this at any time, anywhere, for any emotion or reason. You can even get tricky with it and identify 5 blue things, or other specifics.
• Following a negative with a positive: When you have a negative thought or feeling, go ahead and let it out. It’s valid and important to recognize. But then you have to follow the negatives with a positive thought. For example, thinking “I'm frustrated that *negative*, but at least I can *positive*.” The point is to recognize the good and recondition your brain to end on the positive rather than maintaining the negative (which can easily carry over into the next stressor).
• Mantras/affirmations: Come up with 2-3 phrases you can repeat to yourself when anxious or in an immediately stressful/panic situation. This gives your brain an easy thing to distract with because it is already used to the phrase and naturally completes it for you.
• Using different parts of the brain simultaneously: During any coping or grounding technique, try to engage in a physical activity of some kind in order to stimulate another part of the brain. This helps with fighting off the anxiety/stress. This can be anything from wiggling your toes to using a fidget toy to taking a walk.

I know a client is making meaningful progress in anxiety therapy when they report more success intervening early on in the anxiety process, verbalize feeling better each week, can maintain a comfortable anxiety baseline regularly, and overcome random anxiety flare-ups.

Clients can supplement their time in anxiety therapy by journaling or logging their anxiety level each day, identifying mantras or affirmations to repeat when anxiety begins or becomes unbearable, and practicing learned coping/relaxation/mindfulness techniques.

To prepare for your first anxiety therapy session, you can develop a list of known symptoms, triggers, and previous coping strategies.