When Anxiety Becomes the Problem
You don't need to be falling apart for anxiety to be costing you. Most of my clients are functioning—often impressively. But there's a background load that builds: the overthinking, the tension, the avoidance, the reassurance-seeking, the "what if?" loops, the sleep that never quite refreshes.
You might be handling life well enough on the outside. But how much of your energy is going toward managing the inside?
Here's the thing about anxiety: it's a thief that works in small increments. It doesn't take everything at once. It takes this opportunity, then that social event, then the ability to relax on a Sunday afternoon, then the freedom to make decisions without agonising, then the capacity to be present with people you love. Before you know it, you're living in a smaller version of your life—and you've adjusted so gradually that you barely remember what you lost.
The goal of therapy isn't to become someone who never feels anxious. That's neither possible nor desirable—anxiety serves a function. The goal is to stop it from running your life. To get your territory back.
Recognising the Pattern
Anxiety shows up differently for different people. You might notice some of these:
The Mind That Won't Switch Off
Racing thoughts, especially at night. Replaying conversations. Running through worst-case scenarios on repeat.
The Body on Alert
Chronic tension, headaches, digestive issues, feeling "wired and tired." A nervous system stuck in threat mode.
The Creeping Avoidance
Situations, decisions, conversations, or places you've quietly started working around. Your world getting smaller.
The Sudden Surges
Racing heart, dizziness, breathlessness, feeling like you're losing control. Panic that arrives without warning.
The Social Radar
Hyperawareness of how you're coming across. Replaying interactions. Avoiding situations where you might be judged.
The Checking and Reassurance
Seeking certainty that can never quite be achieved. Health worries. Intrusive thoughts and mental rituals.
If any of this sounds familiar, you're not broken—you're stuck in a predictable loop. And loops can be interrupted.
Anxiety Is a System, Not a Character Flaw
This is important to understand: anxiety is your threat-detection system doing its job—just too intensely, too often, and in the wrong places. It's not a sign of weakness. It's a pattern that's become overactive.
Think of it like a smoke alarm. A smoke alarm that goes off when there's a fire is doing its job. A smoke alarm that goes off every time you make toast is still technically working—it's just responding to the wrong things. The alarm isn't broken; it's miscalibrated. And recalibrating it is very different from trying to ignore it or rip it off the ceiling.
For most people with anxiety, the pattern looks something like this:
Trigger
Something happens—an external situation, a bodily sensation, or just a thought that arrives uninvited.
Threat Interpretation
The mind flags it as dangerous. "This means something bad." The alarm gets pulled.
Body Alarm
Adrenaline. Tension. Heart rate up. The nervous system prepares you for a threat that may not actually exist.
Safety Behaviour
You avoid, over-prepare, check, seek reassurance, or control. Whatever makes the feeling go away.
Short-Term Relief
It works. The anxiety drops. You got through it.
Long-Term Strengthening
But the brain learns: "See? It was dangerous. And that strategy saved you." The loop gets stronger.
Therapy targets this loop—not by white-knuckling through it, but by building skills and running the right experiments in the right order.
The Counterintuitive Truth
Here's what makes anxiety tricky: the strategies that help in the short term often make things worse over time. Avoidance works—until your world shrinks. Reassurance works—until you need more of it. Checking works—until you can't stop. The things that reduce anxiety in the moment are often the things that strengthen it for next time. Effective treatment works differently. It's not about fighting anxiety harder. It's about responding to it in ways that teach your nervous system something new.
What We Actually Do in Sessions
This is not endless talking about your feelings. It's a focused process with a clear direction.
Map Your Specific Pattern
Your triggers, your interpretations, your body signals, your safety behaviours. We need to understand exactly how your anxiety operates before we can change it.
Build Nervous System Skills
Regulation techniques that actually hold up under pressure—not just when you're calm in a therapist's office. Skills you can use in real time.
Work With Thoughts Differently
Cognitive and metacognitive tools for worry, rumination, and intrusive thoughts. Not "think positive"—something that actually works.
Run Behavioural Experiments
Strategic tests that reduce avoidance and rebuild confidence. We design these carefully—exposure done well, not exposure done recklessly.
Lock In the Gains
Relapse prevention. Making sure what you've learned stays stable under real-life stress, not just in ideal conditions.
You'll leave sessions with clarity and a plan—because insight without behaviour change is just expensive self-awareness.
Types of Anxiety I Work With
Anxiety isn't one thing. Understanding which pattern you're dealing with helps target treatment more precisely.
Generalised Anxiety
Chronic worry across multiple domains. The mind that never quite settles. A background hum of "what if."
Take the GAD-7 →Panic Disorder
Sudden surges of intense fear. Physical symptoms that feel like something's seriously wrong. Fear of the next attack.
Take the PDSS →Social Anxiety
Fear of judgment, embarrassment, or scrutiny. Avoidance of social situations or intense distress when you can't avoid them.
Take the SPIN →Specific Phobias
Intense fear of particular objects or situations—flying, heights, needles, animals—that leads to avoidance.
Read the Phobias Guide →Health Anxiety
Preoccupation with illness. Checking, scanning, reassurance-seeking. Medical reassurance that never quite sticks.
Take the SHAI →OCD Patterns
Intrusive thoughts. Compulsive rituals or mental checking. The need for certainty that can never be satisfied.
Take the Mini OCI-R →Not sure where you fit? That's normal. These categories overlap, and the first step is simply understanding your particular pattern.
How I Work
I draw on several evidence-based approaches depending on what will work best for you—primarily CBT, ACT, compassion-focused work, and schema-informed therapy. I'm not interested in forcing you into a model. I'm interested in outcomes that last.
What This Means in Practice
Sessions are structured and focused. We work on specific skills, run specific experiments, and track whether things are actually changing. Therapy should produce noticeable shifts—not just insight, but real differences in how you experience your days.
If you've tried therapy before and it didn't help, that doesn't mean therapy doesn't work for you. It might mean the approach wasn't right, the fit wasn't there, or it wasn't focused on the right targets. A different approach often produces different results.
What Actually Changes
People sometimes ask what successful treatment looks like. It's not that you'll never feel anxious—that's not the goal and it's not how humans work. It's more like this:
- You notice anxiety rising, but it doesn't hijack you. There's space between the feeling and your response.
- You do things that used to feel impossible—not because they don't scare you anymore, but because the fear doesn't run the decision.
- The background noise quiets down. Your mind isn't constantly scanning for threats, running scenarios, preparing for disaster.
- Physical tension drops. Sleep improves. You're not carrying your shoulders near your ears all day.
- You make decisions based on what you actually want, not based on what feels least threatening.
- The good days stop surprising you. You stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.
This doesn't happen overnight. It happens through deliberate work, usually over weeks to months. But it does happen—I've watched it hundreds of times.
Common Questions
If anxiety is shaping your choices—what you avoid, what you over-control, how you sleep, how present you feel—therapy is usually worth exploring. You don't need a severe diagnosis. You need a stuck pattern.
It depends on the pattern and how entrenched it is. Some people notice meaningful shifts in a focused block of 6-12 sessions. More complex or longstanding patterns can take longer, especially when anxiety is intertwined with perfectionism, trauma, or chronic stress.
When it's appropriate, yes—but strategically. Exposure works best when it's well-designed, paced properly, and paired with the right learning goals. Not white-knuckling through something terrifying and hoping it helps.
Some people benefit from medication, others don't need it. Therapy can be effective either way. If medication is part of the picture, that's a GP or psychiatrist decision—therapy stays focused on changing the patterns that keep anxiety running.
Only if it's useful. Some anxiety patterns are maintained in the present and respond well to present-focused work. For others, earlier learning matters. We'll be guided by what actually helps—not by a rule that you must "go back."
Yes. With a Mental Health Care Plan from your GP, you can access Medicare rebates for up to 10 sessions per calendar year. Most private health funds also provide rebates depending on your cover.
Cammeray, on Sydney's Lower North Shore. Easy access from the North Shore, Northern Beaches, and CBD.
Ready to Start?
If anxiety has been running your decisions long enough, let's talk about what a different approach might look like.
Book a SessionIn crisis? If you're in immediate danger or at risk of harming yourself, please call 000. For urgent support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. This page is for information only and is not a substitute for emergency care.