Anxiety Counselling Vancouver​

Get Anxiety Counselling in Vancouver now. Anxiety and stress are normal responses that promote our survival by triggering the fight-flight-freeze response. With this programmed response, increased blood flow, heart rate, and adrenaline motivate us to keep ourselves safe. For many people, this alarm reaction is brief and appropriate to this situation. For others, it is not brief or appropriate, causing either an anxiety disorder (when the person is significantly distressed or impaired in daily life) or an anxiety problem (when it is not serious enough to be called a disorder). Click here to book a consultation with Dr. Paul James.

Anxiety Disorders that I Treat in Vancouver, BC, Canada, are:

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (excessive worry about many areas of life)
• Panic Disorder (intense anxiety and panic attacks triggered out of the blue by physical symptoms)
• Social Anxiety Disorder (phobia about social situations)
• PTSD (re-experiencing the fear associated with extreme trauma)
• Agoraphobia (apprehension about leaving the security of home and being in public)
• Phobias (fear associated with a specific thing or situation)
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) (avoidance by engaging in ritualized behaviours/thoughts)

My psychological approach to counselling and psychotherapy for anxiety in Vancouver is depth-affective-cognitive-behavioural. This means that I treat anxiety and stress by helping men and women in counselling change distressing thoughts, feelings, and behaviour, with an understanding that the source of their distress lies in childhood trauma and defenses against anxiety.  This perspective views anxiety as almost entirely intrusive, meaning that, although it is triggered by some stimulus in the present, it belongs to the past (see the article, Intrusive Feelings). Having this wise understanding doesn’t stop us from feeling nervous, but it makes it less distressing, enabling us to reduce it further using counselling techniques including CBT such as:

• Externalizing and countering the negative thought process or inner voice
• Gradual exposure (cognitive and behavioural)
• Mindfulness meditation
• Relaxed breathing
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Safe place visualization
• Expressing anger responsibly
• Practicing presence to feelings with wisdom and self-compassion

For a hypothetical clinical case, which illustrates how I provide counselling and therapy to an individual client with anxiety and depression, read more here.