Anxiety Treatment
Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health problems and among the most treatable. I have worked with anxiety clinically and in peer-reviewed research since 2004, across Australia, the UK, Iceland, and Canada. Treatment is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), with progress measured before every session. Sessions are available in online in person, in English or Icelandic.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Why it's easy to miss
People with GAD worry about the same things as everyone else, work, health, family, finances. The difference is the sheer volume of worry, and how hard it is to switch off. The side effects give it away:
Sleep problems
Irritability or angry outbursts
Muscle tension
Difficulty concentrating
Who I see
Often high achievers, executives, physicians, lawyers, who have never consulted a psychologist before, and whose success is shadowed by chronic stress and perfectionism.
Treatment
We target the worry process itself: tolerating uncertainty, loosening perfectionistic standards, and reclaiming the mental space worry has been occupying.
Social Anxiety Disorder
What it looks like
The core of social anxiety is the sense of being judged. For some it shows up only at work; for others it makes it hard to relax even with friends and family. Common patterns:
Enormous energy spent on coming across well
Avoiding people because that effort is exhausting
Using alcohol or drugs to get through social situations
Replaying conversations afterwards, with shame over small missteps
Not everyone with social anxiety appears shy. Many seem outwardly confident or are often mistaken for aloof or uninterested, when the opposite is true. Untreated, social anxiety leads people to pass on promotions and hold back from friendships and relationships.
My background in this area
Social anxiety has been a central focus of my research career. I developed Overcome Social Anxiety (ai-therapy.com), an online CBT program evaluated in a randomized controlled trial and a real-world study. Treating social anxiety does more than reduce social fear, it lifts mood and wellbeing, because rumination and self-criticism drop along with the anxiety.
Panic Disorder
The most treatable anxiety disorder
Panic disorder is the most researched of the anxiety disorders, and the most treatable. CBT for panic is one of the success stories of clinical psychology: treatment is typically brief and outcomes are excellent.
How panic disorder develops
A panic attack is a sudden surge of fear with intense physical sensations, racing heart, breathlessness, dizziness, chest tightness, a feeling of unreality. Frightening, but not dangerous. The disorder develops when you become afraid of the attacks themselves: life reorganizes around preventing the next one, and driving, bridges, transit, crowds, or travel get avoided.
My approach
What keeps panic going is the catastrophic misinterpretation of normal bodily sensations, a racing heart read as a heart attack, dizziness as impending collapse. Treatment follows the well-established cognitive model of panic:
Map your individual panic cycle
Test the catastrophic predictions directly
Interoceptive exposure, bringing on the feared sensations in session, so the alarm signals lose their power
Drop the subtle safety behaviours that keep the fear alive
Systematically reclaim avoided situations
Most people are surprised by how quickly panic responds once it is understood.
Getting started
Therapy begins with a detailed initial assessment so we understand the problem thoroughly and build the most effective treatment plan together.
If you would like to connect first, we offer a complimentary 15-minute compatibility call. Email admin@drfjola.com or call +1 604 449 8588.