Our Approach to Anxiety Treatment

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At Houston Therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy is the approach most of our clinicians draw on most often for anxiety. Rather than treating anxiety as something to just manage or eliminate, it looks at what's underneath it: the unconscious patterns, past experiences, and relational dynamics that keep the anxiety running, so the change holds up over time instead of resurfacing under stress.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the most well-researched anxiety treatment overall and several of our clinicians draw on it too, particularly for the thought patterns and avoidance behaviors that maintain anxiety day to day. When anxiety is connected to a past trauma, EMDR is often layered in. Some clients also benefit from mindfulness-based approaches or skills drawn from DBT and ACT, depending on what's actually maintaining the anxiety. Treatment is tailored differently for teens than adults, and your therapist will talk with you directly about which approach fits your situation.​

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How Psychodynamic Therapy Helps With Anxiety

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Anxiety often isn't really about the thing it attaches itself to. A racing heart before a meeting, a spiral of worry at 2am, a knot in your stomach you can't quite explain: psychodynamic therapy treats these as signals worth understanding rather than symptoms to simply eliminate.

Working with a therapist, you explore where the anxiety actually comes from, whether that's early relationships, unresolved conflicts, or patterns you learned to survive that no longer serve you, so you understand why it shows up and can respond differently instead of only managing it in the moment.

This approach tends to be a strong fit if you've tried symptom-focused strategies before and found they help temporarily but the anxiety keeps returning, or if you're generally functioning well but sense something underneath the anxiety that a skills-based approach alone hasn't touched.

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Therapists Who Treat Anxiety in Houston

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• Benjamin Berry, PhD: anxiety, personality issues, trauma and PTSD, and self-esteem

• Elizabeth Seabolt-Esparza, LPC: anxiety, ADHD, and autism spectrum

• Emma Barr, LPA: anxiety, ADHD, and burnout

• Dana Boyko, LCSW: anxiety, depression, and trauma

• Claire Cooper, LCSW: anxiety, depression, and couples counseling

• Kristina Nunez, Psy.D.: anxiety, trauma, and eating disorders

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See our full clinical team →