A structured, evidence-based treatment that targets the thoughts and behaviors keeping anxiety in place.
Cognitive behavioral therapy, usually shortened to CBT, is a short-to-medium term treatment built on a straightforward premise: thoughts, feelings and behaviors are connected, and changing one changes the others. It has the strongest research support of any psychological treatment for anxiety disorders.
In practice, CBT is collaborative and active. You are not simply describing your week. You are learning to catch a thought as it happens, examine whether it holds up, and respond differently, then testing that in your actual life between sessions.
We trace a recent episode in detail. What triggered it, what went through your mind, what you felt physically, and what you did next. Repeated across a few examples, the pattern becomes clear.
Anxious thoughts tend to overestimate risk and underestimate your capacity to cope. We examine the evidence for and against them rather than arguing or reassuring, and build a more accurate read.
Avoidance is what keeps anxiety alive. We identify what you are avoiding and approach it gradually and deliberately, at a pace you set, until it loses its charge.
Sessions run 45 to 50 minutes and have a recognizable shape:
Between-session practice is where most of the change happens. It is not homework in an academic sense. It is trying the new response in the situations that actually matter to you, then bringing back what happened.
CBT is designed to be time-limited. A focused course of treatment for a single anxiety problem commonly runs 12 to 20 sessions. Panic disorder often responds faster; OCD and long-standing generalized anxiety usually take longer.
Progress is reviewed openly as we go. If something is not working, it is changed rather than continued. The goal is for you to become your own therapist, with tools you can apply after treatment ends.
Panic disorder · Social anxiety · OCD · Generalized anxiety disorder · Specific phobias · Health anxiety
Complete the contact form to share a little about what brings you here. Nicole will review it and reach out to arrange an initial session.
