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Anxiety is a condition that affects 80% of our population, including children. People tend to minimize its effects, believing they are just nervous and should be able to control it. In fact, the body is responding to perceived physical or emotional danger. Adrenalin is released, the heart pumps, breathing becomes difficult, you cannot think clearly, you feel afraid as though something terrible is going to happen, and feel as though you are losing control.

Successful treatment of anxiety includes understanding what causes the fear, learning to calm oneself, and sometimes incorporating use of medication.

The cycle of compulsive or addictive behavior is a painful, debilitating process. You do something (drink, eat, shop, have sex in an unhealthy way, or overwork) to feel better. And you feel better for a short time. Then you feel worse. You did it again. You broke another promise to yourself or someone you care about and you are back where you started. Angry, ashamed, helpless and without hope. Some compulsive patterns appear positive, including exercising, cleaning, or using the computer, but there is a difference between performance that leads to well-being and behaviors that leave us feeling empty. Psychotherapy can help people learn to understand and change these terribly painful behaviors.

Depression is a pervasive sense of sadness often associated with some or many of the following symptoms:

An inability to experience pleasure(anhedonia)
Agitation
Feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness
Loss of Energy
Disturbances in appetite, weight gain or loss
Changes in sleeping patterns
Difficulty with concentration
Excessive guilt

Depression, unlike sadness or the "down day", does not pass quickly and is not always related to an unhappy event in your life. Psychotherapy can be an effective treatment for depression allowing an opportunity for people to identify the factors that contribute to their depression and to learn new coping strategies.

Self-esteem is how we think and feel about our worth to ourselves and to those in our lives. These thoughts and feelings are very often not consistent; they can frequently fluctuate according to our experiences. For instance, being passed over for a promotion can easily cause us to question our value. Generally we are able to put the events in perspective and return to our consistent sense of self. For many people, the return to the consistent sense of self is continually challenged by life's happenings. In fact, there are people who are always questioning their worth. Feelings of inadequacy related to physical attributes, skills and relationships are continuous burdens that perpetually cloud their existence. Feelings can become punishing when we perceive ourselves as being further and further from the ideal we hold for ourselves. Psychotherapy can be a valuable tool for those of us struggling with self-esteem issues; it is an effective way of exploring and understanding ourselves, hopefully resulting in our feeling more accepting of who we are, regardless of what happened to us today.

Abuse has many faces, from the subtle negation of who you are to physical assault. Some of the characteristics of these relationships are jealousy, isolation, emotional unavailability, put downs, threats, physical violence, and controlling behaviors. In any relationship where there is love and caring and an undertone of fear, abuse of some type is present. When you are in an abusive relationship, there is a gradual deterioration of your self esteem thereby leaving you uncertain about your reality. Rather that engaging in self protective behaviors, self blame for the situation occurs resulting in a further sense of vulnerability and incapacity to take care of yourself. Remember, verbal abuse is just as damaging as physical abuse to your emotional well-being; it is insidious as it is harder to initially identify. Over time, abusive relationships get worse, frequently intensifying with briefer periods of calm between the storms. Abusers are often needy and controlling people, those that they abuse are sometimes co-dependent. Abuse is about power and control, never about concern and caring. Whether your are being abused, or feel that you have abused; psychotherapy can help liberate you from this painful relationship cycle.