Anxiety Therapy
Children, adolescents, and adults with anxiety disorders may experience excessive worry, specific phobias, difficulty separating from a parent, or challenges in social situations. Anxiety can also show up as perfectionism, a frequent need for reassurance, intolerance for uncertainty, trouble sleeping, or physical symptoms such as stomachaches.
Over time, anxiety often leads to avoidance of places, people, situations, or activities that bring up anxious thoughts, discomfort, or fear. While avoidance brings short‑term relief, it ends up strengthening anxiety in the long run. This anxiety-avoidance cycle gradually shrinks a person’s world and makes it more difficult for them to function.
Anxiety becomes a concern that benefits from treatment when it significantly interferes with a person’s ability to function—such as at school or work, in friendships or family relationships, or with sleep—or leads to distress and avoidance that limit their ability to engage fully in life.
How We Can Help
At Riverstone, we use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help clients understand the connection between anxious thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. In CBT, clients learn to recognize and gently challenge unhelpful or distorted thinking patterns and develop more balanced ways of responding to anxiety.
A key component of CBT for anxiety involves gradually and safely facing fears through exposure exercises, always at a pace that feels manageable and supportive. Exposure helps break the anxiety‑avoidance cycle by allowing clients to experience that anxiety decreases over time, feared outcomes are unlikely to occur, and discomfort can be tolerated without avoiding what matters to them. Along the way, clients build practical coping skills to manage physical symptoms of anxiety and reduce stress in everyday life.
For teens and adults, we often integrate Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT helps clients develop a different relationship with anxious thoughts and feelings—learning to notice and accept them without letting anxiety dictate their choices. Through mindfulness and values‑based work, clients are supported in taking meaningful action and moving toward what matters to them, even in the presence of anxiety.
For younger children with anxiety—or in situations where a child or teen does not want to engage in individual treatment—we help by working with parents using Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE). Through SPACE treatment, parents learn how to reduce accommodations of their child’s anxiety and respond in a supportive way that empowers their child to face fears and build coping skills. In SPACE treatment, parents attend sessions without their child present, but the child remains the focus of care, with the goal of helping them feel less anxious and better able to face challenges.
Read more about how we use SPACE to treat child and teen anxiety here.
How to Get Started
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Click the button below to choose between booking a free 15‑minute consultation or sending us a message with any questions.
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During our free 15-minute call, I’ll invite you to share why you’re seeking services and answer any questions you may have. If we both feel it’s a good fit, we’ll schedule your first session.
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We’ll typically start with weekly 53-minute sessions. Sessions are available in person at our Northeast Seattle office (near University Village) or online via telehealth.
