What Is Anxiety?

At its core anxiety is a threat-response system, which evolved to detect danger and keep you safe from life-threatening situations. Anxiety becomes a problem when that system (the fight or flight response) starts setting off false alarms in situations that aren’t truly dangerous.

When anxiety is active, you may notice:

• racing thoughts or catastrophic thinking

• increased heart rate, sweating, or shakiness

• tightness in the chest, jaw, or stomach

• restlessness or agitation

• difficulty concentrating

• avoidance of certain situations

Importantly, anxiety doesn’t just live in the mind — it involves thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and behaviour, all reinforcing one another.

Common Types of Anxiety

Anxiety can present in many different ways and across various types of situations. Some common types of anxiety include:

• Panic Attacks: Sudden surges of intense fear paired with physical symptoms such as shortness of breath, dizziness, chest pain, or a fear of losing control.

• Performance Anxiety: anxiety that emerges when your focus turns inward — self-directed attention towards monitoring yourself, your thoughts, or your performance. This can often show up at work, public speaking, job interviews, dating, sport, or sexual performance.

• Social Anxiety: concern about how you’re coming across to others, fear of judgment, or feeling exposed or scrutinised in social situations. This often leads to avoidance or safety behaviours to help cope with the fear (e.g. drinking alcohol, rehearsing sentences, etc…).

• Generalised Anxiety: persistent worry about multiple areas of life, leading to constant ‘overthinking’ and an inability to switch off. Many people with generalised anxiety excessively plan and structure their lives in an attempt to reduce uncertainty.

• Health Anxiety: heightened focus on bodily sensations and the fear that minor symptoms signal serious illness.

• Death or Existential Anxiety: fear related to mortality, meaning, control, or uncertainty.

• Specific Phobias: intense fear tied to particular objects or situations (e.g. flying, heights, needles), usually driven by avoidance.

Why Anxiety Persists

One of the most frustrating aspects of anxiety is that the very strategies people use to cope often keep it alive.

Common patterns include:

• avoiding situations that trigger anxiety

• trying to suppress or “push away” anxious thoughts

• constantly checking or reassurance-seeking

• over-thinking and analysing to find certainty

• monitoring bodily sensations

While these behaviours make sense in the short term, they teach the nervous system that anxiety is dangerous — reinforcing the cycle.

Over time, life can feel increasingly restricted and it can even reach the point where it becomes debilitating.

Anxiety and High-Functioning Individuals

Many people I work with are capable, responsible, and driven — yet struggle internally with anxiety.

They may be:

• successful at work but constantly tense

• “holding it together” while feeling overwhelmed

• frustrated that anxiety doesn’t match logic or effort

• embarrassed by symptoms they don’t understand

Therapy offers a space to step out of vigilance mode and make sense of what’s happening — without judgment or pressure to perform.

When It’s Worth Getting Support

You don’t need to be in crisis to seek help. Early support often prevents patterns from becoming more entrenched.

It may be worth considering therapy if:

• anxiety is affecting your quality of life

• you avoid situations you want or need to engage in

• reassurance or control strategies aren’t working anymore

• panic or worry feels unpredictable or exhausting

• anxiety is interfering with sleep, relationships, or performance

How I Help With Anxiety

My approach to working with clients experiencing anxiety focuses on focuses on evidence-based principles and draws from various psychological interventions that I tailor to your specific needs and goals.

This generally involves:

1. Understanding Your Anxiety

We work to understand how anxiety operates for you — how it shows up, what triggers it, and how your thoughts, emotions, body, and behaviours interact. This clarity alone can significantly reduce fear and self-blame.

2. Changing the Relationship with Anxiety

Rather than fighting anxiety, therapy helps you respond differently to it — reducing avoidance, challenging unhelpful beliefs, and allowing anxious sensations without escalating them.

This might involve:

• cognitive approaches to unhelpful thinking patterns

• exposure-based strategies to reduce avoidance

• emotional and somatic work to calm the nervous system

• values-based approaches to reduce anxiety’s control over your choices

3. Building Lasting Skills and Confidence

The goal is not to eliminate anxiety completely — but to regain trust in yourself and your ability to handle it. As confidence builds, anxiety typically becomes quieter and less disruptive.

If you’d like to arrange a session to discuss your specific situation and see what I can do to help, please get in touch using the form below.

Telehealth sessions are available Australia-wide.