Reflection
Anxiety is not always only a symptom to quiet.
Anxiety may arrive as worry, vigilance, tension, overthinking, panic, dread, or the sense that something is about to go wrong. In psychoanalytic therapy, anxiety is not treated only as an inconvenience to be eliminated. It is also approached as an experience with meaning.
Sometimes anxiety protects a person from thoughts or feelings that are difficult to know directly. Sometimes it appears around intimacy, ambition, anger, dependency, separation, or the wish to be seen. At other times, anxiety may reflect the pressure of old expectations that continue to organize present life.
Psychodynamic psychotherapy offers a setting in which anxiety can be spoken about slowly and specifically. The work may include the circumstances in which anxiety intensifies, the relationships in which it becomes more active, and the histories that give it shape.
Nicole Glass, MA, LCPC offers psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy for adults in Chicago and throughout Illinois, including anxiety therapy in Hyde Park and online.