All you want is to connect with the world around you, but every time you're about to adventure out, anxiety freezes you in place.
01 / Social AnxietySocial Anxiety Therapy in Iowa City
You rehearse what you are going to say in your head at least three times before you say it in the meeting. When the perfect moment to speak up finally comes, the conversation has already moved on. You want to engage so badly, but you cannot rip yourself off the wall to participate. You have convinced yourself that you’re going to mess it up anyway, so it’s safer looking on from afar.
02 / what it can feel likeThe push to connect and the pull of failure
Social anxiety can come in waves. There can be days of planning, rehearsing, and strategizing the perfect answer to any question you might get at a party or a meeting. Then you arrive at the event you spent all that energy planning for, and most of what you feared never comes to pass. It ends up not being as bad as you thought it was going to be. But the relief quickly fades into a post-event assessment of your social performance. You go over and over that one thing you said, picking it apart for hours. You roll over to check the clock, and it’s almost time to get up for the next day.
When you are in social environments, your body’s check engine lights begin to flip on. You can feel your face getting hot, and you begin frantically looking around to see if anyone is noticing. Your hands begin to shake while you squeeze your morning cup of coffee. Your heartbeat feels so intense that you could swear the person next to you can hear it.
The running list of places where social anxiety can show up is vast. It can be speaking up in meetings, or asking a clerk where your favorite snack is. It can be eating in front of coworkers, or obsessing over the details of a first date. It can be a phone call you keep pushing to tomorrow, or using a public restroom with a coworker at the next sink.
To recognize ourselves in a struggling state is acceptance that its real, and also, that it can change...
03 / How i work with itThree main approaches
The rehearsing, the social event itself, and the sleepless night afterwards each need their own set of tools.
NARM therapy can take the lead at the start of our work. For many of my clients, social anxiety grew up in a house where being noticed meant being criticized. They learned to judge themselves harshly to stay off the radar. NARM can help you identify the survival styles you built in early childhood, and begin to unlearn the stories you once had to believe about yourself.
EMDR therapy earns its place when one event stays stuck in your mind. It might be a presentation you froze in front of the entire class, or an afternoon when a group of friends all turned on you. Once that memory stops screaming out with the same intensity, your body can stop bracing in every room you enter.
DBT skills work covers the moments when you need something active to do and practice. These skills can help when the overthinking starts, or when you catch yourself ruminating at the hour you should be asleep.
04 / The logisticsWhat it costs and how long it takes
I do not bill insurance, so you and I decide how your care goes. No insurance company sets a limit on the sessions you get.
You can still ask your insurer to pay you back. I will give you a superbill, which is an itemized receipt you send to them yourself.
You can also ask for a Good Faith Estimate before we start, and the No Surprises Act gives you the right to one. It lists what your care is likely to cost.
How long therapy takes is different for every client. One clear goal may take a handful of sessions, and patterns you have carried since childhood can take longer. I will give you my thoughts after the first few sessions, rather than a firm number on day one.
FreeFree Consultation
A relaxed, 15-minute talk about what you need and whether we fit. By phone, by video, or in person.
$185Therapy Sessions
Weekly 53-minute sessions shaped around your needs, in Iowa City or by telehealth in Iowa and North Carolina.
Free DownloadThe Grounding Guide
A one page set of grounding tools you can use the next time your body runs ahead of you.
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05 / Reach outA fifteen-minute call, and no obligation afterwards
Tell me what has been going on, and what you hope therapy with me can change. If I am not the right fit, I will tell you early and help you find a clinician who is.