Vaughan's Anxiety Clinic - Psychologist Led
Our anxiety program is designed to help individuals with anxiety issues become well and stay well. Our program will help you better understand your anxiety and provide you with useful strategies to manage, treat, and live without becoming overly anxious. Anxiety is not all about being ‘anxious’. It’s about focusing on worry, avoiding situations, and uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts. Our treatment model will help you reduce the emotional sensitivity you may experience during a stressful situation, any anticipatory anxiety, and the avoidance behaviours associated with your anxiety.
The goal of therapy with a clinical psychologist is to teach you the techniques necessary to succeed in your recovery.
What Makes Us Different When We Treat Anxiety Disorders and OCD?
1. Psychologist-led—This isn't talk therapy! We want you to succeed by providing you with practical strategies to help you recover. This means that you will receive homework assignments after each session. A Clinical Psychologist will also assess whether any comorbid issues may influence your anxiety that you may not be aware of.
2. You are learning to tolerate uncertainty. When it comes to learning to tolerate uncertainty, it's useful to become aware of how you are already accepting fears in other areas of your life that could lead to the same consequences as what you are anxious about. Once you become aware of this, it's much easier to challenge your anxiety and lean into accepting the fear.
3. You will become aware of mental rituals that maintain the fear - The first educational piece you will learn is that your safety behaviours maintain the fear. If you become aware of those safety behaviours, you will have greater success with treatment. Some people perform mental rituals that also keep the fear alive. Having awareness of what those mental rituals are will only further support your recovery and get you better faster.
4. We have a proven track record of getting people better.
Our tailored set of interventions will help:
What’s Special about Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy?
There are many different therapeutic approaches that you may want to consider when choosing a counselling option. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is fairly new to the counselling realm, having only become more readily accepted in the mid-1950s. The approach has helped many people better understand how their thinking influences how they feel about a situation. Once people are better able to understand and challenge their thinking, they are better able to reduce their symptoms. The behavioural component helps patients by challenging them to perform behaviours that will help them reduce their symptoms of anxiety. This repeated exposure is needed to help patients challenge their thinking and feelings. This is sometimes done by persistently exposing patients to somewhat anxiety provoking situations. Careful attention is given to these situations so patients feel comfortable, confident and challenged when presented with an exposure exercise (i.e., having a client who fears elevators to step in and out of an elevator). A skilled psychologist will prepare a client for exposure by teaching them methods to help manage their anxiety in the moment.
What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a form of therapy that helps individuals live the life they want to live despite the anxiety symptoms being present. The purpose of this therapy is to challenge emotional avoidance and to help clients live fulfilling lives. Our goal is to help you live a more full and meaningful life while managing your symptoms of anxiety. This type of therapy has helped many cancer patients in remission manage their anxiety about the cancer returning at a later time. This has also displayed effectiveness with individuals with specific phobias.
Mindfulness Therapy
Mindfulness is a way of managing and directing your attention. The techniques and learnings help patients better understand how to intentionally focus one’s attention on the experience of the present time. This is done without judgment and in an accepting way. There is evidence to suggest that if a person accepts their anxiety, symptoms tend to reduce. An example of this is when an individual performs a public speech and notifies their audience that they ‘should be forgiven if they make a mistake because they are anxious.’ This awareness and acceptance tends to bring forth relief. Similarly, if this type of positive, accepting self-talk is taught to the patient, they too may experience relief from their anxieties. This self-talk and practice often require the patient to meet their symptoms of anxiety with compassion, interest, friendliness, and an open heart. Being kind to yourself when anxious is important in this process.
What is Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy?
The goal of Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy is to expose yourself to your fears and do so until you habituate (lesson the fear). This is done through carefully crafted experiments that are done to help you expose yourself to a situation where you are comfortable and tolerable with the experience. We will never overwhelm you. The intent is to do what you are ready for, and we will help guide you through each activity with ease and care. As a Psychologist, I have personally led many people through exposure exercises. Not one person has described the experience as overwhelming. The goal is to make sure you are ready and willing to do it before beginning. Exposure and Response Prevention therapy is the gold standard treatment for anxiety-related disorders and OCD.
- Reduce your symptoms related to your anxiety
- Reduce the negative symptoms you experience when you do feel anxiety.
- Enhance your quality of life (as demonstrated in clinical trials - internet search 'cognitive behavioural therapy and anxiety' and 'mindfulness and anxiety')
- Help you challenge your fears.
- Separation Anxiety Disorder
- Selective Mutism
- Specific Phobia (i.e. animal, environment, blood, situational, other)
- Social Anxiety Disorder
- Panic Disorder
- Panic Attack
- Agoraphobia
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder
What’s Special about Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy?
There are many different therapeutic approaches that you may want to consider when choosing a counselling option. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is fairly new to the counselling realm, having only become more readily accepted in the mid-1950s. The approach has helped many people better understand how their thinking influences how they feel about a situation. Once people are better able to understand and challenge their thinking, they are better able to reduce their symptoms. The behavioural component helps patients by challenging them to perform behaviours that will help them reduce their symptoms of anxiety. This repeated exposure is needed to help patients challenge their thinking and feelings. This is sometimes done by persistently exposing patients to somewhat anxiety provoking situations. Careful attention is given to these situations so patients feel comfortable, confident and challenged when presented with an exposure exercise (i.e., having a client who fears elevators to step in and out of an elevator). A skilled psychologist will prepare a client for exposure by teaching them methods to help manage their anxiety in the moment.
What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
What is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a form of therapy that helps individuals live the life they want to live despite the anxiety symptoms being present. The purpose of this therapy is to challenge emotional avoidance and to help clients live fulfilling lives. Our goal is to help you live a more full and meaningful life while managing your symptoms of anxiety. This type of therapy has helped many cancer patients in remission manage their anxiety about the cancer returning at a later time. This has also displayed effectiveness with individuals with specific phobias.
Mindfulness Therapy
Mindfulness is a way of managing and directing your attention. The techniques and learnings help patients better understand how to intentionally focus one’s attention on the experience of the present time. This is done without judgment and in an accepting way. There is evidence to suggest that if a person accepts their anxiety, symptoms tend to reduce. An example of this is when an individual performs a public speech and notifies their audience that they ‘should be forgiven if they make a mistake because they are anxious.’ This awareness and acceptance tends to bring forth relief. Similarly, if this type of positive, accepting self-talk is taught to the patient, they too may experience relief from their anxieties. This self-talk and practice often require the patient to meet their symptoms of anxiety with compassion, interest, friendliness, and an open heart. Being kind to yourself when anxious is important in this process.
What is Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy?
The goal of Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy is to expose yourself to your fears and do so until you habituate (lesson the fear). This is done through carefully crafted experiments that are done to help you expose yourself to a situation where you are comfortable and tolerable with the experience. We will never overwhelm you. The intent is to do what you are ready for, and we will help guide you through each activity with ease and care. As a Psychologist, I have personally led many people through exposure exercises. Not one person has described the experience as overwhelming. The goal is to make sure you are ready and willing to do it before beginning. Exposure and Response Prevention therapy is the gold standard treatment for anxiety-related disorders and OCD.
For more information, please call us or text/iMessage us at 416-999-3437.
Resources:
Disorders Associated with Anxiety
Why am I Feeling This Way?
Resources:
Disorders Associated with Anxiety
Why am I Feeling This Way?
Psychologist Support for Depression and Sadness
I have worked with many people who struggle with depression and sadness. There are biological and psychological implications that influence depression symptoms. The goal of therapy is to help individuals understand where they feel a lack of hope in their lives and how best to cope with the depression symptoms. Through the use of specific counselling, related intervention goals are developed, and an improvement plan is made. I use specific cognitive behavioural strategies to help individuals who struggle with depression. This means that I help individuals challenge their negative thinking, become aware of behaviours that may influence their depression, and become aware of how situations may negatively affect their mood.
Each session is a lesson to be learned, and feelings are processed. My psychologist training will help identify comorbid conditions that may impact recovery. There are a number of psychological conditions that may bring on depression symptoms. This means that the other psychological conditions may need to be treated first before addressing the depression symptoms.
The goal for counselling is to:
- Reduce depression symptoms
- Improve self-esteem
- Finding areas where hope is diminished
- Address those areas through the use of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Anger Management - Vaughan, ON
I think I have an anger issue. What can I do?
Part of the work I do at my clinic is to help identify if you have an anger issue. There are many issues that may influence you to lose your anger, and it's part of my job to help you understand if it's a physical issue or an emotional regulation issue. Managing your anger is something we can help provide treatment for, and it's done with great success. If treatment is not an option for you at this time, there are great psychoeducational resources available to help you with getting ahead with this.
Some of my favourite resources include:
The Dance of Anger by Lerner
When Anger Hurts by McKay
For parents:
The Whole Brain Child by Siegel
How do I control my anger?
Sometimes, anger can get the best of us. Generally, most of us dislike the feeling of it and its presence in our lives. However, my philosophy is that there isn’t anything wrong with anger. It’s an important signal that tells us that something’s wrong. With the right resources, you can learn to control anger, express yourself more effectively, and avoid conflict. I help people understand that anger is considered a secondary emotion (see picture below). This means that there are likely other feelings you have regarding the situation that are influencing you to feel angry. When you are aware of these feelings, it's much easier to observe the thoughts you have about what is making you angry. Sometimes, this requires the assistance of a psychologist to figure out what is influencing those thoughts. Once you are able to challenge those thoughts and learn emotional regulation skills, it's much easier to manage with controlling your anger.
What does therapy look like for controlling my anger and temper?
When I work with my patients who struggle with anger, I introduce them to a therapy called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. The goal of therapy is to better understand how your emotions, thoughts, behaviours and environment all influence each other. That means that it's not simply the emotion of anger that we work on; we put efforts into figuring out what is contributing to you feeling the way you do that is influencing you to have less patience and bandwidth to manage the small stressors that come up throughout life. We also look at the behaviours you choose that influence you to react the way you do in a situation where emotions are high. Here is a detailed breakdown of what we will work on:
- Meditation is a mandatory component of the work we do
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) specific to anger
- Emotional Regulation Skills
- Improving problem-solving skills
- Reframing standards and expectations
- Family Therapy
How do I stop my anger when it happens?
We work on developing strategies to help you become aware of triggers that may influence your anger and how to implement strategies to help with the situation. There are specific strategies that are taught specifically to help manage the physiological reaction you have with anger, but I will also teach you how important it is to create separation mentally, even if you are not able to leave the situation. Sometimes, this means playing music and keeping it on in the background when you are present in a situation that may be triggering. Other times, this may mean taking a step away and disengaging in the situation until you are ready to reengage.
Why am I angry all the time? What causes anger?
The way we think can influence how we feel. Many of my patients struggle with a cognitive distortion called 'musts, oughts, and shoulds.' This means that they believe that people should be doing things a certain way, ought to have done it the way you perceive it to be done, and should be doing things the way you think it should be done. When you hold on to this belief, you are bound to be upset. If you hold this standard for others, you are more likely to hold this standard for yourself as well, and this will only further leave you with little room to deal with other stressors in your life.
Many people who struggle with perfectionism experience difficulties with anger and irritability. I can further assess to see if this is a concern by using tools and resources available to me as a Psychologist.
Other mental health concerns that need to be ruled out:
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- Depression
- Anxiety Disorders
- Bipolar Disorder
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Antisocial Personality Disorder
- Intermittent Explosive Disorder
- Oppositional Defiant Disorder
- ADHD
- Substance Use Disorder
- Psychotic Disorder
There are also physical health concerns that need to be ruled out, including hormonal imbalances, chronic pain or illness, brain injury, stress, socioeconomic challenges and sleep deprivation.
What are the signs of an anger problem?
If your anger is affecting a certain area of your life, then I do believe it's a problem that should be considered worked on.
You will work directly with a professionally trained therapist in a safe, non-judgmental, confidential space.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call 416-999-3437.
Our Vaughan counselling centre is here to help!
