Anxiety Therapy

in Livingston & Montclair, NJ and all of New Jersey and PsyPACT States Online

When Anxiety Begins To Take Over

Do you find yourself carrying a persistent sense that something may go wrong, even when there is no clear reason for concern?

Are your thoughts constantly drifting toward worst-case outcomes, leaving you feeling tense, unsettled, or on edge?

Does it feel as though your mind has a hard time slowing down, repeatedly returning to the same worries despite your efforts to move past them?

You may stay busy in an attempt to manage these feelings, while also struggling to experience true rest to recuperate. Alternatively, you may feel emotionally and physically depleted, burned out, and no longer functioning as you would like.

Anxiety can influence many areas of life, including your work or school performance, relationships, and overall sense of well-being. These experiences are not simply cognitive; they often affect the body physically as well. You might wonder if anxiety therapy can help you find relief.

The Ongoing Cycle Of Worry And Physical Strain

Anxiety can present in a range of ways, often involving both psychological and physiological symptoms. You may notice repetitive thinking patterns, intrusive thoughts, or behaviors that temporarily reduce distress but ultimately increase it over time. Physical symptoms such as muscle tension, headaches, increased heart rate, disrupted sleep, and digestive discomfort are also common.

You may also find yourself frequently seeking reassurance, avoiding situations that feel overwhelming, or feeling confined within patterns that are difficult to change. Despite how fixed these patterns may feel, they are treatable. The team at Dr. Haley Rottenberg Psychology P.C. provides supportive and compassionate therapy to better understand the underlying factors contributing to your anxiety and will help you develop more adaptive ways of responding—leading to improved stability, functioning, and overall quality of life.

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Anxiety Is A Common Experience, Despite How Isolating It Can Feel

With anxiety, we often anticipate that the worst will happen, and we begin preparing for it and thinking about how our life will be once it comes true. Because constant worries also impact concentration, anxiety interferes with performance in school or work. Relationships also become impaired because we either seek reassurance or struggle to talk about stress-inducing topics with those closest to us.

We are constantly inundated with media that can leave us anxious and in a negative mindset. Social media encourages us to compare ourselves to others and can lead to feelings of dissatisfaction, and the news has a lot of negative events and "bad news" more than good news.

Understanding how common anxiety is can help us see it more objectively. A “normal” amount of anxiety is healthy and expected for many of life’s circumstances, but when you experience significant amounts of anxiety, it interferes with your daily life and causes distress, producing symptoms when there is no inherent threat.

Society Can Contribute To Keeping Anxiety Present

As a society, we have also idealized the concept of canceling plans and avoiding people, places, or experiences that might prompt anxiety in the name of “self-care.” But avoidance of anxiety-inducing circumstances doesn’t lessen our bodies’ and minds’ reactions to stressors. Over time, it increases the brain's fear response and worsens anxiety symptoms.

Seeking an anxiety therapist with the expertise and approach to help break down your current patterns and build new ones can help you make the changes needed to move forward with peace and balance.

Anxiety Therapy With A Change-Oriented Approach Creates A Lasting Impact

Our goal is to help build skills, increase flexibility, and create meaningful improvements in quality of life while reducing suffering.

We can work together to reduce the extent to which anxiety is interfering with your life and help you feel more comfortable and confident in your ability to overcome challenges. Your anxiety does not have to define you, as you have the power and the strength to overcome this to live a fuller life.

Even if you are not ready for a big change in your life, we are happy to talk through pros and cons and explore the benefits of therapy. You can come away with coping strategies to help you in the short term, even if you aren’t looking to pursue therapy in the long term.

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Our Approach To Therapy Is Grounded In Evidence-Based Care.

We are skills-based providers who specialize in change-oriented treatment for people experiencing anxiety related to life transitions, everyday stressors, fears, and phobias. Together, we will explore the likelihood of your fears coming true and identify skills that will reduce negative thinking. We will help you understand how to catch your thoughts and evaluate them before they become too overwhelming.

Effective psychological treatment for anxiety disorders is beyond simply talking or venting; it’s about learning and practicing skills that have been shown through research to help people with similar concerns.

We draw primarily from Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), all of which focus on building practical tools to manage your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in ways that support long-term well-being. This also includes reframing your thoughts to more consistently align with reality.

Some types of anxiety are best treated by Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy (ERP), where you will learn to practice tolerating the discomfort and uncertainty of anxiety. We create a fear hierarchy and safely expose you to feared situations in tiers, starting with something that is difficult but possible, and moving to harder tasks as you get more comfortable. This teaches your brain in a manageable and sustainable way that you are able to tolerate and face your fears.

Collaboration Is Key To Your Therapeutic Success

At the same time, we take a person-centered approach as anxiety disorder specialists, meaning that therapy works best when you and your therapist work together collaboratively. Your sessions will be tailored to support your individual values and goals, and we will work together to identify what matters most to you and how to move toward it.

We also use a biopsychosocial framework, which recognizes that health and well-being are shaped by the interaction of the biological, psychological, and social factors of our lives. By looking at the full picture, we can better understand what’s contributing to current challenges and develop a more comprehensive, effective plan for change.

We look forward to helping you manage your anxiety symptoms, find relief, and discover new ways of relating to yourself and your life.

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You Might Still Have Concerns About Anxiety Therapy…

I am concerned about the cost of therapy.

We are experts in skills-based treatment for anxiety, which will empower you to manage symptoms by changing negative thought patterns and behaviors. Whether through cognitive restructuring, deep breathing, mindfulness, or exposure to feared situations, these practical tools will help reduce physical and emotional distress in the short and long term.

We stand by our expertise and can assure you that investing in your mental health with our practice can provide lifelong benefits. Even though we are out-of-network (OON) providers, we offer superbills that can be submitted for OON reimbursement. Many of our clients receive high percentages of reimbursement for our sessions.

I am skeptical about the effectiveness of therapy.

You may question the validity of therapy to treat an anxiety disorder, or maybe you’ve been to counseling in the past or met with a counselor who ultimately didn't help you.

The strategies we discuss and implement are empirically supported and proven to work if you put in the work. Our time together is intended to teach you the skills and strategies, and your commitment to improvement and engagement in the treatment process will go a long way. In our years of experience, we are confident that if you practice these skills, they will be effective in improving your life.

I have a full schedule and don’t feel like I have enough time to consistently attend sessions.

Consistently engaging in therapy over the short-term actually creates more time in your life. One 45-minute therapy session each week is often far less disruptive than the hours worry, stress, and emotional overwhelm take from your life. Spending a brief time together working on skills can have the potential to open up hours of time for you to do things you enjoy.

If you actively participate and put in the work, you will feel less stressed and experience tangible improvements in your quality of life, health, sleep, and overall well-being.

What if I am not ready for change and I just want a place to talk about my worries and explore them?

It is completely valid to seek therapy for support and exploration without being ready to make active changes, and you do not need to have a plan or a goal to improve immediately. Many people use therapy as a safe space to simply process emotions and feel heard.

Begin Learning To Manage Your Anxiety Today

Reach out to Dr. Haley Rottenberg, Psychology, P.C., to learn more about our anxiety therapy practice and to set up a free, 15-minute consultation by calling 484-704-2539 or connecting through our contact page.

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