We all know what anxiety feels like. Sometimes it’s even helpful, pushing us toward goals or alerting us to real danger. But when it grows past that point, it can start to run your sleep, your relationships, your daily decisions. Many people live with anxiety longer than they need to, assuming it’s just how they are.
You May Relate If:
- you worry excessively about work, family, money, health, school performance, or any other part of life
- you avoid situations or people out of fear of panic, embarrassment, or failing to meet expectations
- you seek constant reassurance in relationships
- you find it difficult to complete tasks because of perfectionism, overthinking, or procrastination
- you struggle with panic attacks, phobias, or physical symptoms like tension, racing heart, and trouble sleeping
Understanding Anxiety
Most people come in feeling like their anxiety means something is wrong with them. Usually there’s more to it. Anxiety is a signal from your nervous system, one that’s meant to protect us. It’s usually pointing to something worth understanding. Sometimes that signal is accurate. Other times, the system stays switched on long after whatever triggered it, or it starts firing at things that aren’t actually dangerous.
In counselling, we help you understand:
- how your thoughts, body, and behaviour feed each other
- what’s actually happening in your body when you feel anxious
- why avoidance and reassurance tend to backfire
- what helpful stress looks like
- what it takes to calm your nervous system
Understanding how anxiety works in you changes how you relate to it and the impact on your life.
How Counselling Can Help
Counselling can help you:
- Uncover the underlying causes of your worries and fears
- Develop new, more positive and less frightening, ways of seeing situations
- Learn how to relax whenever and wherever you are
- Develop better coping and problem-solving skills
- Find the confidence to engage in new social situations and relationships
- Relate to yourself in gentler, more compassionate ways
Anxiety counselling helps you move from simply managing symptoms to living more fully and freely.
Our Therapeutic Approaches
We draw on a range of evidence-based approaches, grounded in a flexible, collaborative, and client-centred way of working that adapts to what is most helpful for you.
This allows us to shape our work around your needs, experiences, and goals, drawing from different therapeutic modalities as needed. Learn more about our approach to care.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT helps identify and change unhelpful thought patterns that fuel anxiety. You’ll learn practical strategies to challenge anxious thinking, reduce avoidance, and respond more effectively to stress.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
DBT focuses on emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and mindfulness. This approach is especially helpful if anxiety feels intense, overwhelming, or difficult to manage in the moment.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
EMDR can be effective when anxiety is connected to past experiences, trauma, or deeply rooted fears. It helps the nervous system process unresolved experiences that continue to trigger anxiety.
Mindfulness-Based Approaches
Mindfulness helps you become more present and less reactive to anxious thoughts and sensations. These techniques support calming the body and increasing awareness without judgment.
Strength-Based & Compassion-Focused Therapy
We emphasize your strengths while fostering self-compassion. Learning to respond to yourself with understanding rather than criticism can significantly reduce anxiety over time.
You don’t have to manage anxiety on your own. With the right support, anxiety can become more manageable and no longer define how you live your life.
Book an appointment today and take the first step toward lasting relief.
Meet Some of Our Counsellors Who Work With Anxiety
Kerry Bezzanno
Candice Rockwell
Jaqueline Brodbin
Sheila Ennin
Christine Crocker
Christine has been providing services to families, couples and individuals since 2007. She believes relationships are central to the health and well-being of individuals, families and communities, and that each person is encouraged to understand their unique situation and reach for attainable goals as they work toward making changes needed for a better life.
Emily Collins
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Frequently Asked Questions About Anxiety Counselling
It depends. What’s driving the anxiety, how long you’ve had it, and what else is going on in your life all shape the timeline. Some clients feel a real shift in a handful of sessions. Others benefit from longer work. The first few sessions help us understand what you’re working with, and we go at your pace.
We can help with all of them. Generalized anxiety, social anxiety, panic disorders, phobias, health anxiety, performance anxiety, OCD-related anxiety, anxiety tied to trauma, and the kind that doesn’t have a tidy diagnostic label but still affects daily life. If you’re not sure how to describe what you’re experiencing, that’s fine. We’ll figure it out together.
Most sessions involve talking, but that’s not all. We might work with breathing and grounding techniques, practice new responses to stressful situations, or explore what’s underneath the anxiety. We also pay attention to what’s already going well in your life.
Some anxiety is normal, and even useful. It alerts us to things we need to pay attention to. The goal usually isn’t to get rid of anxiety entirely. It’s to change your relationship with it, so it no longer runs your life or makes everyday things feel impossible. Many clients find their anxiety gets quieter and much easier to handle over time.
At River’s Edge, finding the right fit, both in the counsellor and the approach, is a real part of effective counselling. Our client care team helps guide the matching process rather than assigning you randomly. When you reach out, we talk with you about what you’re looking for. Some clients know they want someone with specific experience. Others just want someone they feel comfortable with. Either is a reasonable place to start.