How We Can Work Together — Lauren Napolitano, PsyD

Therapy for Anxiety

When your anxiety keeps you up at night, fills your head with non-stop negative chatter, and keeps you from fully enjoying your life, it’s time to get help.

You’re competent, accomplished, and intelligent. And overthinking has probably served you well in the past. It helps you remember to pick up bananas on the way home from work or to check in on a friend who’s going through a rough time. But when benign overthinking becomes relentless anxiety, that’s a sign you need help.

I’ve got good news: Anxiety is very treatable, and most of my clients experience symptom reduction within a few sessions. Working together, we’ll tame the critical voice in your head and help you enjoy your life again.

What’s the difference between anxiety and overthinking?

Overthinking and anxiety are actually two sides of the same coin. Overthinking is a kind of benign anxiety, in which our brains are moving fast and trying to anticipate other’s needs. It’s those questions that pop into your head when you’re brushing your teeth: “Did I follow up on that email?” “‘Should I have pizza for lunch or is that too many carbs?” “I haven’t heard from my friend in a few weeks, did I do something wrong?”

When things are going well, it’s easy to consider your overthinking as a superpower that helps you manage your hectic life.

But overthinking morphs into anxiety when two things happen: the frequency of the overthinking increases and the tone of the thinking turns distinctly self-critical. Anxiety usually feels negative or even vicious. It’s that voice telling you, “You missed your friend’s birthday—you’re so self-involved!” “You had a sandwich for lunch; guess whose pants won’t fit next week?” “You haven’t called your mom in over a week—you’re the worst daughter ever!”

You don’t have to live like this.

Questions about eating disorder treatment

No, only your primary care doctor or dietician will weigh you in their offices. I will, however, communicate with your treatment team about your weight.
That's a hard question to answer, because that depends on your overall health and body weight at the time of treatment. Certainly we will discuss any fears that you have about weight gain as it pertains to treatment.
Mental health professionals rarely use the term 'cured' when discussing treatment for any psychiatric condition. Eating disorders are, however, very treatable conditions. Many of my clients have successfully renegotiated their relationship with food and are now able to enjoy their lives without hearing the voice of an eating disorder criticizing their every decision.
That depends on the severity of the eating disorder and also your commitment to the treatment. If you are motivated to tackle the eating disorder, most of my clients experience a reduction in symptoms in about 8 sessions.

Here are the questions that come up most often in my practice. You’re not alone!

How we’ll work together on
your anxiety

I use a combination of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and psychodynamic therapy to treat anxiety. CBT looks at the automatic thoughts and distorted perceptions that you bring to any given moment. For example, if you receive a text from a friend rescheduling an upcoming lunch date, a knee-jerk thought might be that this friend doesn’t value you.

Using CBT, we’ll look for evidence whether your friend needing to reschedule really is related to their feelings about you as a friend—or not. By investigating one interpersonal reaction, we can start to dismantle the automatic thoughts and replace them with more rational ones.

CBT is very effective at modifying irrational thoughts and helping you see your life in a more objective, accurate manner and relieve the pressure and self-doubt.

Many psychologists utilize CBT alone to treat anxiety; however, I find my insight-oriented clients generally aren’t satisfied with mere symptom reduction. They want to understand why they respond to the world in an irrational, anxious way. By also using psychodynamic therapy, we’ll uncover patterns in thoughts and feelings across your lifespan, so you get both symptomatic relief and greater understanding of who you are so you can make lasting changes to be happier and more at ease in your life.