Understanding anxiety at its roots — and building practical tools to manage and reduce it day to day.
Anxiety is one of the most common reasons people seek support — and one of the most misunderstood. It is not simply worry. It is not weakness. And it is not something you can think your way out of by deciding to be less anxious.
Anxiety is a response — often a very intelligent one — to something the nervous system has learned to treat as dangerous. Understanding what that is, and how it has been wired in, is the beginning of genuinely changing it.
Anxiety presents differently in different people. For some it is a constant background hum of tension and dread. For others it arrives in sudden, overwhelming waves. It can look like overthinking, perfectionism, people-pleasing, difficulty making decisions, physical symptoms, insomnia, or a persistent sense that something bad is about to happen.
It often co-exists with depression, or with addiction — substances and compulsive behaviours are frequently a form of self-medication for unaddressed anxiety.
I work with anxiety at both levels: the psychological patterns and beliefs that maintain it, and the practical, day-to-day skills that help manage and reduce it. I use CBT to identify and challenge thinking patterns that feed anxiety, DBT for emotional regulation and distress tolerance, and Psychodynamic work to understand where the anxiety comes from and what it is really about.
Online, by phone, or face to face in London. English and Arabic.