Therapy for anxiety and worry
Anxiety and worry can affect both how you feel and how you live your life. In therapy, you can receive help in understanding what triggers your anxiety, how it affects you, and work with what needs to change.
You are welcome to contact licensed psychologist Maria Sandgren for therapy sessions in Östermalm, Stockholm, or online.
Anxiety and worry
Anxiety can take many forms. For some, it involves constant worry and thoughts that are difficult to switch off. For others, anxiety is felt more in the body, as restlessness, tension, difficulty sleeping, or heart palpitations. Sometimes there is a vague sense that something is wrong or that something bad is going to happen, without it being clear what.
Worrying thoughts may revolve around relationships, work, health, or the future. They may also be about yourself: Have I done something wrong? Am I good enough? What do other people think of me? For some, worry leads to extensive planning and attempts to prevent things that might go wrong. Others become caught in overthinking and rumination without getting any closer to an answer.
Anxiety is a common reason for seeking therapy. It may have developed during a particularly stressful period or have been present for a long time.
How anxiety and worry can manifest
In therapy, we explore how anxiety takes shape in your particular life and the situations in which it arises. There are often recurring themes. These may involve a fear of failure, disappointing someone, being criticised or abandoned, or a worry that you will not be accepted for who you are.
Anxiety can also affect the choices we make. What reduces anxiety in the short term – avoiding a situation, adapting to others, or postponing a decision – can gradually make life more restricted.
Together, we try to understand what triggers your anxiety, what happens within you when it arises, and how it differs from the emotions and needs that are also present.
How anxiety limits your life
When anxiety and worry persist over time, they can take a great deal of energy and affect both psychological and physical well-being. Concentration, sleep, motivation, and the ability to be present may suffer.
Sometimes you may also begin to avoid the very things you long for – relationships, activities, work, or new opportunities – because the anxiety becomes too strong. Gradually, life can become more about preventing what you fear than moving towards what you actually want.
Anxiety also often occurs alongside low mood and self-criticism. When worry takes up a great deal of space, it can become more difficult to trust your own abilities and to know what you yourself need or want.
The aim of therapy for anxiety
The aim of therapy is not simply to learn how to manage anxiety. We also try to understand what happens when it arises and what may lie behind it or exist alongside it.
As anxiety decreases, it may become easier to notice the emotions, needs, and wishes that were previously difficult to approach. This can bring greater clarity about what matters to you and make it possible to act in new ways.
Change may involve becoming able to approach things you previously avoided, being more present in relationships, or making decisions with greater trust in yourself. For others, it may mean less need to control, overanalyse, or constantly prepare for something to go wrong.
What change can bring
When anxiety no longer takes up as much space, more of life can become available to you. This may mean greater presence and mutuality in relationships, more energy and creativity, greater trust in yourself, and an increased ability to make decisions and take initiative.
The aim is not a life entirely without worry. Anxiety is part of the human response to threat and uncertainty. Rather, change means that anxiety no longer needs to have the same degree of control – giving you greater freedom to orient yourself according to what you feel, need, and want.
Affect-focused therapy for anxiety
In affect-focused therapy, we explore together what you would like help with and what happens within you as we approach situations and experiences that are meaningful to you. We pay attention to emotions, but also to anxiety and the ways you have developed to manage what feels difficult.
An important part of the work is learning to recognise the difference between anxiety and emotions. Anxiety may, for example, be experienced as physical tension, heart palpitations, restlessness, or a state of intense inner arousal. It may also appear as overthinking, catastrophic thoughts, or a mind that is constantly trying to find solutions.
Emotions, by contrast, can provide information about how we are affected by what is happening. Anger can tell us something about a boundary that has been crossed, grief about something we have lost, and love or care about the people who matter to us. In this way, emotions are part of how we orient ourselves in life.
Understanding what happens behind the anxiety
For some people, there is a strong fear of criticism, rejection, or not being good enough. This can lead to self-criticism, overachievement, or a strong need to adapt to others. For others, it may feel safer to withdraw from relationships or situations where something important is at stake.
When emotions trigger anxiety, it can become difficult to know what you actually feel and need. Thoughts take over and try to solve the problem, sometimes through hours of analysing and ruminating.
In therapy, we explore these patterns as they arise. When it becomes possible to approach emotions without anxiety taking over, it can also become easier to understand yourself and act on what truly matters to you.
Therapy is therefore both about reducing what limits you and creating more space for presence, relationships, and agency in your life.
Therapy for anxiety and worry
I have extensive experience working with anxiety and worry and will meet you with an understanding of how these difficulties take shape in your particular life. Together, we explore what you would like help with and what kind of therapeutic approach may be right for you.
I see clients at my practice in Östermalm, Stockholm, and also offer online sessions.
Maria Sandgren · Licensed Psychologist · PhD in Psychology
Certified ISTDP Therapist