Anxiety Counselling in Vancouver
Support That Goes Beyond Coping Tools
Many of us experience anxiety daily. In fact, some anxiety can actually be helpful! A certain amount of stress or tension is what motivates us to study, go to work, or feed the goldfish we almost keep forgetting about. However, anxiety becomes an issue when it reaches levels that are no longer helpful, but instead starts running the show. Too much anxiety can become distracting, overwhelming and at times can paralyze us from making decisions or moving forward in our lives.
For some, anxiety lives in the body before it ever shows up as a thought: a tight chest, a racing heart, shoulders that keep inching up towards your ears, or a stomach that reacts before you've even figured out what you're worried about. For others, it's constant background noise of overwhelm or thoughts that show up out of nowhere and takes over everything. It's also common for anxiety and depression or burnout to show up together, flipping between periods of high anxiety and feeling numb, exhausted, and shut down.
Know you want support but not sure where to start?
Come take your shoes off, curl up with some tea and let’s make a plan. You’re not broken, you’re just wonderfully human, which can be complicated (and sometimes frustrating) to navigate.
Our Find a Counsellor form can guide you in connecting with a counsellor who is the best fit for you.
Often, Anxiety Sounds Like This:
I’m almost never able to be present: I’m either constantly bracing for what could go wrong, or thinking about the past, even when I know logically everything is okay.
I have extremely high standards that I work really hard to meet. I feel like others judge me silently unless I'm doing everything perfectly.
I'm able to put a mask on and show up the way I think I'm supposed to, but I'm totally exhausted after and don’t have energy for anything else.
I get angry and annoyed for no reason, then feel incredibly guilty after.
Nothing I do ever feels good enough.
Sometimes I'm so anxious I feel nauseous and unable to breathe properly. Sometimes I can't tell if I feel sick or if I'm just anxious
I just can’t handle the amount of stress I’m under anymore
Anxiety paralyzes me. I've started avoiding any situation where things could go wrong.
I second-guess everything I say in my relationships, replaying conversations. I often worry that I’ve upset someone or that I'm "too much."
I have a hard time not being in control and too much unpredictability makes me extremely anxious or irritable
I find it really hard to slow down, rest, or be without something to distract myself or work on.
At some point we begin feeling like we should be able to have it all and do it all - perfectly, by the way - and that we shouldn’t need anyone else’s help. One of the hardest parts about anxiety is not understanding why you feel the way you do.
Those of us with anxiety often look at others who seem to be doing okay, and wonder why it seems so easy for other people, which obviously doesn’t help with feelings of shame, confusion and frustration.Different Ways Anxiety Can Show Up
Anxiety often isn’t related to just one single experience. For some, anxiety is centred around one aspect of our life such as career, or relationships. For others, panic attacks can pop up out of nowhere. Of course social anxiety can come up around others, with a worry about being judged or watched, or anxiety can center around health, and insist that something's physically wrong. It can also show up as specific phobias, obsessive or intrusive thoughts, or a more constant, generalized unease that doesn't attach to anything specific but make it hard to enjoy anything.Whatever form anxiety takes for you, you can let us know what your experience is when you reach out to connect, since different presentations often benefit from slightly different approaches, and it’s important to us that you feel understood, and well supported.
How Counselling for Anxiety Can Help
Anxiety often comes from ongoing stress, trauma, family-of-origin patterns, being told you aren't good enough, or learning that showing emotion is a sign of weakness. Often those with anxiety are worried about being vulnerable and fully opening up to others (or even themselves), and burdening others or being perceived as too much. Luckily, a counsellor is someone you don’t need to worry about burdening, although that’s a common thought to have too!
Let’s also name that not every struggle or experience of anxiety traces back to something personal. We live in a world that asks a LOT of us, urging us to keep up, to perform, to be endlessly capable. Everyone has moments of being impacted by this, but it’s especially true of people navigating a world that was not designed to support them thriving: this can be (but isn’t automatically true for all) neurodivergent folks, trauma survivors, or minorities within their communities. Much of society is also more lonely and disconnected than ever; none of these factors have anything to do with something being wrong with you, but can amplify the struggles, and take a considerable toll. We'll talk about all of this too, and build compassion as well as fortitude in navigating the complexity of life, in ways that hopefully cost you less.
When you connect with the right counsellor who is able to hold all of this in mind, you can start together with building clear strategies for the moments anxiety gets in the way, while beginning to understand what's actually underneath it, where it came from, and what continues to build pressure. You work together with your counsellor to create a more supportive inner world, so you can feel calmer, steadier, and more secure in the world, not just better at managing the surface.
Meet Our Anxiety Counsellors
Finding the right counsellor matters.
The following counsellors have availability for new clients and bring different personalities, experiences and therapeutic approaches to anxiety counselling.
We offer free 15-minute consultations so you can connect and ask questions first. You can browse our counsellors yourself or have our intake team help you find a potential fit.
Already Tried the Tools?
Maybe you've already read the books, learned the breathing exercises, and can name your thought patterns in your sleep. And your body still reacts anyway. If that's familiar, you may not need more information about anxiety. While lots of beautiful knowledge comes from books and tools, you may be ready for the deeper work underneath the pattern.
This is where more embodied work can come in, work that goes beyond thinking your way through anxiety and into actually shifting how your body holds it. Anxiety can appear when we haven’t taken the time, or felt safe enough to really feel our emotions hiding under the surface, which many of our counsellors can create space for, but can’t be found in the pages of a book. Some of our counsellors bring somatic, parts work or EMDR into this kind of work, meeting anxiety where it actually lives, not just where you think about it.
Frequently Asked Questions About Anxiety Counselling
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Some anxiety is a normal, useful part of being human, as it's what motivates you to prepare for something that matters, and is really called for in a lot of high stress or intense situations. It's worth looking at once it starts impacting your day to day life, EVEN if something really big is happening. You always deserve support in managing things.
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Absolutely not. While some clients are referred to us from doctors (with and without diagnoses,) no one needs a diagnosis to see one of our therapists.
All you need is a sense that anxiety is affecting your life, and the openness to chat with someone about it. -
Yes. Some people feel anxiety in their body before it even shows up as a thought. A racing heart, a tight chest, nausea, and trouble breathing are all common ways anxiety lives in the body, not just the mind.
Some people notice their thoughts or even behaviours before they notice anything in the body, which is normal and okay too. If you’re open, we can build up body awareness which can help know how to respond. -
Definitely, and this is a common place to start from. Even if you’ve been to counselling before, or built coping strategies help in the moment; counselling also works on what's underneath, so those moments happen less often over time. Even if you have tools, your relationship with yourself can still be impacted by anxiety, which you can work on in counselling.
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Yes. A lot of anxiety is a reasonable response to real pressure, not something you're supposed to just push past on your own. Counselling can help you find more steadiness and support, even when the pressure itself isn't something you can change overnight. At the very least, having someone to be in the trenches with you can help ease some of the weight.
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Yes, absolutely. Social anxiety is one of the more common reasons people reach out. Many of our counsellors enjoy supporting clients through the experience of social anxiety and becoming for comfortable and confident in their relationships and interactions with others.
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Yes, many of our counsellors work with panic and panic-related anxiety regularly. Let us know that this is specifically what you’re looking for support with when you reach out and we can find you someone who can really understand and support you.
RCC, She/Her
Esther supports clients with self-worth, relationships, attachment, childhood experiences, neurodivergence, family dynamics and burnout, creating space for clients to better understand themselves and the patterns shaping their lives. Esther also has a background as teacher and school counsellor and loves supporting teens, other educators, caregivers and those with BIPOC experiences or who have lived outside of Canada
Main Approaches:Somatic · Mindfulness · Attachment-Focused · IFS · Narrative · DBT · Emotion-Focused · AEDP