What is the best therapy for high functioning anxiety?
Before I ever became a therapist and was seeking out therapy for myself, I wondered what the best therapy for high functioning anxiety even was. I knew that my particular brand of anxiety wasn’t stopping me from living my life entirely, but I also knew I was miserable.
My brain never seemed to slow down, I often worried about situations in ways that seemed blown out of proportion, and I was mentally tired all the time. I knew that therapy could be helpful for me, but with so many options, it was hard to know where I should even start.
Now that I have experience as both a therapy client, and as a licensed therapist, I want to share with you what I see as the best therapy for high functioning anxiety.
If this is the first time you’ve landed on my blog, I’m Halle Thomas, an anxiety therapist practicing in Colorado and Oregon. In my practice, I work with millennials of all genders in weekly therapy and therapy intensives.
What even is high functioning anxiety?
But first, what is high functioning anxiety? Mayo Health Clinic shares that high functioning anxiety is a term used to describe people who are still able to function across most areas of their life even when their anxiety is causing them to suffer internally.
If this is you, it may look like you have it all together. Other people might see you succeeding in a high-pressure work environment, or managing entire teams of people without fault. But if we were to livestream your thoughts, other people would quickly learn that you:
Are experiencing extreme stress
Constantly feel you’re not doing enough
Worry that others are secretly criticizing you
Rarely allow yourself to rest
The top factor of successful therapy is how you feel about your therapist.
Before I explain what the best therapy for high functioning anxiety is, you need to know that the top predictor of therapy working well for you is how you perceive the relationship between you and your therapist (National Institute of Health, 2022). In professional terms, we call this the therapeutic alliance.
If you see your therapist as someone who is trustworthy and caring, it’s more likely that you will benefit from working with that particular therapist. And of course, this also means that if you see your therapist as cold, uncaring, or disinterested, you are less likely to benefit from receiving therapy from that particular therapist.
Talk therapy alone is often not enough to get relief from high functioning anxiety.
Most clients who find me often talk about how frustrated they were by previous therapists. Whenever I ask questions about what their past experiences in therapy were like, they tend to mention a few themes:
They only ever talked during therapy and felt like they were only venting
They were given homework by their therapist that they never did
They often felt like they weren’t getting actual relief from anxiety
For people with high functioning anxiety, relying on talking alone is simply not enough to actually process their emotions.
Therapies that involve your body and mind are the best for high functioning anxiety.
Our overarching culture in the United States tells us that our mind is separate from our body. What I often remind my clients of is that our mind is part of our body, which means we need to tend to both during therapy.
In my experience, clients looking for relief from high functioning anxiety do best with a combination of Brainspotting and Internal Family Systems therapy. With these therapies, we are increasing your capacity for experiencing your emotions while also learning how to notice bodily sensations that pair with these emotions.
Speaking from my own experience (and expertise!) solely relying on talk therapy can keep many people stuck in a cycle of talking about their feelings, without learning how to actually experience and process them.
Relief from high functioning anxiety is possible.
If you’ve been living with high functioning anxiety, it makes sense that you want to know how to get relief as quickly as possible. While there aren’t shortcuts, there are therapies that may work better for you than others. Rather than continuing the cycle of talking without experiencing relief, it’s probably time for you to try therapy that incorporates both your body and mind.
Ready to start therapy?
If you are currently living in either Colorado or Oregon and want to start therapy, click the button below to read over the FAQs and send in your contact form. I typically respond to forms within 24 hours of receiving them (though sometimes I’m a bit faster than that). If I think I could be a good match for you, I’ll send you a link where you’ll be able to schedule a free consultation call.
If you live in a state other than Colorado or Oregon (or if you live outside the United States) and would like to work together, head over to my coaching business, Living Your Afterlife, to sign up for the interest list.
