When you’re an anxious teen looking for therapy, you’ll probably come across the letters CBT a lot. What do they mean? And how is CBT used in anxiety therapy?

CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and is an evidence-based treatment for anxiety and anger management issues.

Our anxiety specialists are trained in and incorporate pieces of CBT into their work with kids, teens, and college students at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis.

Anger and anxiety can go hand in hand, which is why our team is full of anger management AND anxiety therapists in St. Louis.

Our therapists have specialized training to identify and treat anxiety-driven anger, a specific anger subtype due to underlying anxiety issues.

Anger can often mask what’s underneath the surface.

Because anger leads to really big reactions, parents, and even other therapists, aren’t always looking for another explanation for the behavioral reactions. But stress and anxiety can lead to outbursts, too, and rarely if ever is a person just angry. There’s usually something else going on.

As anxiety counselors in St. Louis, we know how important it is to feel supported and accepted for exactly who you are.

That’s why we want to make sure that our kids and teens who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community have a safe space to be themselves. It’s also important to connect them with resources that will continue to support and help them through any feelings that may come up. We are so happy to have had the opportunity to interview Rachel Kalina, MSW, LCSW, about her work with gender awareness and inclusion! She is doing really awesome work and we are excited to have her as a resource for our kids and teens.

Relaxation techniques are a huge part of anxiety therapy.

Kids and teens need to be able to calm down in order to move to the deeper, important work of therapy, whether that therapy is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, like ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), or if that is a more trauma-informed therapy, like TF-CBT or EMDR.

As anxiety specialists in St. Louis, we understand there is more than just one way to help your child work through challenges and process emotions.

Here at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis we help angry, anxious kids and teens work on building strategies to cope with their difficult emotions. Sometimes, that means processing trauma, grief or anxiety in more ways than just talk-therapy. Utilizing different strategies to tailor our approach to your child, is the most important part of creating that lasting change.

That’s why we are thrilled that our therapist, Allegra Grawer, is basic level 1 and 2 trained in EMDR, and is currently receiving EMDRIA certification supervision. But, we also know that sometimes schedules don’t always align or allow for you to work with us and it’s just as important for us to help you find other awesome therapists in the area!

St. Louis is full of amazing resources and we are so happy to feature one of those amazing therapists in our interview series this month! Laura Ranalletta, MSW, LCSW discusses below how she uses EMDR with her clients and brings her expertise to the field.

Anxiety can make connecting with friends hard. Add COVID, lockdowns, social distancing, and isolation to the mix, and it can feel overwhelming.

With this COVID year, we’ve had to focus so much on ourselves and our mental health. Stress has been at an all time high. So it makes sense that connecting with friends, especially after losing contact with them over 2020, feels hard to do.

Anxious people need friends, even when their anxiety and stress makes it hard.

And you may have worries about what they think or how they’ll react when you reach out again. That’s ok and normal! Of course you have anxiety around that. But that anxiety shouldn’t keep you from doing the things you need to do to benefit yourself, your mental health and, yes, your friendships that have fallen by the wayside.

The virtual school year, anxiety, and our covid 2021 summer:

Your child is wrapping up a whole year of primarily virtual learning and as anxiety therapists in St. Louis, we know how big of a feat that is. AWESOME JOB! You got through it! Right now, though, we’re on this weird precipice of almost fully returning to normal.

Vaccines are available to all adults. It seems likely that we’ll be back to fully in person school in the fall. And while your child may have already returned to school in person for some days, or almost all days, there’s still this lingering fear about case counts, social distancing, and what changes may need to be made for a safe return in the fall.

As anxiety counselors in St. Louis, we know that therapy is not always one size fits all.

That’s why we are thrilled to share that our therapist, Allegra Grawer, is now certified in EMDR. Having Allegra offer another kind of therapy for our clients, helps us meet the needs of our kids, teens and college students that may benefit from a different kind of therapy.

Allegra shares her expertise below, about EMDR for kids, how it can help with anxiety and when you should consider seeking this kind of help.

Toxic positivity, perfectionism, and anxiety tend to impact one another.

“Toxic positivity is the belief that no matter how dire or difficult a situation is, people should maintain a positive mindset. It's a ‘good vibes only’ approach to life.” Toxic positivity means you feel like you can only focus on the good and try and push away the bad.

In terms of perfectionism, where we always want to do our best and are so disappointed when we don’t meet our (very high!) expectations, coming short of our goals feels terrible. When we have perfectionism AND toxic positivity, we have an internal message telling us “I’m terrible,” or “I’m a failure,” a long with an internal message that “Feeling bad makes me bad,” or, “There’s something wrong with me for feeling this way.”

Here’s where anxiety comes in:

1. Toxic positivity: Good vibes only!

2. Perfectionism: I got less than an A on this test. I’m a failure!

3. Anxiety: Having this thought makes me a bad person, because “good vibes only!” I can’t tell people about this! I have to keep it to myself! There’s something really wrong with me. I can’t let anyone else know about this!

Therapy is not a one-size fits all approach.

Sometimes, a somatic experience and a sensory rich environment can really resonate for those teens who are a bit more closed off. It can be hard for teens to open up, especially when they feel so overwhelmed. At Compassionate Counseling St. Louis we work hard to tailor our approach to your child’s needs even when they struggle with talking about their emotions - and, we want to connect you to other awesome resources that can support the therapy we’re doing with you and your child.

This month, we’re so excited to share our interview with Equine-Assisted Psycotherapist, Kit Maxwell about her experience working with horses. She discusses how this type of therapy helps teens with their anxiety in a way that grounds them and strengthens their awareness. Read more below about her expertise!

College is already stressful but this year with the added stress of Covid, you might be feeling even more overwhelmed.

It’s hard to believe we are now a full year into this pandemic. The initial fear of the unknown might have subsided but now you might be noticing anxiety coming up in different ways. This lasting pandemic stress is becoming more common, especially among college students. It’s important to understand how to cope and when you should reach out for extra help.

As college students, the pressure to have life “figured out” after graduating can be really overwhelming. Add a pandemic on top of that, and your level of overwhelm has gotten even bigger.

You might also be feeling anxiety around virtual learning, worry about the job market, and anger about missing out on all of the fun you expected to have during college. All of these feelings are normal and valid! Remember that you aren’t alone in feeling this way.

We know that for many of our clients, talking about how they feel can be tough. Sometimes it’s challenging to open up; especially, when anxiety can be really overwhelming and we aren’t sure how to express how we feel. Somatic-based therapies like Brainspotting can be really excellent tools for helping in those situations.

As we continue our Helping Professionals Interview Series, we are so excited to share our interview with Certified Brainspotting Therapist, Brittany Bagy. Brittany is an awesome resource and focuses on helping her clients gain clarity and holistic healing. Read more below about how she helps treat anxiety, perfectionism and grief.

Why is perfectionism a bad thing?

Perfectionism is a lofty goal that keeps you from completing things or doing things that are good enough. If you have to be perfect, anything less than 110% is basically a failure, right?

When you have perfectionism, you’re constantly worried about not meeting your own expectations, AND you’re worried about what it says about you.

Perfectionism plus anxiety plus depression:

When we have perfectionism, we tend to be anxious. We have to meet our big goals for ourselves. If we don’t, we’ve failed. Then, that perceived failure makes us feel bad about ourselves - and that trips us right into a depression zone.

Perfectionism makes it so hard to let go of our overwhelming thoughts.

Our brains prevent us from fully engaging because they get so worried about what a poor grade, poor score, or poor performance means about us. Many times, we start to spiral. It usually looks something like…

Teen motivation is at an all time low.

For everyone, here in 2021. COVID is still happening. We’re still worried about the novel coronavirus. We’re still locked down. Schools are still mostly virtual. Meet ups are still mostly online. There’s a ton of stress, anxiety, and burnout roiling around for everyone.

So how on earth can you still be motivated, as a teen, during this pandemic?

Well, there are a few options - but it’s important, throughout this blog post, to remember that you can’t expect yourself to be as motivated as usual. Burnout is to be expected.

Finding a way to be a motivated student, even with anxiety and burnout:

We need to figure out how to still get enough done, in a good enough way - rather than focusing on getting everything done, and doing everything perfectly - a common issue for teens with anxiety.

Below, you’ll find tons of intervention ideas from therapists in the field, who specifically work with kids and teens, and who deeply recognize that things are different right now.

Anxiety can often follow a traumatic experience. It’s so important to get the help you need.

Anxiety can manifest itself in a lot of different ways, and can be due to a lot of different things, internally and externally. For many people, their anxiety symptoms start after a trauma. That’s why it’s so important to work with a therapist who can help dig in to what’s going on underneath your symptoms - a therapist who is trained in assessing all the different causes of anxious responses, who can work with you to move forward.

As we continue our Helping Professionals Interview Series, we are excited to share our interview with Melissa Webb, LPC, BC-TMH.

Melissa is a faith-based counselor that uses EMDR and CBT to help her clients work through their anxiety and trauma. Melissa brings her sense of humor, her passion, and her faith to give her clients the best care she can. We’re excited to share her expertise with you today!