What are the signs I should get therapy for anxiety?

If worry, racing thoughts, restlessness, trouble sleeping, or physical tension are interfering with your daily life or relationships, therapy can help. You don't have to wait until it feels unbearable — earlier support often makes anxiety easier to manage. A free introductory call is a good first step.

What type of therapy is best for anxiety?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most well-researched and effective approaches for anxiety, and it's often where we start. CBT helps you understand the link between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and gives you practical tools to break the anxiety cycle. We tailor the approach to what works best for you.

Can therapy help anxiety without medication?

Yes. Many people significantly reduce their anxiety through therapy alone, especially with evidence-based approaches like CBT. If medication becomes something you want to explore, we can coordinate with a prescribing provider — but it's not a requirement to get real relief.

How long does it take for anxiety therapy to work?

CBT for anxiety is often relatively short-term, and many clients notice meaningful improvement within the first several weeks of consistent sessions. We'll build skills you can keep using long after therapy ends.

What's the difference between stress and anxiety?

Stress is usually a response to a specific pressure and eases once the situation passes. Anxiety tends to linger, often without a clear cause, and can persist even when things are objectively okay. If your worry feels constant or out of proportion, therapy can help.

Do you treat panic attacks and phobias too?

Yes. Alongside generalized anxiety, we help clients with panic attacks, phobias, social anxiety, and related concerns using CBT and other evidence-based tools designed to reduce symptoms and restore a sense of control.

ADHD THERAPY FOR ADULTS

IN LOS ANGELES

You are not lazy, careless, or bad at being an adult

Most adults with ADHD spent years being told to apply themselves. Many built impressive workarounds and succeeded anyway, at the cost of exhaustion, anxiety, and a private conviction that they are getting away with something. Others were never identified at all, because they were not disruptive — just quietly drifting, losing time, and wondering why ordinary things took so much more effort than everyone else seemed to need.

At Playa Vista Counseling, we work with adults across Los Angeles who are managing ADHD — whether diagnosed in childhood, identified last month, or still figuring out whether it explains a lifelong pattern.

What adult ADHD often looks like

Adult ADHD rarely looks like a hyperactive child. More often it looks like:

Chronic procrastination on tasks you genuinely care about
Time blindness — losing hours, underestimating how long things take
Starting many projects and finishing few
Difficulty with paperwork, email, bills, and administrative tasks
Losing keys, phones, and trains of thought mid-sentence
Hyperfocus on interesting work while urgent things go untouched
Emotional intensity and difficulty recovering from frustration
Rejection sensitivity — small criticism landing very hard
Restlessness, or a mind that will not settle at night
Relying on last-minute panic as your only reliable motivator

What therapy for ADHD actually addresses

Therapy does not replace a diagnostic evaluation or medication, and we are clear about that. What it does is address the layers medication cannot reach.

The first is practical: externalized systems for time, task initiation, and follow-through that are built for an ADHD brain rather than borrowed from people who do not have one. The second is emotional: the accumulated shame of decades of missed deadlines and disappointed people, plus the anxiety and depression that so often develop alongside untreated ADHD. Many of our clients describe this second layer as the one that was actually holding them back.

Our approach

We use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy adapted for ADHD, which has solid research support in adults, focused on executive functioning skills and the beliefs underneath the avoidance. When shame and self-criticism are prominent, Internal Family Systems (IFS) work can be particularly effective. Where rejection sensitivity traces back to formative experiences — a teacher, a parent, a pattern of being called disappointing — EMDR can help those memories stop firing in present-day situations.

If you would like a formal evaluation or want to discuss medication, we can refer you to trusted providers and coordinate care.

Working with your brain rather than against it

The aim is not to become someone else. It is to build a life and a set of systems that fit how your attention actually works, and to stop paying an emotional tax for being wired differently.

We offer sessions in Los Angeles and virtual therapy throughout California, including evenings and weekends.

Frequently Asked Questions

Our focus is therapy and support rather than formal diagnostic testing. If you’d like a comprehensive evaluation, we can refer you to trusted providers who specialize in adult ADHD assessment and coordinate with them from there.
Both address different things. Medication typically helps with attention regulation, while therapy builds the practical systems and addresses the shame, anxiety, and relationship patterns that often accompany ADHD. Many adults do best with a combination, and plenty benefit from therapy alone.
Not at all. Many adults return to support when responsibilities outgrow their old workarounds — a promotion, parenthood, or running a household. Starting again as an adult often works better, because you can apply the strategies to your real life.
That’s one of the most recognizable features of ADHD. Attention regulation is driven by interest and urgency rather than importance, which is why genuinely important-but-boring tasks are the hardest. Therapy works on bridging that gap with external structure instead of willpower.
It’s the intense emotional pain many people with ADHD feel in response to criticism, rejection, or perceived disapproval — often out of proportion to the situation. It’s very treatable, and addressing it tends to improve both work and relationships significantly.
Individual sessions are $150 for 50 minutes. We’re an out-of-network provider and can supply a superbill for possible reimbursement through your PPO plan. We’re glad to talk through fees and options on your free introductory call.

Let’s talk about how we can help you find joy, peace, and inner healing.

BOOK YOUR FREE CONSULTATION