Anxiety Treatment in Denver

Frequently Asked Questions About Anxiety

Anxiety is the most common reason people contact us. CBT is our usual starting point, with DBT skills added when emotional dysregulation is part of the picture.

What are the symptoms of anxiety?

Persistent worry that is hard to switch off, restlessness, irritability, difficulty concentrating, muscle tension, and disturbed sleep — alongside avoidance of the situations that trigger it. Physical symptoms are common and often what sends people to a doctor first. Symptoms become a disorder when they persist and interfere with daily life. See generalized anxiety disorder for the diagnostic picture.

What causes anxiety?

There is rarely a single cause. Genetic predisposition, temperament, early experiences, chronic stress, trauma, medical conditions, and substances all contribute. What maintains anxiety is usually clearer than what started it: avoidance and safety behaviors stop the fear being disconfirmed, so it persists. That is useful, because the maintaining factors are the ones treatment can change.

How is anxiety treated?

The first-line psychological treatment is CBT, which targets catastrophic predictions and the avoidance keeping them untested, usually with graded exposure. DBT skills are added when emotion runs too intensely to work with directly. Medication, managed by a prescriber, is sometimes used alongside. We provide the therapy and coordinate with prescribers where relevant.

What is generalized anxiety disorder?

GAD is excessive, difficult-to-control worry about a range of everyday matters, present more days than not for at least six months, along with symptoms such as restlessness, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, or poor sleep. The worry moves from topic to topic rather than fixing on one fear. Read more about GAD treatment in Denver.

What’s the difference between normal worry and an anxiety disorder?

Normal worry is proportionate, time-limited, and often leads to useful action. An anxiety disorder is disproportionate to the actual risk, hard to stop once it starts, persists over months, and reliably interferes with work, sleep, or relationships. The clearest practical test is interference. If you are unsure where you fall, a free consultation is a low-cost way to find out.

Can anxiety go away on its own?

Situational anxiety often does, once the situation resolves. An established anxiety disorder usually does not, because avoidance is self-reinforcing — every avoided situation confirms the fear and narrows life a little further. That is why the untreated course tends to be chronic and fluctuating rather than self-correcting, and why treatment tends to be more efficient early.

What is the best therapy for anxiety?

CBT has the strongest evidence across anxiety disorders and is recommended as first-line treatment, with exposure-based components doing much of the work. The specific protocol varies by disorder — panic, social anxiety, and phobias are treated differently from generalized anxiety. Mountainside delivers structured CBT and adds DBT skills where needed. Anxiety treatment in Denver.

How does therapy help with anxiety?

It works on both halves of the cycle. You learn to catch and test the predictions driving the fear rather than accepting them, and you gradually approach what you have been avoiding so those predictions can be disconfirmed by experience. Skills for managing physical arousal come alongside. The aim is not to eliminate anxiety but to stop it dictating your choices.

What are coping skills for anxiety?

Slow breathing with a longer exhalation, grounding through the senses, naming the worry as a thought rather than a fact, scheduling worry into a fixed window, and deliberately not performing the safety behavior. Movement helps discharge arousal. These reduce distress in the moment; treatment addresses the pattern underneath. See our full FAQ for grounding techniques.

Can anxiety cause physical symptoms?

Yes, and they are real rather than imagined — a racing heart, chest tightness, breathlessness, nausea, dizziness, sweating, trembling, and muscle pain are all produced by the body’s threat response. Many people see several doctors before anxiety is identified. New or unexplained physical symptoms should still be assessed medically first. Persistent fear about illness itself has its own treatment: illness anxiety disorder.

What does an anxiety attack feel like?

Usually a build-up of dread with a racing heart, tight chest, shallow breathing, and a sense that something bad is imminent — mounting over minutes or hours rather than peaking abruptly. “Anxiety attack” is not a formal diagnostic term; a panic attack is the clinical event, defined by a sudden surge peaking within minutes.

What’s the difference between anxiety and panic attacks?

Anxiety builds gradually, attaches to an identifiable worry, and can persist for hours or days at a lower intensity. A panic attack is an abrupt surge of intense fear peaking within about ten minutes, often with a sense of unreality or of dying, and frequently without an obvious trigger. Recurrent unexpected panic attacks point toward panic disorder.

How do I manage anxiety without medication?

Structured CBT is an effective standalone treatment for most anxiety disorders, and plenty of our clients never use medication. It works through exposure to what you have been avoiding, testing anxious predictions, and skills for managing physical arousal — supported by sleep, movement, and limiting alcohol and caffeine. Whether medication is warranted is a question for a prescriber, not something to rule out on principle.

Is medication or therapy better for anxiety?

For most anxiety disorders, CBT performs comparably to medication and its benefits are more likely to persist after treatment ends, since you keep the skills. Medication can be valuable when symptoms are severe enough to block engagement in therapy. Combining them is common. The decision belongs with you and a prescriber — Mountainside provides the therapy side. Our approach.

Can anxiety be cured permanently?

Anxiety itself is a normal and useful response, so the goal is not elimination. What treatment can do is reduce an anxiety disorder to the point where it no longer restricts your life, and give you skills that remain available afterward. Relapse is possible under significant stress, and a short course of booster sessions usually resolves it faster than the original treatment did.

What is performance anxiety?

Intense fear of being evaluated while performing a task — presenting, competing, examinations, or playing music — often with physical symptoms that interfere with the performance itself. It responds well to CBT with graded exposure and work on attentional focus. Audrey Fisher, LPC, works specifically in athlete mental performance. Meet our therapists.

How do I find an anxiety therapist in Denver?

Look for explicit training in CBT and in exposure-based treatment, and ask which protocol they would use for your particular anxiety — the answer should be specific. Ask how progress will be measured. Mountainside’s clinicians use structured CBT protocols and see clients in the Denver area and by telehealth across Colorado. Request a free consultation.

Does telehealth therapy work for anxiety?

Yes. The evidence for remotely delivered CBT for anxiety is strong, and there is a practical advantage: exposure practice happens in the environment where you actually need it rather than in an office. Sessions run 45 minutes on a HIPAA-compliant platform anywhere in Colorado. Read about online therapy with us.

What are grounding techniques for anxiety?

Techniques that pull attention out of anxious thought and into present sensory experience: naming five things you can see and four you can hear, holding something cold, pressing your feet into the floor, or describing your surroundings in plain factual detail. They work best when practiced when calm, so they are available when you are not. These are core DBT distress tolerance skills.

How does breathing help with anxiety?

Slow breathing with a longer exhalation than inhalation activates the body’s calming response and directly lowers heart rate — it changes physiology rather than argument. It is the “paced breathing” component of DBT’s TIPP skill. It will not stop a panic attack from happening, but it shortens the arousal and gives you something to do that is not avoidance.

Browse every question in our comprehensive mental health FAQ →

School refusal and school avoidance

If anxiety or low mood is keeping your child out of school, read about our school refusal and school avoidance support, or start with the parent guides in our school refusal resource center.