Top 5 Myths About Starting Anxiety Therapy in San Francisco

Anxiety Therapy San Francisco

When starting anxiety therapy in San Francisco, there can be A LOT of misconceptions. If you have never done therapy before, your mind may have a lot of different ideas. Here are the top 5 myths to dispel so that you can start the therapeutic process with a little more clarity.

1)    I will need to tell all my deepest, darkest secrets immediately to the therapist.

Like any relationship, trust builds with time.  A good therapist will give you time to learn to trust them and will allow trust to build in a relationship before helping you to reveal more personal information. We will, however, need to know some details about your anxiety and how it is affecting your life in order to help treat you.

2)    What kind of approach the therapist has really matters. 

While the therapist’s approach to therapy does matter, what is more important is how comfortable you feel with the therapist.  The strength of your rapport with the person you are talking to determines how deep the therapy can go and by extension, how much progress you make. Therefore, it is very important to find a therapist you feel at ease speaking with.

3)    Therapists will give you great advice.

While therapists may have great advice to give, a good therapist tries to get you to come to your own conclusions in order to help you make decisions that are more aligned with who YOU are.  Our goal is to help you listen to yourself and your intuition, not make decisions based on what we think is best.

4)    Therapy only consists of the 45 minutes you spend with the therapist.

While the minutes spent in the therapy session can be transformative, taking the lessons you learn out with you into the real world is key to making change happen. Whether it is applying a new coping skill or thinking about a problem differently, those moments outside the therapy office when you practice new things help fuel change. With anxiety, implementing new coping skills when it occurs outside the therapy office will make all the difference in your life.

5) Therapy will instantly fix all of my problems and banish my anxiety forever.

While therapy can (and often will) change your life, making changes takes time and effort.  How willing you are to commit to the process, how honest you are willing to be with yourself and your therapist, and the amount of time you put into therapy will all be variables that affect your ability to change. With anxiety especially, working on tools to cope with daily stressors will be especially important.

I hope this blog helped you learn a bit more about what to expect in anxiety therapy in San Francisco. Therapy has so many benefits and it is important to learn a bit about the process you are thinking of starting.

 If you are interested in learning more about starting anxiety therapy in San Francisco or the therapy process in general, please contact me, Lisa Manca, MA LPCC, BC-DMT, at lisa@lisamanca.com.