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Anxiety Therapy in Los Angeles
(In-Person in West Hollywood, CA & Online)
Welcome! I'm Oliver Drakeford an anxiety expert, and licensed psychotherapist in Los Angeles with a decade of experience. My office is located in the heart of West Hollywood on Santa Monica Blvd.
Feeling Constantly On Edge or Overwhelmed?
Anxiety shows up as racing thoughts, trouble sleeping, panic attacks, and a persistent sense that something is slightly wrong. It affects how you think, feel, and behave — often in ways that build slowly before you recognize the pattern.
Anxiety is the most common psychological condition in the United States, affecting over 40 million adults. It can take many forms, including generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, panic disorder, and health anxiety. Each type creates its own cycle of worry, avoidance, and physical tension that interferes with daily life.
Therapists trained in anxiety treatment focus on identifying the specific pattern driving your distress and building concrete skills to interrupt it.
Common signs that anxiety may benefit from professional support:
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Racing or looping thoughts that resist logic or reassurance
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Panic attacks with rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, or dizziness
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Overthinking decisions, conversations, or worst-case scenarios
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Difficulty falling or staying asleep due to persistent worry
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Avoiding social situations, work tasks, or new experiences out of fear
Recognizing these patterns is the first step toward regaining a sense of calm and control in your daily life.
Oliver Drakeford, LMFT offers anxiety therapy for adults in West Hollywood and throughout California, both in-person and online.
More Reading On Anxiety Therapy:
What Is Anxiety Therapy?
Anxiety therapy is a structured, evidence-based treatment that helps you identify and change the thought patterns, emotional responses, and behaviors that keep worry and fear running your life. Anxiety disorders — including generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, panic disorder, and specific phobias — go beyond everyday stress. They create persistent cycles of avoidance, physical tension, and distorted thinking that interfere with your work, your relationships, and your daily functioning.
In my practice, I don't just help you manage symptoms on the surface. I work with you to understand the specific engine driving your anxiety — whether that's cognitive distortions, unresolved emotional patterns, relational dynamics, or nervous system dysregulation. From there, we target those root causes directly.
I draw on several evidence-based approaches depending on what you need. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helps you recognize and restructure the inaccurate thoughts that fuel anxious responses. Psychodynamic therapy allows us to explore the deeper emotional conflicts and early relational patterns that keep anxiety locked in place. Somatic approaches address the physical tension and nervous system activation that often accompany chronic worry. I integrate these modalities intentionally, building a treatment plan around your experience rather than applying a one-size-fits-all protocol. Anxiety disorders are highly treatable, yet only 36.9% of those affected receive treatment.
Here is what anxiety therapy in my practice focuses on:
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Identify the specific cognitive distortions or emotional triggers sustaining your anxiety cycle
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Build concrete skills to interrupt worry loops and reduce avoidance behaviors
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Process underlying emotional material that keeps your nervous system on high alert
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Develop a grounded, flexible response to uncertainty instead of defaulting to fear
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Strengthen your capacity to stay present in relationships and daily decisions
My goal is to give you both insight into why your anxiety persists and practical tools to change your relationship with it for good.
How Does Anxiety Therapy Work?
Anxiety therapy works by moving beyond surface-level coping to dismantle the patterns that keep anxiety in control of your life. Most people who come to my practice have already tried breathing exercises, meditation apps, and maybe even previous therapy. The problem isn't that those tools are useless. The problem is they only manage symptoms without ever revealing the hidden rules that keep you trapped.
My approach starts from a different premise. Anxiety is predictable, patterned, and persistent — because it's doing its job. It operates by a set of rules you've been following since childhood, and those rules worked insofar as you're alive and safe. But as an adult, they're holding you back. Effective anxiety therapy identifies those rules and breaks them one by one.
1. Identifying Triggers and Thought Patterns
At the core of every anxiety disorder is an intolerance of uncertainty. It doesn't matter whether you call it social anxiety, health anxiety, relationship anxiety, or generalized worry. Scratch beneath the surface and you find the same engine: difficulty tolerating not knowing.
Social anxiety is uncertainty about how people will respond to you. Relationship anxiety is uncertainty about your connection. Health anxiety is uncertainty about what a symptom means. Even perfectionism is rooted in the terrifying possibility that you might not meet standards or that others might see you fail.
This intolerance shows up in predictable ways. You become an over-planner with backup plans for your backup plans. Or a mental rehearser, spending hours scripting conversations that never follow the script. Or a certainty seeker, constantly requesting reassurance, checking the news, or researching for hours before making a simple decision.
In therapy, we map out exactly how uncertainty triggers your specific anxiety cycle — what I call your uncertainty fingerprint — so we stop fighting the wrong battle and start targeting what actually keeps you stuck.
2. Reducing Physical Anxiety Symptoms
Anxiety doesn't just live in your thoughts. It lives in your body. Some people experience uncertainty as a physical tornado — racing heart, clenched stomach, muscle tension, sleeplessness — even when their mind isn't particularly worried. Others feel mentally consumed but physically calm. Your body's response to uncertainty is different from someone else's, and your treatment needs to reflect that.
I work with clients to identify whether they respond to uncertainty with cognitive agitation, physical activation, or both. An Architect who needs detailed plans but stays physically calm needs a different strategy than a Tornado who experiences both the mental anguish of not knowing and a full-body stress response. Generic coping skills miss this distinction entirely. Therapy that fits your nervous system's specific response pattern reduces physical symptoms faster and more durably.
3. Building Emotional Regulation Skills
Traditional anxiety management accidentally reinforces anxiety's most powerful rule: that anxiety itself is so dangerous it must be constantly soothed and controlled. This sends your brain the message that you're not capable of handling discomfort — making anxiety stronger, not weaker.
In my practice, I take a different approach. Instead of adding more tools to your toolbox, we challenge the belief that you need those tools to survive. You learn to tolerate discomfort without defaulting to avoidance, reassurance-seeking, or overcontrol. This is how you stop playing defense in a rigged game.
The goal is not to eliminate anxiety. The goal is to stop letting it negotiate away pieces of your life — the opportunities you decline, the conversations you avoid, the plans you cancel for immediate relief. Each time you choose the safe option, your brain rewards that avoidance and strengthens anxiety's hold. Emotional regulation means interrupting that cycle at its source.
4. Increasing Long-Term Confidence
Anxiety keeps your world small by convincing you that everything outside your comfort zone is dangerous. What begins as skipping one event becomes avoiding all social situations. Your safe zone contracts while your fears grow larger. You're not building security — you're building a prison where anxiety is both the guard and the architect.
Long-term confidence comes from systematically expanding that territory. In therapy, we identify exactly which of anxiety's rules you've been following — the Small is Safe Directive, the Demand for Control and Certainty, the Constant Threat Imperative — and we break them through direct, experiential work.
Lasting confidence means you stop living by anxiety's rules and start making decisions based on what you actually want — not what fear permits.
I offer anxiety therapy for adults in-person at my West Hollywood office and online throughout California. Book a consultation to find out how this approach fits your specific anxiety pattern.
Anxiety, overthinking, and worry are some of the more common symptoms clients come to seek help with in my private practice, and I've been helping people in Los Angeles with it for a decade as a marriage and family therapist.
In this video, I hope to shed some light on why we worry, how anxiety hooks us, and how we can begin to loosen its grip using strategies I share with clients.
Anxiety Issues I Treat in Los Angeles
Every anxiety disorder I treat in Los Angeles shares the same engine: an intolerance of uncertainty that shows up in predictable, patterned, and persistent ways. The label changes — generalized anxiety, panic, social anxiety — but the underlying mechanism is remarkably consistent. What differs is how that intolerance expresses itself in your thoughts, your body, and your behavior. Here's how each one typically shows up in my practice.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Generalized anxiety disorder keeps you in an elevated state of chronic worry and overthinking that is difficult to control. You're the over-planner with backup plans for your backup plans. You spend hours mentally rehearsing conversations that never follow your script. The worry often centers on health, finances, relationships, or work — but the real issue is a demand for certainty that life refuses to provide. The more certainty you chase, the less certain you feel. I work with clients to identify the specific rules of anxiety driving their worry cycle and dismantle them at the source rather than teaching more coping tools to manage endless what-ifs.
Panic Disorder
Panic disorder creates dramatic episodes of acute, overwhelming fear marked by rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, dizziness, and a terrifying sense of losing control. For many of my clients, the panic attack itself becomes less frightening than the fear of the next one. You start scanning your body for warning signs, avoiding locations where attacks have happened, and shrinking your world to prevent another episode. This is anxiety's Small is Safe Directive at work — each avoidance brings immediate relief but makes everything outside your safe zone more terrifying. Treatment focuses on breaking that avoidance cycle and changing your relationship with the physical sensations themselves.
Social Anxiety
Social anxiety therapy looks at how uncertainty about how people will respond to you. Will they like me? Are they judging me? Did I say something stupid? Anxiety turns you into a threat detective in every social interaction — a coworker's yawn means you're boring, a friend's one-word text means they're angry, a brief silence signals rejection.
You might describe yourself as introverted or say you just prefer small groups, but the truth is you're having a physical and emotional reaction to social uncertainty that limits your life. I treat social anxiety by addressing both the cognitive distortions driving the fear and the nervous system activation that makes social situations feel genuinely unsafe.
Health Anxiety
Health anxiety follows the same uncertainty pattern as every other form: What does that ache mean? Is it serious? Could it be life-threatening? You become a certainty seeker — researching symptoms for hours, requesting unnecessary medical tests, and never quite believing the reassurance you receive.
I've heard from colleagues about clients who requested five CT scans in a single year just to feel certain they didn't have cancer. The reassurance brings temporary relief, but it strengthens anxiety's hold because your brain learns that the only way to feel safe is to keep checking. In health anxiety therapy, we target the intolerance of uncertainty itself rather than chasing reassurance that never lasts.
Work and Performance Anxiety
Many of my clients are executives, creatives, and entrepreneurs who can manage complex projects and million-dollar budgets but get derailed by a vague email from their boss. Performance anxiety is driven by the Demand for Control and Certainty — the rule that convinces you safety lives in predicting every outcome, eliminating every unknown, and scripting every response.
You rehearse board presentations at 3am. Your perfectionism is killing your creativity. You procrastinate not because you're lazy but because you can't start until you're 100% sure of the result. Treatment maps your specific uncertainty fingerprint and builds strategies that fit your demanding lifestyle — not generic advice that ignores how your brain actually works.
Relationship Anxiety
Relationship anxiety therapy looks at the uncertainty about your connection. Are they going to leave? Do they really love me? Are they texting someone else? You might check your partner's location before bed, overanalyze the tone of every text, or test the relationship in ways that push your partner away — confirming the very fear you were trying to prevent.
This pattern is predictable and persistent because anxiety is doing its job of keeping you hypervigilant about potential loss. I work with clients to identify the specific relational triggers driving their anxiety and build tolerance for the uncertainty that every healthy relationship requires.
OCD
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is anxiety driven by intrusive thoughts and the urgent need to neutralize them through ritualistic behaviors. The obsessions create unbearable uncertainty — Did I lock the door? Am I a bad person? What if I harm someone? — and the compulsions promise temporary relief. But every time you perform the ritual, you reinforce anxiety's rule that the thought itself is dangerous and must be controlled.
I treat OCD by helping clients change their relationship with intrusive thoughts rather than fighting or obeying them. The goal is to break the cycle at its root so the thoughts lose their power.
I treat all of these anxiety issues at my West Hollywood office and online throughout California. Book a consultation to identify your specific anxiety pattern and find out which approach fits how your nervous system actually responds.
How Anxiety Therapy Can Help You in Los Angeles
Anxiety can feel overwhelming, but therapy offers proven ways to regain control and peace in your life.
In my West Hollywood practice, therapy for stress, uncertainty, worries and anxious distress is tailored specifically to your unique experience, blending psychoanalytic insight with practical, actionable strategies. Together, we'll uncover the deeper emotional patterns fueling your worries, interrupt repetitive anxiety loops, and equip you with coping skills to manage everyday stressors effectively. My goal is to help you break free from the exhausting cycle of anxiety, creating lasting emotional balance and healthier relationships.
In anxiety therapy sessions, you'll learn to recognize when anxious thoughts are misleading or magnified, allowing you to confront them safely and directly. By gently addressing the underlying cognitive behavioral and emotional ques that anxiety often masks, therapy can reduce your reliance on worry as a coping mechanism. Clients frequently report feeling more grounded, confident, and capable of facing life's uncertainties after engaging in therapy.
Whether meeting in-person at my West Hollywood office or online across California, anxiety therapy provides essential support for moving beyond worry toward genuine relief and meaningful emotional growth.
THE
PARADOX
OF WORRY
“If worrying makes me feel so awful, why do I keep doing it?”
The “paradox of worry” is that it might seem to reduce anxiety in the moment, or at the very least gives us a false sense of control as we're mulling over possibilities and scenarios. However we're likely to find that worry is covering more more intense feelings that we're not wanting to get in touch with. So while worry can be productive, it ultimately prolongs and amplifies anxiety.
Identifying this cycle and helping you to confront what worry is shielding them from—is a crucial step toward real relief.
Understanding How Anxiety Works
The Worry Shield
Worry is a cognitive process, not an emotional one. Rather than fully imagining a threat (which triggers a stronger emotional reaction), we intellectually dwell on it with worry. This “cognitive detour” means we never confront our deeper fears or feelings head-on.
Feelings such as sadness, grief, or panic remain locked away, unaddressed. Because we never truly face them, we can’t learn to soothe them or discover what they need (e.g., connection, reassurance, action).
The Payoff Of Worry
Worry can trick us into feeling as though we’re preventing bad outcomes (“If I keep worrying about it, maybe it won’t happen”). This is sometimes called magical thinking.
Each time you use worry to sidestep a bigger emotional surge, it “works” just enough to convince you it’s a good idea. That reward turns into a habit—almost like pressing the same lever to get relief again and again.
The Trap Of Worry
On some level, worrying feels safe, perhaps even practical, but it blocks healing and emotional processing.. By clinging to worry for relief, you never fully process the real source of distress.
Worry primes the brain to look for more problems, adding to the cycle of hypervigilance. Because it provides short-lived comfort, worry becomes an ingrained behavior, and simple willpower (“just stop worrying!”) doesn’t break the cycle.
Effective Therapy For Worry in West Hollywood
If this is connecting with you, and you're struggling with worry, anxiety or overthinking, and live in California, or Los Angeles, effective treatment is available. You can make a free consultation call with me or one of my colleagues and we'll answer your questions and, if it feels right, set up your first session.
THE FIVE
RULES OF
ANXIETY
Anxiety has rules that it forces you to follow.
ANXIETY THERAPY HELPS FREE YOU FROM THE CONSTRAINTS OF ANXIETY
The “paradox of worry” is that it might seem to reduce anxiety in the moment, or at the very least gives us a false sense of control as we're mulling over possibilities and scenarios. However we're likely to find that worry is covering more more intense feelings that we're not wanting to get in touch with. So while worry can be productive, it ultimately prolongs and amplifies anxiety.
Identifying this cycle and helping you to confront what worry is shielding them from—is a crucial step toward real relief.
Rule #1 The Smoke Alarm Rule
We treat every anxious thought as though it’s a genuine emergency alert, like a smoke alarm that always signals fire—even when there’s no real danger.
This leads to hypervigilance, where people feel compelled to analyze and react to every little fear. In reality, many of these “alarms” are false positives that keep us unnecessarily on edge.
Rule #2 The Boomerang Principle
Trying to shove anxiety away can actually make it bounce back harder—much like a boomerang returns when thrown.
The more you insist on eliminating discomfort, the more it seems to fight for your attention. Paradoxically, learning to acknowledge your anxious feelings often makes them less overwhelming.
Rule #3 The First Day Of School Illusion
Anxiety convinces people they lack the internal resources to handle tough situations—forgetting the many times they’ve managed difficulties before. They rely heavily on external reassurance, believing, “I can’t let anything bad happen because I just can’t cope.” In reality, they’ve already survived countless challenges, proving they’re more capable than they think..
Rule #4 Every Rumble Is The Big One
Any slight sign of trouble—a racing heart, a sudden noise—triggers thoughts of catastrophic outcomes. It’s like hearing a rumble and instantly assuming it’s the worst earthquake ever.
By magnifying every minor cue into a crisis, anxiety keeps you in a near-constant state of alarm.
Rule #5 We're Under Attack
This overarching stance has people seeing daily life as a war zone, modifying their choices to stay “safe.”
They avoid certain places, activities, or even thoughts to guard against what they perceive as ongoing threats. The result is a restrictive, exhausting existence governed by a team of fear rather than actual risk..
GET YOUR ANXIETY THERAPY PDF
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Q1: How can therapy help me stop worrying and overthinking?
A: Therapy can help you break the cycle of worry and overthinking by addressing the "Paradox of Worry" and the "Anxiety Loop." We'll work together to recognize how worry provides temporary relief but ultimately prolongs anxiety. Through our sessions, you'll learn to distinguish between genuine concerns ("signals") and unnecessary worries ("noise"), and develop strategies to challenge anxious thoughts
Q2: What approach do you use in treating anxiety?
Our approach involves a three-layered strategy:
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Recognizing and reshaping the anxious mindset
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Accepting and allowing deeper emotions to surface
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Changing behavior and attitudes by developing new coping strategies
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We focus on moving from a "protect and defend" mode to an "accept and allow" mindset, helping you face and process emotions more effectively - also useful with depression therapy too.
Q3: I've tried to stop worrying before, but it hasn't worked. How is your therapy different?
A: Our therapy addresses the root causes of anxiety, not just its symptoms. We may explore "Ten Rules of Anxiety" above to see if they apply to you - if they don't there will be others keep your trapped in anxious thinking.
Unlike approaches like CBT that rely solely on willpower or center on avoidance, we work on your anxiety disorder by changing your relationship with anxiety. This includes understanding the payoffs of worrying and learning to tolerate uncertainty, which can lead to more lasting change
Q4: How long does anxiety therapy typically take to show results?
A: The duration of therapy varies for each individual. However, many clients start noticing changes in their thinking patterns and anxiety levels within the first few sessions.
As we progress through the three phases of treatment - reshaping mindset, emotional processing, and including the behavior change - you'll likely experience gradual improvements. Remember, therapy is a process, and consistent engagement often leads to more sustainable results1