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Effective Anxiety Therapy:
Los Angeles | West Hollywood
Anxiety therapy in Los Angeles helps you break free from cycles of worry, panic, and overthinking. At Oliver Drakeford Therapy in West Hollywood, we use a range of evidence-based techniques, including aspects of CBT, mindfulness, and psychodynamic therapy, to reduce anxiety and restore emotional balance.
Oliver Drakeford Therapy: 8702 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
What Is Anxiety Therapy and How Does It Work?
Anxiety therapy helps you understand the thought patterns, emotions, and physical sensations that fuel worry. At its core, it often combines cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), psychotherapy, and mindfulness-based techniques to retrain your brain's response to stress.
In therapy, we identify and challenge anxious thought loops, regulate your nervous system, and develop lasting strategies for calm and resilience.
I find that this holistic approach is more empowering as you fundamentally rewrite your relationship with fear and worry. This method is direct, insightful, and based on evidence. It helps create lasting change. It works whether you have social anxiety, worry, or generalized anxiety disorder.
While many therapies offer valuable support, actual effectiveness in anxiety treatment comes from addressing the root patterns that keep you stuck. It's about more than just feeling "calmer"; it's about transforming your internal landscape so you can live by your own rules, not anxiety's.
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Common Signs You Might Benefit from Anxiety
Physical Signs: Shortness of breath, tension, chest pressure, cold or hot flushing, and jaw or teeth clenching.
Thinking Patterns: Persistent overthinking, intrusive thoughts, difficulty sleeping, and constant planning or checking.
If this sounds familiar, therapy can help you identify these patterns and build healthier ways to respond to stress. Therapy programs like ours will help determine your particular patterns and diagnose the problem from other mood disorders with assessments and interviews.
Generalized Anxiety
Perfectionism Based Anxiety
Social Anxiety.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) involves excessive worry across many different areas of life, such as family, work, health, and finances, often leading to restlessness and viewing the constant worry as unproductive "noise".
Perfectionism-based anxiety, often linked to OCD or OCPD traits described in the texts, is characterized by rigidity, a strong need for certainty or flawlessness, and distress over potential mistakes or negative outcomes stemming from imperfection.
Social anxiety is primarily centered on an intense fear of being negatively judged by others, causing distress and avoidance in social interactions. Anxiety comes from interacting with others.
Therapy Techniques We Use for Anxiety Relief
We use a tailored combination of approaches using aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). These evidence-backed methods help clients break anxiety loops, challenge distorted thoughts, and reconnect with their emotions.
Each treatment plan is designed around your individual needs, ensuring therapy feels effective, personal, and sustainable.
Often, we combine treatment modalities such as behavioral therapy, cognitive therapy, and psychoanalytically driven insights with practical strategies and some CBT (cognitive behavior therapy). I help my clients find and stop anxiety loops that keep them stuck. I use treatments supported by research. We work together to challenge wrong thoughts and distracting symptoms. We also address intrusive thoughts related to obsessive-compulsive disorder. This helps clients connect with their genuine emotions.
Together, we create custom therapy programs to confront your anxiety, which is tailored to your needs - sometimes including modified forms of exposure therapy - to increase your confidence. Sometimes, therapy may need more mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to help with stress management. Other times, direct cognitive behavioral treatments work better.
Why Choose This Los Angeles-Based Therapist for Anxiety?
In my West Hollywood practice, therapy for stress, uncertainty, worries, and anxious distress is explicitly tailored to your unique experience. I often mix psychoanalytic insight, behavioral therapy, and some acceptance and commitment therapy. I add practical and valuable strategies. We package this in a treatment plan that is individualized to your specific phobia, anxiety, or perfectionism-based dynamics.
Together, we will find the deeper emotional patterns that cause your worries. We will stop repetitive anxiety loops. We will teach you coping skills to handle everyday stress well. 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. Therapy gently addresses the underlying cognitive, behavioral, and emotional cues that anxiety often hides. This can reduce how much you rely on worry to cope. Clients frequently report feeling more grounded, confident, and capable of facing life's uncertainties after engaging in therapy.
Meet Your Anxiety Therapist: Compassionate Care for Anxiety and Stress
Oliver Drakeford, MA, LMFT, CGP, is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in anxiety, stress, and relationship dynamics. His approach combines warmth, insight, and evidence-based methods to help clients move from chronic worry to emotional balance.
As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in West Hollywood, Los Angeles, I bring nearly a decade of experience helping adults overcome anxiety, perfectionism, and relationship stress.
My approach integrates psychoanalytic insight, behavioral therapy, and mindfulness practices to uncover the emotional roots of anxiety and teach lasting coping skills.
Serving Los Angeles Communities: West LA, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica & Beyond
We provide in-person therapy in West Hollywood and online therapy throughout California. Whether you're in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Long Beach, or Downtown Los Angeles, you can access anxiety treatment designed for your lifestyle.
I help clients by creating a therapeutic environment to offer talk therapy and in-office therapy at my office on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood, CA 90069. I work with a wide range of mental health issues or concerns and offer a free consultation call if you need help finding answers to questions.
What to Expect in Your First Anxiety Therapy Session
1 A Warm Welcome and Conversation
Your first anxiety therapy session focuses on understanding your experiences and building a personalized treatment plan. We'll discuss your goals, review assessment results, and identify the most effective therapy techniques for your needs.
2 Understanding Your Story - Assessments and Interview
Together, we'll begin outlining what you'd like to achieve in therapy and how best to get you there- we'll look at specific goals or situations you want to focus on
3.Mapping Out The Goals And Path
We'll talk more about what brings you in, and learn about your particular anxiety symptoms— maybe persistent worry, panic attacks, trouble sleeping, or tension.
We will ask gentle questions to understand how anxiety shows up in your daily life, relationships, and thoughts. Then, we will give you a set of assessments. These will help us understand how best to help you.
4. Therapy Techniques And Action Plan
We'll talk more about what brings you in, and learn about your particular anxiety symptoms— maybe persistent worry, panic attacks, trouble sleeping, or tension.
We will ask gentle questions to understand how anxiety shows up in your daily life, relationships, and thoughts. Then, we will give you a set of assessments. These will help us understand how best to help you.
FAQ
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
:In short, anxiety therapy helps you replace worry with clarity and regain a calm, focused mindset.
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
We help you change from a "protect and defend" mindset to an "accept and allow" mindset. This enables you to face and process emotions better. This approach also helps with depression therapy.
Our anxiety therapy in Los Angeles blends evidence-based tools and emotional insight to create lasting calm and confidence.
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 could explore "Five 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 that rely solely on willpower or avoidance, we work on 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: 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 to keep you 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.
Unlike quick fixes, this therapy helps you build resilience by transforming how you relate to anxiety itself.
Anxiety Therapy Los Angeles—Whole-Person Care, Practical Tools
At our West Hollywood center, anxiety therapy is more than talk—it’s an active process that blends cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness practices, and targeted exposure techniques. This approach works well for social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), trauma-related stress, and depression, all of which can hide beneath chronic worry. Our small clinical team draws on proven tools to retrain anxious behaviors, helping you move from overthinking into purposeful action. Because every mental health journey is personal, we tailor sessions to the concerns that matter most to you—whether that’s breaking a loop of compulsive checking or learning to tolerate uncertainty without spiraling.
Schedule Your First Session Today
You may be surprised how quickly progress happens once the right strategies are in place. If anxiety is disrupting sleep, work, or relationships, schedule a free 15-minute call today to discuss the best next step. We’ll outline a treatment plan that can include CBT-based homework, mindfulness drills you can practice at work, and check-ins to track real-world change. Whether you come to the office or meet online, Anxiety Therapy Los Angeles provides focused, evidence-based care so you can reclaim calm and confidence—starting now.