Updated March 2026
Anxiety can be a deeply personal and exhausting experience. For some, it’s a constant hum of worry in the background; for others, it arrives in overwhelming waves that seem to come from nowhere.
While anxiety is a natural human response to stress or uncertainty, it often becomes more complex when it is persistent, intense, or rooted in deeper emotional patterns.
Many people begin by trying to manage anxiety on the surface. Over time, however, they notice something more frustrating:
the same thoughts, feelings, or reactions keep returning—often in slightly different forms.
This is where anxiety is no longer just a symptom.
It becomes a pattern.
At Smart Therapy™, I work with anxiety not only as an emotional experience, but as part of a broader internal system—one that includes thought patterns, emotional responses, self-relationship, and often, earlier developmental experiences.
Common Types of Anxiety I Treat
While anxiety is often used as an umbrella term, it can take many specific forms. Understanding these differences can help in identifying the most effective treatment approach.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Generalized anxiety involves ongoing, excessive worry about a range of everyday matters. You might find yourself anticipating the worst-case scenario, feeling restless, tense, or on edge most of the time. This type of anxiety can be draining because it doesn’t always have a clear trigger: it’s as if your body and mind are always braced for something to go wrong.
Panic Attacks and Panic Disorder
Panic attacks are sudden surges of intense fear or discomfort, often accompanied by symptoms like heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, or a sense of impending doom. Panic disorder involves recurring panic attacks and persistent worry about having another one, which can lead to avoidance of certain places or activities.
Social Anxiety
Social anxiety is more than shyness; it’s an intense fear of judgment, embarrassment, or humiliation in social or performance situations. This can lead to avoiding social events, struggling with public speaking, or feeling unable to fully engage with others, even in one on one situations or in small groups.
Anxious Attachment Style
Rooted in early relational experiences, anxious attachment involves a deep fear of abandonment or rejection. This can create a cycle of needing reassurance in relationships, overanalyzing interactions, or feeling very aware of perceived changes in others’ moods or availability.
Adjustment Anxiety
Adjustment anxiety can emerge during times of transition: starting a new job, moving, entering or ending a relationship, or experiencing a significant life change. While some stress is expected during transitions, adjustment anxiety can make it difficult to adapt, leaving you feeling overwhelmed or stuck.
Health Anxiety
Health anxiety, sometimes referred to as illness anxiety disorder (IAD), involves persistent worries about having or developing a serious illness. Even with medical reassurance, the anxiety can remain, leading to repeated checking of symptoms, excessive research, or avoiding medical settings altogether.
Separation Anxiety
Separation anxiety is not just for children; adults can also experience significant distress when separated from loved ones or even pets. This may involve fear that something will happen to them or to you during the separation, or an overwhelming need to maintain constant contact.
Performance Anxiety
Often associated with public speaking, performance anxiety can arise in any situation where you feel "on display," such as: giving a presentation, taking a test, competing in sports, or even during intimate moments. The fear of not meeting expectations can create physical symptoms like sweating, shaking, or a racing heart.
Perfectionism-Related Anxiety
Perfectionism can fuel anxiety by creating unrealistic standards and an intense fear of making mistakes. It often leads to procrastination, burnout, or a cycle of self-criticism, and can impact work, relationships, and personal well-being.
Postpartum Anxiety
While postpartum depression is well-known, postpartum anxiety is also common. It can involve overwhelming worry about your baby’s health and safety, intrusive thoughts, or feeling constantly "on alert." This anxiety can make it difficult to rest, bond, or trust your instincts as a parent.
Supporting Highly Sensitive People (HSPs)
Though not strictly connected to anxiety itself, Highly Sensitive Persons (HSP's) can have their own unique challenges when experiencing anxiety. Highly Sensitive People process sensory and emotional information more deeply than others. While this can be a gift (bringing empathy, creativity, and insight), it can also lead to feeling easily overwhelmed, anxious, or emotionally drained. Therapy can help HSPs develop strategies to navigate a stimulating world while embracing the strengths of sensitivity.
When Anxiety Is More Than Anxiety
For many people, anxiety is not just about stress or worry.
It can be connected to:
- long-standing self-critical patterns
- fear of rejection or abandonment
- difficulty accessing self-compassion
- a persistent sense of internal tension or unease
In these cases, anxiety is often a signal, not just a problem.
It reflects something deeper:
how you relate to yourself internally.
For example, individuals with an anxious attachment style may experience anxiety in relationships, while others may feel it more internally—as a harsh inner voice, emotional pressure, or chronic self-doubt.
In some cases, these patterns overlap with what I describe in this article on
the Emotional Orphan Archetype
Where anxiety is tied not only to fear—but to a deeper sense of emotional disconnection, unmet needs, or lack of internal support.
Treating Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
OCD is often deeply intertwined with anxiety due to the way the brain processes and responds to intrusive thoughts and uncertainty. OCD can take many forms, and a few of the OCD presentations in which I work with clients are:
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Pure O OCD – Characterized by intrusive thoughts and mental compulsions that are often invisible to others.
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Relationship OCD (ROCD) – Ongoing doubts or fears about your relationship or your feelings toward your partner.
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Religious OCD (Scrupulosity) – Obsessions around morality, sin, or offending a higher power.
While the themes may differ, the underlying pattern is similar: intrusive thoughts trigger anxiety, leading to mental or behavioral rituals aimed at reducing distress. In therapy, we explore these patterns with compassion while working toward more freedom and self-trust.
While OCD is often treated behaviorally, deeper work can also involve understanding the emotional and internal patterns that make these thoughts feel so threatening or significant.
My Integrative Approach to Anxiety Treatment
Anxiety affects both mind and body, which is why I integrate a range of evidence-based therapies that address your unique needs.
Insight-Driven Depth Therapy
Therapies such as Schema Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, and Emotion-Focused Therapy help uncover:
- recurring emotional patterns
- underlying beliefs about the self
- relational dynamics that shape how anxiety is experienced
Insight helps bring patterns into awareness, and for many people, change deepens when those patterns are accessed and worked with in more immersive or focused ways. One way this can be supported is through clinical hypnotherapy.
Working Directly with Internal Patterns
This is where deeper change begins.
In addition to talk-based approaches, I integrate Clinical Counselling Hypnotherapy as a core part of the work.
Rather than only analyzing patterns, hypnotherapy allows us to:
- work directly with emotional responses
- access underlying experiences and internal parts of the self
- shift how patterns are experienced internally—not just understood cognitively
In a focused, receptive state, clients are often able to engage with emotional material in a way that feels more immediate, contained, and workable.
This makes it possible to move beyond:
“I understand why I feel this way”
into:
“this actually feels different now.”
A More Focused Approach: The Inner Reset™ Intensive
For individuals who feel stuck in persistent internal patterns of anxiety, self-criticism, or emotional distress, I also offer a structured therapy process:
Inner Reset™ Therapy Intensive
This is a six-session, hypnotherapy-informed intensive designed to:
- work directly with internal emotional patterns
- support nervous system regulation and emotional processing
- strengthen self-compassion and internal stability
Rather than spreading this work out over many months, the intensive allows for a more focused and immersive process, where deeper shifts can begin to take place.
What to Expect in Therapy
Our work begins by understanding your unique experience of anxiety—its patterns, triggers, and impact.
From there, therapy may involve:
- exploring underlying emotional themes
- working with internal parts or self-states
- developing emotional regulation capacity
- using hypnotherapy to support deeper internal change
Over time, many clients begin to notice:
- less intensity in their anxiety
- more flexibility in their responses
- a stronger sense of internal stability
Moving Beyond the Anxiety Loop
Anxiety can feel like a loop:
- worry → tension → relief → repeat
But often, the loop is maintained by deeper internal patterns.
Therapy offers the opportunity not only to manage anxiety, but to understand and shift the patterns that sustain it.
With the right support, it’s possible to move toward:
- greater clarity
- a more compassionate relationship with yourself
- and a more stable internal experience
Change doesn’t happen all at once—but over time, the loop can begin to loosen.
If you're looking for a more focused approach to shifting internal patterns, you can learn more about the Inner Reset™ Therapy Intensive.
If you prefer a more gradual, ongoing process, you can also explore traditional individual therapy options.
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Meet Rebecca Steele, Registered Social Worker, Psychotherapist (MA, MSW, RSW, CCC)
Rebecca is an Ontario-based therapist offering virtual care across the province. She works with adults navigating anxiety, trauma, intrusive thoughts, and repeating relationship patterns. Her approach, Smart Therapy™: Insight-Driven Depth Therapy, integrates the Enneagram, attachment, and depth-oriented modalities to support deeper self-understanding, self-worth, and lasting change.
Book an appointment or learn more about her online therapy services.
Located outside Ontario? You can explore Rebecca’s coaching and consulting offerings here.
