Anxiety Therapy
Wilmington, NC

You don't have to spend your life trying to quiet your mind.

Maybe your mind never seems to slow down. You worry about what might happen. You replay conversations. You anticipate problems before they happen. You find yourself overthinking decisions, seeking reassurance, or feeling like you always need to be prepared for the next thing.
And sometimes anxiety isn't just in your thoughts. It may show up as a racing heart, tightness in your chest, difficulty sleeping, irritability, muscle tension, stomach problems, restlessness, or a feeling that you simply can't relax.

At Stillpoint Counseling & Wellness, we help over-thinkers, people pleasers, and perfectionists feel well again and improve their relationships.  Our anxiety therapists in Wilmington, NC provide compassionate, individualized therapy to help you understand your anxiety, develop effective coping strategies, and build a greater sense of calm, confidence, and flexibility.

You don't have to figure it all out on your own.

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What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is a natural human response to uncertainty, stress, and perceived danger.  In many situations, anxiety serves a useful purpose. It can help us prepare for challenges, pay attention to potential problems, and respond when something feels unsafe. The problem is when anxiety becomes difficult to turn off or begins to interfere with the life you want to live.
You may find yourself:
  • Worrying about things you cannot control
  • Overthinking decisions
  • Expecting something bad to happen
  • Avoiding situations that make you uncomfortable
  • Constantly seeking reassurance
  • Having difficulty relaxing
  • Feeling restless or on edge
  • Struggling to sleep because your mind won't stop
  • Becoming easily irritated or overwhelmed
  • Experiencing physical symptoms of anxiety
  • Having difficulty concentrating
  • Feeling like you're always "on"
Anxiety can look different for everyone. You don't have to have a formal anxiety disorder diagnosis to seek help. If anxiety is making it harder to enjoy your life, relationships, work, school, or time with the people you care about, therapy may be worth exploring.

Types of Anxiety We Treat

Generalized Anxiety
  • Persistent or excessive worry about multiple areas of life, including work, relationships, finances, health, family, or the future.
Panic Attacks and Panic Disorder
  • Sudden episodes of intense fear or physical symptoms that can feel frightening and unpredictable.
Social Anxiety
  • Fear of being judged, embarrassed, rejected, or negatively evaluated by other people.
Health Anxiety
  • Persistent worry about illness, physical symptoms, or the possibility that something may be medically wrong.
Separation Anxiety
  • Intense worry about being separated from people you feel attached to or fear that something may happen to them.
Phobias
  • Intense fear or avoidance of a specific object, situation, animal, activity, or circumstance.
Performance Anxiety
  • Anxiety related to public speaking, academics, athletics, work performance, or other situations where you feel evaluated.
Anxiety Related to Life Transitions
  • Major changes—including becoming a parent, changing careers, moving, ending a relationship, or entering a new stage of life—can create significant uncertainty and anxiety.

Your therapist will work with you to understand what is contributing to your anxiety rather than simply treating a list of symptoms.


Anxiety and Perfectionism

For some people, anxiety hides behind achievement. You may appear highly successful and capable to everyone around you while internally feeling exhausted by the pressure to get everything right.
You might:
  • Set extremely high standards for yourself
  • Feel guilty when you rest
  • Have difficulty delegating
  • Fear making mistakes
  • Repeatedly check your work
  • Feel like nothing you accomplish is enough
  • Compare yourself constantly to others
  • Have difficulty accepting uncertainty
Therapy can help you explore the relationship between anxiety, perfectionism, self-worth, and the expectations you place on yourself.

Anxiety and Over-Thinking

Do you ever feel like your brain won't stop analyzing? You may replay something you said hours ago, imagine every possible outcome of a decision, or spend enormous amounts of energy trying to predict what will happen next.

Overthinking can feel like problem-solving—but sometimes it becomes a cycle that keeps anxiety alive.  Sometimes we replay past events over and over in our mind trying to figure out "where it went wrong".  Or we can create new thoughts, images and events about a future worry and this may seem like we are preventing something bad from happening.  Rumination occurs when a single thought or image gets stuck in our minds and we cannot move past it.  In all these scenarios, our thoughts are sending messages to our bodies that something is wrong and we become stuck in a stress response.  

Therapy can help you recognize when thinking is productive and when it has become a form of worry or avoidance. You can learn to tolerate uncertainty without needing to have every answer before moving forward.

Anxiety and People Pleasing

For some people, anxiety shows up as a constant need to keep others happy. You may find yourself saying yes when you really want to say no, worrying about disappointing people, avoiding conflict, or constantly wondering what others think of you. You might feel responsible for other people's emotions or spend a great deal of time replaying conversations and wondering if you said or did something wrong.

People-pleasing can provide temporary relief from anxiety. Saying yes, keeping the peace, or putting someone else's needs before your own may help you avoid the discomfort of conflict or rejection in the moment. Over time, however, consistently ignoring your own needs can leave you feeling overwhelmed, resentful, disconnected from yourself, or unsure of what you actually want.

Therapy can help you understand the anxiety beneath people-pleasing patterns and begin developing healthier ways of relating to yourself and others. You can learn to recognize your own needs, communicate more honestly, set boundaries, tolerate the discomfort that sometimes comes with disappointing others, and build relationships where you don't have to earn connection by putting yourself last.

Anxiety and the Nervous System

Anxiety isn't only something that happens in your mind. Your nervous system responds to perceived threats, and anxiety can leave your body feeling activated even when you consciously know that you're safe.
You may feel:
  • Restless
  • Tense
  • Hyperalert
  • Easily startled
  • Unable to settle
  • Disconnected
  • Exhausted but unable to relax
Depending on your therapist's training and your individual needs, anxiety treatment may incorporate mindfulness, grounding, breathing, body awareness, or somatic approaches alongside traditional talk therapy.

Learn More about somatic therapy

How Anxiety Therapy Can Help & Approaches

Anxiety therapy isn't about eliminating every uncomfortable thought or feeling. Instead, therapy can help you develop a different relationship with anxiety.
Together with your therapist, you may work on:
  • Understanding your anxiety patterns
  • Identifying triggers
  • Challenging unhelpful thought patterns
  • Developing emotional regulation skills
  • Reducing avoidance
  • Increasing tolerance for uncertainty
  • Building confidence
  • Improving boundaries
  • Developing healthier coping strategies
  • Becoming more present
  • Improving relationships
  • Reconnecting with activities you have been avoiding
  • Understanding the connection between your mind and body
The goal isn't to create a life where you never feel anxious. It's to help anxiety become something you can respond to rather than something that controls your choices.

There isn't one therapy approach that works for everyone. Our therapists use different approaches based on their training and your individual needs.
Depending on the therapist, anxiety treatment may incorporate approaches such as:


Anxiety Therapy at StillPoint

Starting therapy can feel uncomfortable—especially when anxiety is already telling you that you should wait, prepare more, or figure everything out first. You don't need to know exactly what kind of therapy you need before contacting us. During your initial sessions, your therapist will learn about your concerns, your history, what you're experiencing now, and what you want to change. Together, you'll develop goals for therapy and determine which approaches may be most helpful. Therapy may include conversation, education, practical strategies, exercises, reflection, and skill-building depending on your needs and your therapist's approach. Most importantly, treatment should be collaborative.

At Stillpoint Counseling & Wellness, we recognize that anxiety isn't one-size-fits-all. One person may need practical tools and structured skill-building. Another may need space to explore underlying patterns. Someone else may benefit from trauma-informed, somatic, mindfulness-based, or relational work.

That's one of the benefits of working with a group practice. Our therapists have different backgrounds, areas of expertise, personalities, and therapeutic approaches. We can help you find a clinician whose experience and style are a good match for you.  We also have other opportunites like group therapy, movement groups, and other integrative wellness practices like Heart Math, Reiki, and Meditation that may help support the treatment of your anxiety.

We believe therapy should address more than symptoms. We want to understand the whole person behind the anxiety.

Find an Anxiety Therapist in Wilmington, NC

If you're looking for an anxiety therapist in Wilmington, NC, Stillpoint Counseling & Wellness can help you find the right place to begin. We offer individual therapy in Wilmington as well as telehealth for eligible clients throughout North Carolina.

Whether you're struggling with constant worry, panic attacks, perfectionism, social anxiety, health anxiety, relationship anxiety, or simply feeling overwhelmed by life, you don't have to figure it out alone.

Call our office for a free phone consultation or request an appointment through our secure online portal.


Find an anxiety therapist

Tammy Bentley, PhD, LCMHC

spencer lee, LCSW

Caitlin Lafferty, Lcsw

Anxiety therapy is counseling focused on understanding and reducing the impact of anxiety on your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, relationships, and daily life. Treatment may involve approaches such as CBT, ACT, mindfulness, exposure-based approaches, somatic therapy, or trauma-informed therapy depending on your needs.




back to the questions

What is anxiety therapy?


If anxiety is interfering with your relationships, work, school, sleep, daily activities, or ability to enjoy your life, it may be worth talking with a therapist.




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How do I know if I need therapy for anxiety?


Anxiety is a normal human emotion, so the goal of therapy isn't necessarily to eliminate anxiety altogether. Instead, therapy can help you understand your anxiety, reduce its impact, and develop the ability to respond to anxious thoughts and feelings more effectively.





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Can anxiety actually go away?

There isn't one approach that is best for everyone. CBT has substantial evidence for many anxiety disorders, while other approaches—including ACT, exposure-based therapies, mindfulness-based approaches, and other evidence-based treatments—may be appropriate depending on the type of anxiety and the individual.







back to the questions

What is the best therapy for anxiety?

Yes. Anxiety can be associated with physical experiences such as muscle tension, rapid heartbeat, sweating, gastrointestinal discomfort, restlessness, fatigue, and difficulty sleeping. New, severe, or concerning physical symptoms should always be evaluated by an appropriate medical professional rather than assumed to be caused by anxiety.







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Can anxiety cause physical symptoms?

Yes. Therapy can help you understand panic symptoms, identify patterns that contribute to panic, develop coping strategies, and—when clinically appropriate—gradually reduce avoidance and fear of panic sensations.







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Can therapy help with panic attacks?


Yes. Anxiety can occur alongside trauma-related symptoms, and past experiences may contribute to current patterns of fear, hypervigilance, avoidance, or emotional distress. A trauma-informed therapist can help determine whether trauma-focused treatment is appropriate.






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Can anxiety be connected to trauma?

Depending on your location, clinical needs, and therapist availability, telehealth may be an option. Stillpoint offers online therapy to eligible clients throughout North Carolina.










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Can I do anxiety therapy online?

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