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Anxiety Counselling & Treatment
You might feel restless, unable to slow down, or suddenly overcome by panic or dread. Sometimes anxiety is linked to clear concerns – work, health, relationships. Other times it’s more diffuse, a constant background hum.
Diagnostic labels like generalised anxiety, social anxiety, panic disorder or PTSD describe some patterns, but they don’t always capture the complexity of what a person is going through.
In psychotherapy, we take anxiety seriously — not just as a symptom to be managed, but as something that may be signalling what remains unresolved or unspoken.
Our work is to listen closely to what anxiety means for you.
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What causes Anxiety?
We are psychoanalytically informed, which means we listen with care and curiosity — not only to what is said, but to what repeats, contradicts, or interrupts. We aim to help you understand what the anxiety might be saying when there are no words yet for it.
We don’t offer surface level coping strategies. Instead, our counselling & therapy aims to work on the root cause of anxiety.
This is not about managing symptoms — it’s about transforming them.
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How Can Therapy Help with Anxiety?
You may have been told you have an anxiety disorder, or you may not feel that label fits — but still recognise something painful in how you experience the world.
Whether your anxiety is recent or has been with you for years, therapy can offer a different kind of encounter.
A careful working through, with space to discover why anxiety may be functioning as it does, and what it points toward.
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About Us
We are a patient-first professional psychotherapy service in Dublin.
Psychoanalytically trained. Dublin based.
100%
Hold Masters Degrees
177+
Combined years of experience
1
Singular Treatment
What the Research Says
2014 — Psychodynamic therapy for anxiety disorders (Keefe et al.) [1]
A large meta-analysis across 1,073 patients found psychodynamic therapy was significantly more effective than control conditions, in treating anxiety disorders.
2009 — Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for GAD (Leichsenring et al.) [2]
Short-term outcomes were assessed in a randomized controlled trial of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for GAD. Short term psychodynamic psychotherapy was associated with large improvements in clinician-rated anxiety and depression, with gains maintained at follow-up.
2007 — Psychoanalytic psychotherapy for panic disorder (Milrod et al.) [3]
A clinical trial tested psychoanalytic psychotherapy for panic disorder against a credible comparison treatment. The psychoanalytic therapy group were significantly more likely to respond at the end of treatment (73% versus 39%).
2013 — Psychotherapy improves anxiety in routine practice (van Rijn et al.) [4]
In a practice-based evaluation, patients receiving a range of psychotherapy approaches showed statistically significant improvements in anxiety and depression on routine outcome measures.
Research Summary
This is only a small sample of the available research, but it reflects the broader findings seen across larger reviews and clinical studies.
Overall, the evidence suggests that psychotherapy is associated with meaningful reductions in anxiety symptoms and distress, often alongside improvements in mood and day-to-day functioning.
Outcomes vary by person and circumstance, but the overall direction of findings is consistently positive.
FAQ
Stress usually has a recognisable cause. There’s a pressure you can point to: work deadlines, money worries, a conflict, a decision coming up. Your system is responding to something concrete, even if it feels like too much.
Anxiety can feel different. It often shows up without a clear object. You feel tense, on edge, watchful – but you can’t name what you’re responding to.
It’s not that there’s “no reason.” It’s more that the reason isn’t clear yet and your body reacts before you’ve found words for it.
Stress has a cause you can name. Anxiety involves something closer to the heart – as if something in you is being stirred, even when you can’t yet say what.
The most important characteristic of anxiety is that it’s always unique. That’s the part people often miss. There are some common shared features, yes – but it isn’t generic. Anxiety is always singular: it takes the shape of your life, your body, and your way of coping.
So rather than asking “what are the symptoms?”, a better question is: how do you experience your anxiety?
For one person it’s the chest – tightness, breathing that won’t settle, a body on high alert. For another it’s the stomach – nausea, urgency, appetite disappearing, a constant sense of being unsettled. For someone else it’s the mind – endless scanning, replaying conversations, trying to get certainty, trying to eliminate every risk.
And sometimes it’s quieter than all of that: a flatness, a detachment, a feeling of not quite being present in your own day.
What matters most isn’t a catalogue of universal signs, it’s the unique experience you’re living with.
Yes – very commonly. Anxiety isn’t “just in your head.” It’s a whole-body state, and the divide between mind and body isn’t as clean as people like to imagine.
It can help to think of it this way: sometimes your body reacts before you’ve found words for what’s going on – as if it’s registering it first, and your mind is trying to catch up.
A practical note: if physical symptoms are new, severe, worsening, or frightening, it’s important to check them with a GP to rule out medical causes.
Anxiety often shows up when something gets too close for comfort — when your usual way of understanding yourself or the situation stops working for a moment, and you feel exposed without knowing exactly what to do with that.
We live by stories: I’m fine. It’s grand. It’s not a big deal. I should be able to handle this. Those stories aren’t lies – they’re how we keep going.
But sometimes something doesn’t fit inside anymore. A wish you don’t want to admit. A resentment you’ve been swallowing. A fear you’ve been outrunning. A change in how you see someone, or how you see yourself. When there’s no place for that to be acknowledged, it doesn’t disappear. It often returns as a feeling with no label.
That’s why anxiety can feel so close and so personal. It’s not pointing to a clear external danger. It’s more like a signal that something in you is pressing to be recognised, but you don’t yet have a clean way to name it.
Yes. That “wave” quality is very common in anxiety.
Anxiety isn’t a steady state. It tends to rise and settle. That’s why you can have days where you’re good, and then a small trigger sets it off: a conversation, a silence, a deadline, a health sensation, or even a look on someone’s face.
Waves also happen because people unconsciously develop ways of keeping anxiety at bay – staying busy, staying in control, staying ahead of things, avoiding certain topics. When those strategies loosen (at night, on weekends, after a few drinks, on holidays, or when you finally slow down), anxiety can surface again.
So the wave isn’t proof that you’re “back to square one.” It usually means you’ve brushed up against the same sensitive area again.
Panic Attack Therapy
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Social Anxiety Therapy
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