Anxiety Specialists

Anxiety Specialists Struggling with anxiety or stress? This could be social anxiety, health anxiety, fear of flying, panic problems or anxiety about anxiety, OCD, PTSD, or some nameless fear. You probably want to get out from the restrictions this places on your life...

Struggling with anxiety or stress? This could be social anxiety, health anxiety, fear of flying, panic problems or anxiety about anxiety, OCD, PTSD, or some nameless fear. You probably want to get out from the restrictions this places on your life.

I specialise in treating these very problems and can do so with one-on-one therapy (in my office or via video call), or, for faster results, I offer

an online program where you can get into video lessons with no wait and 2 video sessions a week.
If anxiety's got you under its thumb, then know that it's very treatable and that you're worth it. Get in touch so you can get started on your more relaxed life today.

05/06/2026

When someone makes eye contact and you look away, it feels like relief.

It isn't.

Your amygdala just logged: that gaze was dangerous enough to need escaping. The avoidance confirmed the threat.

So the next time someone looks at you, the response fires a little faster. The urge to look away comes a little sooner. The window of tolerable eye contact gets a little shorter.

That's the maintenance loop of social anxiety. Avoidance feels protective - but it's actually reinforcement.

Session 6 of the virtual exposure series is the hardest session. Sustained direct gaze. People looking straight at you. Your job: don't look away first.

Give your amygdala the experience of being looked at without anything catastrophic following.

Full session: https://shorturl.at/DvHXu

29/05/2026

You're watching two people have a conversation. You're not even in it.

So why does social anxiety still fire?

Because your threat detection system doesn't switch off when you're an observer. It runs a positioning scan on every social scene you're in - even ones you're just watching.

Where would I fit? Would they include me? Would I be welcome?

That scan is automatic. You're not choosing to run it. It just happens - in every social environment, including as a bystander.

Session 5 of the virtual exposure series uses real video footage of social situations, shot from the observer angle. Nobody looks at the camera. You're watching, not being watched.

But I'd bet your anxiety fires anyway.

Full session: https://shorturl.at/DvHXu

22/05/2026

A group of people laughing nearby. Do you immediately wonder if it's about you?

That question arrives before you've looked to see where the laughter is coming from. Before any information at all.

This is one of social anxiety's most powerful threat signals - not what you see, but what you hear. Group laughter. A room going quiet. Whispering nearby.

Sound is processed faster than vision. Your amygdala has these sounds pre-tagged as danger, and it fires before your conscious mind has caught up.

Session 4 of the virtual exposure series is an audio-only session. Eyes closed. Headphones on. Five social soundscapes, from ambient gathering to post-performance silence.

The fix isn't to stop noticing. It's to stay with the activation until your nervous system recalibrates.

Link to full video: https://shorturl.at/DvHXu

17/05/2026

Here's something most people don't realise about social anxiety.

It's not hostile faces that drive the anxiety. It's neutral ones.

When someone looks at you with an unreadable expression, your threat system doesn't read it as neutral. It reads it as negative. Ambiguous information gets coded as danger - automatically, before you've consciously assessed anything.

So a blank face becomes a critical one. A quick glance becomes evidence. A room full of attentive expressions becomes a panel of judges.

That interpretation bias is what we're targeting in this session - not by telling your amygdala it's wrong, but by giving it repeated experience of neutral faces without anything catastrophic following.

Session 3 of the virtual exposure series: https://shorturl.at/DvHXu

14/05/2026

Your amygdala doesn't need a photograph to activate. It reads patterns.

A figure standing alone at the edge of a group. Someone on the outside of a circle. A person at the front of a room with all eyes on them.

Cartoon or real image - the pattern is the same. The threat response is the same.

This is why illustrated exposure works as a starting point. Lower realism, but real activation. Your nervous system starts building tolerance from a lower intensity, so that when we move to photographs and video, you've already begun retraining the response.

Session 2 of the virtual exposure series: https://shorturl.at/DvHXu

11/05/2026

"Everyone noticed."

Read that and felt something? That's not you being oversensitive. That's your amygdala running a threat scan - automatically, before you've consciously processed anything.

Social anxiety works by encoding certain phrases as danger signals. Words like "they think you're weird" or "you made it awkward" carry a threat signature that fires instantly.
The fix isn't to avoid those phrases. It's to sit with them - repeatedly - until your nervous system learns they're not actually dangerous.
That's exposure therapy. And it starts with something as simple as words on a screen.

Full treatment video: https://shorturl.at/DvHXu

24/04/2026

The goal of exposure therapy isn't to feel calm.

It's to feel anxious - and stay anyway.

Every time you escape the discomfort, your amygdala logs it as confirmation the threat was real. The anxiety gets stronger.

But when you stay with it? Your nervous system gets new data. The threat prediction updates. The anxiety shrinks.

Discomfort isn't a side effect. It's the mechanism.

19/04/2026

Near the end of social anxiety treatment, I watch for something that sounds almost too small.

Are they taking up their allocated space?

Walking down the footpath without moving aside. Putting their lunch in the fridge without squeezing it into the corner. Standing in a lift like they're allowed to be there.

That shift - from operating like you're an imposition, to operating like you have just as much right to be here as everyone else - it's visible in the body. You move differently. You speak differently.

And your mood tends to shift too, because you've stopped spending every day reinforcing the same beliefs about yourself.

That's what real exposure work does. You show up unmanaged, nothing catastrophic happens, and the belief starts to update.

Do you shrink in public spaces? Save this if it resonates. 👇

18/04/2026

Social anxiety isn't really about other people.

It's about what you already believe about yourself — and the terror that someone is about to agree with it.

The four core beliefs I see most after 12 years treating anxiety:
→ I'm unworthy
→ I'm not good enough
→ I'm unloveable
→ I'm unlikeable

Every social situation becomes a test. This is where I get found out.

So you go quiet. You over-prepare. You manage every detail of how you come across. Logical moves — when you believe you're the problem.

When that core belief shifts, the anxiety shifts with it. Because there's nothing left to confirm.

What belief do you think sits underneath yours? Drop it below — you might be surprised how many people share it. 👇

17/04/2026

Confidence isn't "I don't care what people think."

It's "their opinion doesn't feel like a threat."

After 12 years working with anxiety, I can tell you: the goal of social anxiety treatment is almost universally misunderstood.

Confident people operate from a quiet baseline assumption — that they're liked well enough, that they're welcome in the room. So when judgment comes, there's nothing to defend against.

But if you're carrying the belief that you're not good enough? Other people's opinions feel potentially lethal. Because agreement would confirm everything.

That's the real target. Not indifference. Reach that, and the anxiety takes care of itself.

Does this land differently to how you've thought about confidence before? 👇

Address

131 Queens Drive
Lower Hutt
5010

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+6443863861

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