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.

17/08/2026

3 things that happen to a fear of doctors every time you avoid an appointment - and all 3 make it harder to go next time.

One: your midbrain gets confirmation. You cancelled, you felt relief, and your brain registered that avoidance equals safety. Which means the alarm is worth keeping next time.

Two: your window of tolerance shrinks. What felt manageable two years ago might feel impossible now.

Three: the real-world cost accumulates. The check-up you haven't had. The thing you've been meaning to get looked at. It's not just anxiety building - it's healthcare being deferred.

That's why exposure works in the opposite direction. Every time you stay with the discomfort - even just words on a screen - your midbrain gets different information.

And that information is the treatment.

26/06/2026

The people who do this work quietly, on their own, where nobody can see them - they're often the ones who've been carrying it the longest. Showing up at step one is not nothing. It's the beginning of the whole thing...

19/06/2026

Planning your day around where birds might be. Checking before you step outside. Avoiding places you actually love.

To most people it sounds like a lot. To the person living it, it's just Tuesday.

If that's you - you're not alone in this.

12/06/2026

Social anxiety runs on one prediction: if this goes wrong, it will be catastrophic.

That prediction is what keeps you out of situations. Keeps you rehearsing. Keeps you escaping before anything can happen.

And because you never test it, the prediction stays perfectly intact - and gets more powerful over time.
Here's the thing about the worst case. Someone stumbles over their words in a meeting. A joke doesn't land. A drink gets spilled. A group doesn't open up. A suggestion gets passed over.

These things happen. And then life continues. The person is still there. Nobody crumbled. The catastrophe turned out to be a moment - not a verdict.

That gap between what anxiety predicts and what actually happens is where the real treatment lives.

Session 7 - the final session of the virtual exposure series - is the top of the fear ladder: https://shorturl.at/DvHXu

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

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Lower Hutt
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Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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