Help me find a good, Seattle area, therapist for dealing with anxiety disorders and panic attacks.

September 14, 2007 1:43 PM

Help me find a good, Seattle area, therapist for dealing with anxiety disorders and panic attacks.

I have been seeing a counselor through the conseling center at my university for some time and I feel like I am getting no where. We seem to just.... talk, sort of aimlessly. My hope is that I can work with someone in a more concrete and directed way. Part of me feels like this might be better if I was working with a PhD. level therapsit, rather than someone with a Masters in Social Work or Clinical Psychology.

My current situation is that I have been sort of undone by anxiety over the course of the last year. I am mid-20's, healthy, not-unfit, eat pretty well and yet I have been pretty consistantly terrified that I am going to have a heart attack at any given moment for reasons that are really to silly to elucidate (yes I have been checked out by a physician, no it hasn't made any difference.). In addition to the heart attack fears I am dealing with social anxiety, agoraphobia and some leftover baggage realted to physical, emotional and sexual abuse (whew). This has also had the impact of making me near completely unproductive at work which is slowly unraveling my WHOLE life and heaping on the anxiety more and more. In addition to talk therapy I have been taking zoloft and the occasional ativan to get through my day but I don't want to just drug myself out of this. Additionally, I have been reading "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook" which has been helpfull. So now I am hoping that someone out there can recomend someone or somethign in particular for dealing with general anxiety and or panic attacks, particularily in the Seattle area. If you want to respond anamously or ask me questions I've set up a gmail account: [e-mail]. Thanks for the help.

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (3 answers total)

I can't recommend a particular therapist (at least, not in Seattle), but I do recommend seeing a psychiatrist who could prescribe medication. The drug I'm on, Klonopin, has been excellent for preventing panic attacks.

Once you see that you can manage your day without having an attack, it's a lot easier to avoid them even without the drug. I've read the book you have, and it explains that a lot of the anxiety is related to fear of being in situations that will provoke another attack. With the medication, I can place myself in those situations knowing I won't have an attack, thus being much calmer. Then, off the drug, I know I can make it through that same situation, thus preventing further attacks.
posted by desjardins at 2:11 PM on September 14, 2007

is bellevue close enough?

i lived in the seattle area for a few years, and this woman helped me straighten out my head a lot. i started therapy because i was freaking out about a possible cancer diagnosis and then i kept seeing her because i was straightening out other stuff in my head as well.

Googling her name gets an address and a phone number that matches what I have in my pda from 7 years ago.

Barbara Sewell
1450 114th Ave SE # 100
Bellevue, WA 98004
[phone]
posted by rmd1023 at 2:58 PM on September 14, 2007

This is who I have been seeing for anxiety issues:

Saint Mark’s
Counseling Service
Kathleen Tyrrell, MS, LMFT
1245 Tenth Avenue East
Seattle, WA 98102-4398
[phone]

She's at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral on Capitol Hill, but you don't have to be affiliated with them to use her. Hell, you don't even have to be Christian.

She also does sliding scale, and while she may want to meet you in person a few times, she also does phone sessions.
posted by spinifex23 at 9:41 PM on September 14, 2007