Anxiety
About Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a type of behavioural therapy that blends mindfulness with self-acceptance. You learn to understand your feelings instead of bypassing or changing them.
You’ll work on reframing your values and adjusting your behaviors to better match them. ACT interventions support learning how to cope with life's challenges and strengthen overall psychological flexibility.
At Relational Creatures Psychotherapy, we offer ACT to help people experiencing various mental health concerns, including anxiety disorders, depression, low self-esteem, trauma, and more. (CO NOTE: you can link to those specialities pages once they’re live).
Understanding The Common Types of Anxiety
Generalized anxiety: Generalized anxiety is non-specific. People with this type of anxiety experience intensified worry without a specific reason.
Social anxiety: Social anxiety causes people to feel unsafe, anxious, or overly self-conscious in social settings. You might doubt that others genuinely like you, and you may feel especially afraid to speak in public or make new friends.
Illness anxiety: Illness anxiety refers to having a disproportionate fear of getting sick or already being sick. You may feel intensely worried about your health even if you only experience minor physical symptoms.
Specific phobias: Specific phobias refer to localized anxiety about a certain situation or object. There are many kinds of phobias, including the fear of flying, fear of spiders, or fear of the dark.
Panic disorder: Panic disorder refers to persistent, unexpected panic attacks. The fear of panic attacks can lead you to feel anxious in your surroundings, and it sometimes causes people to withdraw from social settings.
Perfectionism: Although it isn't a clinical anxiety disorder, perfectionism is often a cover for high levels of anxiety. Students or working professionals who struggle with perfectionism often feel immense pressure to perform well, and they worry they will be unloved or 'lose control' if they don't meet their unrealistic expectations.
Signs anxiety may be seriously impacting your life
Anxiety can present itself in a variety of ways, and the intensity of the feeling can increase or decrease at different times.
You constantly assume something bad will happen: Life is full of twists and turns, but if you feel a persistent sense of dread in your daily life, that level of anxiety makes it hard to stay present or even think rationally. You may be apathetic or cynical because you automatically believe you're doomed.
You struggle in social settings: Anxiety can coincide with low self-esteem, and many people with anxiety feel worried about what others think of them. You may find yourself avoiding certain social settings or constantly pleasing others to try to make them happy.
You have difficulty sleeping: Insomnia and/or nightmares are something that many people with anxiety experience. In addition, sleep deprivation can disrupt your emotional regulation, which can exacerbate your anxiety symptoms.
You feel like you can’t quiet your. mind: Some people with anxiety describe their emotional state as frantic or hypervigilant, something they can’t turn off. If this is the case for you, it may feel like you can't think logically because your mind is so full of worry.
You avoid anxiety-provoking situations: Anxiety can result in people wanting to miss school, work, or other types of commitments because they feel so nervous. However, these avoidance behaviours often lead to more anxiety in the long run.
You cope with anxiety in harmful ways: Self-harm, disordered eating, substance use, or violence all represent various ways people sometimes cope with their emotions. Sometimes the anxiety symptoms feel so intense that you don't know what else to do to release them.
Your Anxiety Treatment Plan
Research shows that therapy is one of the best treatment options for anxiety. Although everyone's treatment looks different, some of the main therapy goals will include:
Recognizing your anxiety triggers: Anxiety can sometimes happen randomly, but fear is often paired with specific situations or feelings. Recognizing these patterns can help you feel more empowered in how you choose to react to your anxiety.
Safely exposing yourself to stressful situations: Exposure therapy is sometimes part of anxiety therapy, and that includes gently confronting feared situations. The more you can handle these stressful moments, the less stressful they tend to feel.
Implementing new coping skills: In therapy, you will learn new ways to cope with stress. Ideally, you will integrate these coping skills into your daily routine, and they will help improve your overall emotional state.
Developing a relapse prevention plan: You can't cure anxiety, but you can learn to manage it. With that, it's important to be mindful of potential stressors that may exacerbate anxiety in the future. In therapy, you can review such barriers and discuss effective coping strategies.
What do counseling sessions for anxiety look like?
Beginning therapy with Relational Creatures Psychotherapy is easy and requires no referral. You can book your initial assessment here.
Your initial session will be 75 minutes long. During your first appointment, your therapist will ask you questions to better understand you and your areas of struggle. This is known as an assessment. Depending on how much you share, the assessment phase can last anywhere from 1-3 appointments. The assessment is critical. It helps you and your therapist understand your goals, and it helps your therapist develop a treatment plan to support you in achieving these goals.
After the assessment is complete, treatment begins!
In the treatment phase, you will be introduced to a variety of skills to practice and implement to better manage your symptoms. Most people will have a therapy session every 1-2 weeks, and we recommend this cadence for optimal treatment.
Effective therapy typically takes somewhere between six to twelve appointments (for some more, others less).
Many choose to continue therapy once formal treatment is complete. This is referred to as maintenance. People who do this typically have an appointment once every 6-8 weeks. This is not a requirement and is a matter of personal choice.
Your first appointment will be 75 minutes long. For all future appointments, you can choose to book for 1 hour (60 minutes) or 1.5 hours (90 minutes).
Is ACT right for you? Who is it for?
Anyone can participate in ACT. Studies show that this type of therapy is best for teenagers and adults. You’ll need to use abstract thinking (understanding things or ideas that aren’t physical objects or experiences), which may be challenging for children to comprehend.
At Relational Creatures Psychotherapy, we work with and recommend ACT for:
pre-teens and teens
young adults and new grads
adults
parents
couples and individuals in relationships
ACT can be a standalone therapy model, but it also integrates well with other modalities, including cognitive-behavioural therapy, narrative therapy, and EMDR. CO NOTE: can link to these other pages when they’re ready
In-person and Online/Virtual Therapy
We offer therapy for individual adults, both in-person and online.
In-person counseling sessions available at our offices located in Marlton, NJ. Our offices are easily accessible to many towns in Burlington County and Camden County, including: Marlton, Evesham, Mount Laurel, Medford, Moorestown, Voorhees, Cherry Hill, and Haddonfield.
Our offices are easily accessible with free parking. There is a curb and one step to enter the office, if you require wheelchair accessibility, please let us know prior to your first session, and we will work with you to accommodate.
Online/virtual counseling sessions are scheduled and held through SimplePractice, our secured, HIPAA compliant EHR software. Many of our clients prefer online/virtual therapy for the privacy and flexibility it affords. You can join sessions from the privacy of your home or office, at a convenient time in your day. However, virtual sessions may not be appropriate for everyone. You can discuss this with us during a consultation call.
Online counseling sessions are not recorded and no replay will be available.
The price for a session is the same whether you book your counseling session in-person or online.
Frequently Asked Questions
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We provide personalized therapy for adults from diverse backgrounds, at many stages of life. Everyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, is warmly welcomed. LGBTQI+ and BIPOC inclusive.
Psychotherapy can help with many issues and diagnoses, provided you are ready to do the work.
Please note, our services are not appropriate for anyone in immediate crisis. If you believe you or someone you care for needs immediate care, call 911 or visit your nearest emergency room.
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No referral necessary! During our consultation call we will ask about how you found our practice. If you decide to continue with us for therapy, we will also want to know about your other care providers and any previous experiences with psychotherapy. This will be part of our initial assessment.
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There are many considerations when determining the number of therapy sessions. We will work with you to determine needs, goals, and treatment expectations.
We generally see clients weekly or biweekly, depending on needs.
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Most sessions will be 60 minutes. Our initial session will be a little longer, about 75 minutes, to allow us time to cover the basics and start to clarify issues and goals.
Occasionally, shorter or longer sessions are necessary. These will be prorated. You can discuss this with your therapist, as the need arises.
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Therapy is most effective when you are open and curious about your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and are willing to try out new ways of thinking and behaving.
Growth and healing are our focus. Therapy offers proven interventions to support you in achieving the goal of long-term change. Like most things in life, the effort you put in directly impacts the outcome. It's also important to use the right interventions, and we will work together to ensure that you are receiving the right support for you.
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During your first few sessions, your therapist will assess your needs and goals. This is when we really start to understand you, your history, and how you relate to your world. After 2 or 3 sessions, your therapist will have some initial impressions of what the work will entail. If you agree with the plan, we'll continue meeting, usually weekly or biweekly. Therapy may require a significant commitment of time, money, and energy, so it's important to carefully consider the therapist you choose.
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We do not accept any insurance. We offer receipts, called superbills, for you to submit to your insurance company if you are eligible for Out Of Network (OON) benefits. Superbills contain all the information insurance companies typically request for reimbursement.
You will need to request receipts for reimbursement. You are responsible for managing reimbursement and any insurance policy changes that may impact reimbursement.
In order for us to set realistic treatment goals and priorities, it is important to evaluate what resources you have available to pay for your treatment. If you have a health insurance policy, it will often provide reimbursement for out of network providers. We will provide you with whatever assistance we can in helping you receive the benefits to which you are entitled; however, you are responsible for submitting superbills for reimbursement.
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For each psychotherapy session, our private pay fee is $180-$200, for a 55-minute individual session. The initial 75 minute session is $225.
Please note that our fees are subject to yearly increases, and any changes will be communicated to you in advance to allow for proper planning. Payment is expected at the time of each session unless we have made alternative arrangements. Self-pay clients will receive a Good Faith Estimate (GFE) before starting treatment. The GFE provides an estimate of the costs that private pay clients may incur during the agreed-upon time frame for treatment.
Payment will be processed by Stripe, and credit card information and authorization will be requested with the intake forms. We will send these to you to be completed prior to our initial session. We accept major credit cards, HSA/FSA cards, Venmo, and cash.
An initial evaluation typically lasts 2 to 4 sessions. During this period, we can determine whether we are the best fit to help you achieve your goals. If we agree to continue, we will generally schedule one 55-60 minute session per week or every other week at a time that works for both you and your therapist.
We have a 24 hour cancellation policy. After scheduling an appointment, you are expected to cover the full cost of the session, unless you cancel with at least 24 hours notice.
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Our therapists are licensed to practice in New Jersey, so we only work with clients who are in the state at time of our sessions.
That means you can see us in person at our Marlton NJ offices, or if you opt for online/virtual sessions, you are required to be in New Jersey at the time of our sessions.
Ready to get started with therapy? We’re here for you.
To begin working with one of our therapists or make sure our practice is right for you, please contact us to request a complementary 15 minute consultation call.
We look forward to speaking with you!
