A woman standing outdoors with a mountainous landscape in the background, looking up towards the sky, during daytime with clear weather and a few clouds.

Therapy For Anxiety

You can stop coping, and start experiencing freedom from anxiety

It’s a buzz, an unpleasant vibration; it’s that familiar pressure in your chest.

The constant tension of anxiety is always close by.

A person wearing a yellow jacket and backpack walking across a narrow suspension bridge in a mountainous area with snow-capped peaks and trees, with the sun shining over the mountains. 
RECOGNIZE THE SIGNS

Signs you might be living with more than “just stress”

  • Rest doesn't actually feel restful — you lie down exhausted, but your mind won't stop.

  • Other people tell you to "just relax," and it makes you want to scream — because you've already tried.

  • Your body holds tension you can't seem to release — clenched jaw, tight shoulders, shallow breathing that's become so constant you almost forgot it's not normal.

  • You’ve started shrinking your life to avoid triggering anxiety.

Reach Out
Patrick Cassidy, LCMHC, a therapist in Montpelier, Vermont, with his dog

Patrick Cassidy, LCMHC

You won’t be handed a list of coping tips. I’ll help you get to know the part of you that’s anxious and what it’s protecting you from. I came to IFS as a client first, so I know how this work feels from the inside.

MY ROLE

How I Help

Our work together:

  • Developing your capacity to stay with your anxiety in session

  • Understanding how your anxiety is trying to help you

  • Practicing getting space and accessing calm

  • Healing the deeper wounds underneath your anxiety

WHAT TO EXPECT

What happens when you reach out

Stop coping and start healing.

Send the form
I reply within two business days.

Free 15-minute call
A chance to see if we’re a good fit.

First session
$250 for 50 minutes.

Request Free Consult

FAQs

  • Anxiety often comes from a protective part of you that developed to keep you safe during a difficult time, and it can keep reacting to potential danger even when your current life is objectively safe.

  • Therapy using Internal Family Systems aims to address what's driving the anxiety rather than only managing its symptoms, which can lead to more lasting change than coping techniques alone.

  • Yes. IFS is an evidence-based approach, and treating anxious parts with curiosity rather than suppression is a core part of how it addresses anxiety at its root.

  • Coping skills can offer temporary relief, but they don't address the underlying concern the anxious part is protecting you from, which is often why the anxiety returns.

  • No. Anxiety is generally understood as a protective response that developed for a real reason, not evidence of something broken in you.

  • Rather than focusing primarily on changing anxious thoughts, IFS works to understand and build a relationship with the part of you experiencing anxiety, addressing what it's protecting you from.

  • This varies by person, since it depends on what the anxious part is protecting and how much space that underlying concern needs to be addressed.

  • Yes. Sessions are available via secure telehealth to adults anywhere in Vermont, as well as in-person in Montpelier.

  • Yes. IFS can work with anxiety connected to any area of life, including work, performance, and relationships, by addressing the part of you carrying that specific concern.

  • It's common for previous therapy to help with managing symptoms without addressing the root cause; IFS specifically aims to get to what's driving the anxiety rather than only its surface presentation.

  • Yes. Protective parts can form in response to experiences that aren't consciously remembered in detail, and IFS doesn't require a full narrative memory to do effective work with them.