In a lot of ways your life is better now than it ever has been…

You’ve lived through some difficult times but that happened when you were younger. As far as anyone can tell, you’ve got it made.

Internally, however, it’s a different story. You can’t shake the constant sense of unease you feel. Over the years you’ve had one accomplishment and success after another, and yet, you feel lonely and empty at times.

You may be struggling with:

• Anxiety/Panic Attacks

• Bouts of depression

• Unsatisfying relationships

• Lack of motivation

• Difficulty managing intense emotions

• Fear of rejection and abandonment

• Low self-esteem

• Imposter syndrome

• Perfectionism

You recognize that your go-to ways of dealing with stress and anxiety are coping mechanisms that no longer serve you but nothing you’ve tried seems to really work in the long-term. You wish you didn’t feel so…

Isolated, Worried, and Overwhelmed

You want to know yourself more deeply, feel authentically at ease, and meet life’s challenges head on.

If you had a magic wand you would:

1. Stop caring so much what other people think of you

2. Have a stronger sense of who you are and what you want

3. Use your life experiences - even the hard ones - as fuel for growth

4. Feel more connected with your own inner wisdom

5. Cultivate deep and meaningful relationships

6. Trust yourself to set realistic goals and achieve them

7. Be able to relax and enjoy life more often

How I can support you…

• At times you feel that no one could really ever understand or help. I assure you, you’re not alone in your pain, you deserve to feel better, and there are effective ways to cope and ultimately reduce your hurt.

• Naming what you feel can be a powerful salve. Together, we will put words to feelings and emotions that seem so complicated it’s hard to even know how to talk about them.

• Emotional pain is a visceral experience. By identifying where your upset resides in your body, we can work together to transform it and transform its impact on your life.

• Together we’ll explore ways to develop safety within yourself and cultivate external resources of connection and community.

My theoretical approach…

Every therapist has certain modalities that guide their way of thinking about change and their treatment choices. Below are a few of the ways I’ve been trained and will approach our work together. I’ve included some links for further reading on each modality.

1) Psychodynamic: Our early life experiences and relationships help us organize the world around us. They inform the ways we feel about ourselves, the trust or mistrust we have in others, and the ways in which we feel safe to show up in the world. Gaining insight about our foundational experiences allows for change in the present.

2) Relational: We are hurt in relationship and we heal in relationship. As human beings, we are wired for love and connection. When our connections have been unreliable, unsafe, or even just apathetic, that has a profound impact on how we relate to ourselves and others. Therapy is an opportunity to work through unresolved upsets and create healthier ways of establishing and cultivating long-lasting relationships.

3) Internal Family Systems (IFS): There’s part of you that wants to reach out for help (the part of you that’s gotten this far down the page) and there’s part of you that feels unsure. We all have conflicting feelings, parts of us that we are more/less aware of. Young, unhealed parts of us that feel scared, critical parts that try to keep us motivated with fear, parts that want to protect us from pain. Together, we will talk about all of these “parts” and begin integrate them so you have a fuller understanding of your truest self.

4) Attachment: Attachment is a biological need. The ways in which our caregivers nurtured healthy attachment inform how we relate to others - securely, anxiously, with avoidance. Understanding our attachment styles gives us the ability to understand our relational patterns and make better choices.

5) EMDR: Unresolved trauma can create emotional blocks that prevent us from moving forward. EMDR is a modality that targets the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and bodily sensations that keep us stuck. By removing these blocks, our mind/body moves toward health. We begin to integrate our experience and formulate new, more compassionate thoughts and core beliefs.

I’m Arezou Paksima (she/her), a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. I’m passionate about helping people transform their relationship to anxiety through a process of intellectual understanding and emotional change.

I believe you already have what it takes to cultivate self-compassion, change unhealthy patterns, and be more authentically you. I’m here to gently guide, encourage, and support you.

I provide mental health services to residents of North Carolina and New York.

My office is on the SW border of Durham/Chapel Hill.

**Due to COVid-19 sessions are via phone and video at this time.

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Learn more about me and how I work