Evidence-Based Anxiety Disorder Treatment in Chicago

Anxiety takes many forms, and the experience is different for every person. Below are some of the most common presentations we treat. Many people experience symptoms across more than one category, and it’s not uncommon for anxiety to shift focus over time. If you see yourself or your child in any of these descriptions, we can help.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Generalized anxiety involves persistent, excessive worry across many areas of life, often accompanied by a feeling that something bad is about to happen, even when things are objectively safe. People with GAD often describe their mind as “always on alert,” cycling through worst-case scenarios and having difficulty turning off worry, even when they know it’s disproportionate to the reality of a situation. Physical symptoms are common as well, including muscle tension, fatigue, restlessness, difficulty sleeping, and trouble concentrating. Adults with GAD may appear high-functioning on the outside while feeling exhausted and anxious on the inside. Children with GAD often present as perfectionistic, rigid, or excessively worried about grades or social situations. They may also seek frequent reassurance from parents and teachers and ask caregiving adults the same questions repeatedly.

Social Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety is more than introversion or shyness; it’s rooted in an intense fear of being judged, embarrassed, or negatively evaluated by others in social or performance situations. People with social anxiety may avoid speaking up in class or meetings, attending social events, making phone calls, eating in public, or initiating conversations or other social interactions. The anticipatory dread can be as debilitating as the social situations themselves, and avoidance tends to grow over time, often narrowing a person’s world. In children and teens, social anxiety can look like refusal to participate in class, difficulty making new friends, or intense distress around attending school, camp or social events. Social anxiety often goes untreated for years because people assume it’s a fixed part of their personality, rather than a condition that responds well to effective exposure-based therapy.

Panic Disorder

Panic disorder involves recurrent, unexpected panic attacks — i.e., sudden surges of intense physical symptoms (racing heart, shortness of breath, dizziness, chest tightness, tingling, nausea) accompanied by a powerful sense that something is terribly wrong. Many people experiencing their first panic attack go to the emergency room, convinced they are having a heart attack or medical emergency. Over time, the fear of having another panic attack can become overwhelming, leading to avoidance of situations, places, or physical sensations associated with panic. Panic disorder is highly treatable and most people experience significant relief within a relatively brief course of treatment.

Specific Phobias

A specific phobia is an intense, disproportionate fear of a particular object or situation — e.g., heights, flying, needles, animals, blood, vomiting, storms, or enclosed spaces, among many others. The fear leads to avoidance that can significantly disrupt daily life: for example, a person with a needle phobia may delay necessary medical care; a person with a flying phobia may miss professional opportunities or family events; a child with a dog phobia may refuse playdates at homes that have dogs. While many people dismiss phobias as minor or irrational, they can carry real consequences for a person’s life, and they respond extremely well to exposure-based therapy.

Health Anxiety

Health anxiety (sometimes called illness anxiety) involves persistent preoccupation with the possibility of having or developing a serious medical condition. People with health anxiety may spend hours researching symptoms online, seek frequent medical reassurance, or interpret normal bodily sensations as signs of disease. Reassurance from doctors provides only temporary relief before the worry cycle restarts. Health anxiety can be exhausting and isolating, and it often coexists with generalized anxiety or OCD. Treatment helps people develop a different relationship with the uncertainty that is inherent in having a body, learning to tolerate “what if” worries without repeatedly engaging in avoidance, checking or reassurance-seeking behaviors.

Separation Anxiety

While commonly associated with young children, separation anxiety can affect people of all ages. It involves excessive fear or distress about being apart from attachment figures — for example, a child who cannot attend school without a parent, a teen who cannot sleep away from home, or an adult who experiences intense worry about a loved one’s safety whenever they are apart. Separation anxiety in children often shows up as school refusal, physical complaints (stomachaches, headaches) on school mornings, difficulty sleeping alone or outside of the home, or extreme clinginess. In adults, it may manifest as excessive checking on loved ones, difficulty traveling, or persistent worry about harm befalling family members.

Selective Mutism

Selective mutism is an anxiety disorder, most common in children under 5, in which a child consistently speaks freely in some settings (typically at home) but is unable or unwilling to speak in others (typically school or social situations). It is not a form of defiance, shyness, or a primary speech disorder. Selective Mutism it is a severe form of social anxiety that essentially freezes the child’s ability to speak in the situations where they feel most anxious. Children with selective mutism often want desperately to speak but feel physically unable to do so when anxious. Early, specialized treatment is important, as is collaborative care involving families, educators and other significant adults in the child’s life.

Performance Anxiety

Performance anxiety can affect anyone whose work or life involves being evaluated – musicians, athletes, students facing exams, professionals presenting to groups, or anyone whose performance is visible to others. The anxiety often involves a cycle of catastrophic anticipation (“I am going to bomb this presentation and get fired”), physical arousal (trembling, racing heart, dry mouth, mind going blank, etc.), and avoidance of performance situations. Performance anxiety is most commonly a subtype of Social Anxiety Disorder, but may also be present in the context of other anxiety disorders. It is also possible to have performance anxiety attached only to specific situations – such as a fear of public speaking – which typically requires a shorter and more targeted course of therapy. Several members of our team have specialized experience working with performance anxiety, using exposure-based strategies that help clients build confidence in high-stakes situations and break the avoidance cycle that keeps performance anxiety going.

Anxiety in the Family and Couples Context

Anxiety rarely affects just one person; it shapes the dynamics of the entire household or relationship. A child’s anxiety can reorganize family routines, create conflict between co-parents about how to respond, and leave siblings feeling overlooked. An adult’s anxiety can strain a romantic relationship, limit shared activities, or lead a partner into patterns of accommodation that inadvertently reinforce the anxiety cycle. Our team includes clinicians with specialized experience in treating anxiety within the family and couples context, addressing not only the individual’s symptoms but also the relational patterns that maintain them.

Related Conditions That Can Look or Feel Like Anxiety

Anxiety symptoms such as racing thoughts, physical tension, avoidance, difficulty concentrating, can also show up as part of other related mental health conditions. An accurate diagnosis matters because treatment approaches differ. Some related conditions we frequently support clients with include:

Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders (PTSD, Acute Stress Disorder)
Anxiety following a traumatic event can look similar to generalized anxiety or panic, but it’s rooted in a specific experience and the nervous system’s response to that experience. Hallmarks of traumatic stress disorders include intrusive memories or flashbacks, hypervigilance, avoidance of trauma reminders, and negative shifts in mood or beliefs about oneself or the world following a traumatic event. Because trauma-related anxiety often responds best to trauma-focused approaches (such as Prolonged Exposure, EMDR, or trauma-focused CBT) rather than standard anxiety treatment alone, correctly identifying a trauma link early on shapes the course of care.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
OCD is frequently mistaken for generalized anxiety or health anxiety, since both involve intrusive, distressing thoughts. What sets OCD apart is the specific pattern: unwanted, intrusive obsessions (thoughts, images, or urges) paired with compulsions — i.e., mental or behavioral rituals performed to neutralize the anxiety the obsession creates. OCD typically requires a specialized treatment approach, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), which differs in important ways from the exposure techniques used for other anxiety disorders. You can read more about OCD symptoms and treatment here.

Adjustment Disorders
Sometimes anxiety emerges in direct response to a specific, identifiable life stressor, such as a job loss, relationship change, medical diagnosis, or major transition. The response may be understandable as a response to the event, but still appear heightened in intensity and significantly interfere with daily functioning. Unlike generalized anxiety disorder, which tends to be more chronic and diffuse, an adjustment disorder is tied to a clear precipitating event and, by definition, typically resolves within six months once the stressor or its consequences have eased. Treatment is often shorter-term and focused on coping and adjustment, rather than on disrupting long-standing anxiety patterns.