Thanks for looking at AnxiousKids.com. You have found the website for my psychotherapy and consultation practice. I offer services to individuals of all ages and their families. This website is devoted to issues concerning children and adolescents.  My other website, tedlobby.com, is devoted to adult issues.

      Of special interest to me are kids with anxiety. Anxious kids become anxious adults. Anxious adults become anxious parents, bosses, lawyers, doctors, pilots, you name it. And once that demon anxiety catches hold hard things follow. Like being too shy to speak up in class, talk to somebody you can't stop thinking about, sign up for college, or volunteer for a challenging assignment. Anxiety festers and those afflicted experiment with all manner of ways to chase it away.

     I work with the full spectrum of affective and behavioral disorders which make personal, work and family life so vexing sometimes. But I think working on those issues requires a starting point. I believe a lot of what ails us begins with what we call anxiety. Whether it be shyness, temper, fear or avoidance it all starts out as anxiety. Anxiety is our brain telling us to watch out. Once danger is perceived we have two choices, fight or flee. The energy needed to do either is supplied by adrenaline, a powerful stimulant. But when we sense danger and get stoked to fight or flee we might stop, look around and decide there is nothing to fight and nothing from which to flee. It was all a perception, projection of fear, imagination, insecurity. The problem is that we are flooded with fuel, adrenaline, and that's what causes the symptoms of what we call anxiety. Too much fuel trying to burn but no place to focus the resulting energy. That's when our hearts race, we gasp for breath and get all tingly and clammy and it all scares the heck out of us. Panic attacks are anxiety at its most intense. Lesser degrees occur in response to every day things we believe we need to avoid because once trapped that beast will come out again and we'd do just about anything to avoid that. And so it goes.

     There's an old saying that it is often not so much what happened that's the problem. It's what didn't happen. Like missed opportunities or the absence of support and protection when needed. All those moments conspire to create psychological uncertainty. If that happens long enough, often enough, our chemistry adapts to continually be on guard for danger. We sit on the edge of anxiety most of the time. Whatever your age I can  help you understand the source of your dilemma,  discover the things that didn't happen and  help you put in place the things that need to happen. Just like our brains adapted to sensing danger so we might re-condition them to back away from the edge and adapt to feeling confident again. That's where the work comes in. Lots of thinking, challenging old ideas that are no longer useful and facing fears. It is an entirely unique and intensely worthwhile journey.

     Please have a look at my "Books" section for the books I have published.  Thank you.

Ted Lobby

952-922-0192