INDIVIDUAL ONLINE THERAPY
Anxiety Therapy in Ann Arbor
Online therapy for anxiety across Michigan. BCBS in-network.
When Daily Life Starts to Feel Unsustainable.
Maybe it's the racing thoughts that won't stop at night. The stomach that's been in knots for months. The feeling that you're one email away from completely losing it, even if you look fine on the outside.
Anxiety has a way of making high-functioning people feel like they're quietly failing. Sometimes it's rooted in chronic stress that's been building for years. Sometimes it's old stuff that keeps showing up in your daily life. Sometimes it's both.
The hard truth is that anxiety rarely just goes away on its own. But it does respond to the right kind of help, and "the right kind" matters. At Connecting Heals, we work with what's actually going on with you. This means looking at what's underneath the anxiety, what's keeping it going, and what can help life feel more manageable again.
Anxiety isn’t just anxiety. There are many subsets and factors at play.
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When the job that used to feel manageable starts keeping you up at night, that's your nervous system telling you something.
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The fear that your role, your skills, or your entire career path might be obsolete is a new kind of anxiety, and it's very real. You're not catastrophizing. The ground is actually shifting.
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Presentations, evaluations, first days, and high-stakes moments. The anticipation is sometimes worse than the thing itself.
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Money stress has a way of sitting underneath everything else. It's hard to breathe easy about much when the numbers don't add up.
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Relationship anxiety can include worrying constantly about what someone thinks of you, whether the relationship is okay, or whether you're too much or not enough.
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Social anxiety isn’t shyness, it’s a genuine, exhausting fear of how you're being perceived, judged, or remembered in social situations.
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Putting yourself out there is hard enough. Doing it while managing anxiety about rejection, vulnerability, and what happens next is a different level entirely.
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The spiral that starts with a symptom (real or imagined) and ends up somewhere much darker. Your body is not your enemy, but anxiety can make it feel that way.
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The headlines don't stop, and neither does the dread that comes with them. Caring about the world shouldn't mean carrying the weight of it every single day, but for a lot of people that line gets blurry fast.
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The nights when your brain decides 2am is the perfect time to revisit every unresolved thing in your life. The exhaustion that comes from never actually resting.
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Intrusive thoughts, compulsive checking, the loop that won't stop no matter how many times you've already checked. OCD and anxiety overlap more than most people realize.
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Sometimes anxiety isn't about the present at all. It's old trauma showing up uninvited, keeping your nervous system stuck in a version of the past.
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LGBTQ+ folks know the hypervigilance of navigating a world that doesn't always affirm who you are takes a real toll. That anxiety is not irrational. It's a reasonable response to an unreasonable amount of pressure.
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Loving someone this much and having this little control is genuinely terrifying. Parenting anxiety is one of the most common things we see, and one of the least talked about.
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New jobs, new cities, new relationships, new roles. Transitions and changes can send anxiety through the roof when you don't know who you are in the new chapter yet.
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We're more connected online than ever and somehow lonelier for it. Whether you're feeling unseen, unheard, or just disconnected from the people around you, that's worth taking seriously.
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Doom scrolling your feed, the FOMO, watching everyone else's greatest hits while feeling like life is passing you by. It's an illusion, but the anxiety it creates is real, and that weight is unfair to you.
It is okay to admit that you are tired of
fighting your own thoughts.
Anxiety isn't a character flaw or a personal failure. It’s what happens when your internal alarm system gets stuck in the "on" position, leaving you to manage a level of intensity that no one is meant to carry alone.
Most people expect anxiety to show up as worry. What they don't expect is the stomach that won't settle, the chest that gets tight for no clear reason, or the heart rate that spikes before a meeting that shouldn't be a big deal. Anxiety is a full-body experience, and a lot of people spend a long time chasing physical symptoms before anyone connects the dots.
Rapid heartbeat and pounding chest.
Pain like you’re having a heart attack.
A feeling like you can’t get a full breath.
Stomach in knots, nausea, or gut pain without a clear cause.
Loss of appetite.
Tension headaches and pressure behind the eyes.
Muscle tension and whole-body restlessness.
Increased severity of diagnosed health conditions.
Racing thoughts.
Trouble falling and staying asleep.
Forgetting things you normally wouldn’t.
Waking up anxious.
If any of these sound familiar, you're not imagining it.
HOW IT FEELS
What are the Symptoms of Anxiety?
OUR APPROACH
Our Approach to Anxiety Treatment
Therapy for anxiety works best when it fits how you actually think and what's driving it. That looks different for everyone.
We start by understanding what's underneath, whether that's chronic stress, past experiences, the way your brain is wired, or something happening right now. That context shapes everything else.
From there, we figure out together what you actually want to be different and how to pace the work so it doesn't become another massive thing on your list. Then we get to work, drawing from several evidence-based approaches depending on what fits you best.
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What is CBT?
CBT is a structured, approach built on the connection between how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. It focuses on identifying & replacing unhelpful thought patterns.How Does CBT Help With Anxiety?
Anxiety has a way of convincing you the worst case scenario is the most likely one. CBT gives you concrete tools to recognize when that's happening, challenge the thoughts driving it, and respond differently. -
What is DBT?
DBT is a skills-based therapy that balances change with acceptance. It focuses on building practical coping tools for managing intense emotions and navigating difficult situations.How Does DBT Help With Anxiety?
Anxiety often lives in the gap between what's happening and how you're responding to it. DBT gives you concrete skills to tolerate distress without it taking over, regulate the emotional intensity anxiety produces, and stay grounded when everything feels like too much. -
What is EMDR?
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess memories and experiences that got stuck. It works with the brain's natural processing system rather than around it.How Does EMDR Help With Anxiety?
A lot of anxiety isn't just about the present. It's rooted in past experiences the brain never fully processed. EMDR works directly with those roots, reducing the emotional charge they carry so they stop showing up uninvited in your daily life. -
What is Ego State Therapy?
Ego State Therapy views the mind as a collection of distinct parts, each with its own history and protective role. Therapy helps them communicate and work together.How Does Ego State Therapy Help With Anxiety?
Anxiety is often a part of you doing its best to keep you safe. Ego State Therapy helps you understand what that part is responding to and build a calmer relationship with the parts of yourself that are working overtime.
Methods We Use to Help
the benefit
What Anxiety Treatment Actually Does for You
Calm your body & mind.
When anxiety stops running at full volume, the physical symptoms go with it. The chest loosens, the stomach settles, and the tension you've been carrying starts to release.
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Be more present in the moment.
You can be present in the room without your brain and body working against you in the background.
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Feel rested with better sleep.
When the anxiety-sleep cycle starts to break, falling asleep gets easier, staying asleep gets easier, and waking up without dread starts to feel like a real possibility.
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Have energy for the things that matter.
When you're not spending every resource just keeping it together, that energy goes somewhere else, like your relationships, your work, and the version of daily life that feels worth showing up to.
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You don’t have to have it all figured out
before you reach out.
A free 15-minute consultation is just a conversation. No commitment, no homework, no pressure. We'll figure out together if it's a good fit.
in-network for online therapy
BCBS In-Network Anxiety Therapy in Ann Arbor
Connecting Heals is in-network with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and its affiliate companies. That means if you have BCBS coverage, your online therapy sessions are billed directly through your insurance at your in-network rate the same way you'd use insurance for any healthcare appointment.
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What does in-network mean?
It means you pay your copay or work toward your deductible rather than the full session fee. Most BCBS mental health benefits cover outpatient therapy, including online therapy.
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What about online therapy?
Blue Cross Blue Shield covers online therapy the same way it covers in-person therapy. You don't need to be in an office for your insurance to apply. As long as you're located in Michigan during your sessions, your BCBS benefits work.
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What if I don't have BCBS?
Our standard session fee is $170. We offer a sliding scale on a case by case basis for clients who need it, and we provide superbills for out-of-network reimbursement if your plan allows for it.
frequently asked questions
Common Questions, Real Answers
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Cortisol, your body's primary stress hormone, peaks in the first hour after waking. For people with anxiety, that natural spike can feel like dread before the day has even started.
It's one of the most common anxiety experiences and one of the least talked about. You're not broken. Your nervous system is just very awake, very early.
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Sometimes situational anxiety fades when the stressor does. But chronic anxiety, the kind that has been running in the background for months or years, rarely resolves on its own.
Without some kind of intervention, most people find it either stays the same or gradually gets worse. The good news is that anxiety typically responds well to treatment, and you don't have to be in crisis to start.
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They overlap a lot, but they're not the same. Stress is usually tied to a specific external cause and tends to ease when that cause goes away.
Anxiety persists even when there's nothing obviously wrong, like that low hum of dread that follows you regardless of what's actually happening. If stress is the weather, anxiety is the climate.
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There's no single answer. An anxiety episode can last minutes, hours, or days. Chronic anxiety can last years without treatment.
What matters more than the duration is the pattern. If symptoms are frequent, intense, or getting in the way of your daily life, that's worth paying attention to.
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Yes. Research consistently shows that online therapy produces outcomes comparable to in-person therapy for anxiety, including generalized anxiety, social anxiety, panic disorder, and trauma-rooted anxiety.
No commute, no waiting room, and no having to hold it together in public after a hard session makes it more accessible for a lot of people who might not have started otherwise.
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Anxiety is a full-body experience, not just a mental one. It can cause a racing heart, chest tightness, shortness of breath, stomach pain, muscle tension, headaches, fatigue, and disrupted sleep, among other things.
A lot of people spend significant time chasing physical symptoms before anyone considers it may be anxiety.
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Anxiety is typically ongoing or a persistent state of worry or physical tension. A panic attack is acute and intense, or a sudden surge of fear with strong physical symptoms that peaks within minutes. The two often coexist. You can have chronic anxiety without panic attacks, and panic attacks can occur in people who don't otherwise experience chronic anxiety.
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Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health condition in the United States. That said, the word "illness" makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and we understand why.
Anxiety exists on a spectrum from normal stress responses to diagnosable disorders. What matters is whether it's interfering with your life, not whether it fits a particular label.
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Anxiety cannot cause a heart attack, but it can cause symptoms that feel exactly like one. These can include chest pain, racing heart, shortness of breath, and left arm discomfort.
This is one of the most searched anxiety questions for a reason. If you're experiencing these symptoms for the first time, getting them checked medically first is always the right call. Once cardiac causes are ruled out, anxiety is often the culprit.
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It is! Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most researched treatments for anxiety in existence, with decades of clinical evidence showing it works for generalized anxiety, social anxiety, panic disorder, health anxiety, and more.
Proudly Based in Ann Arbor
We're a virtual practice rooted in Ann Arbor and serving clients across Michigan. Whether you're in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Traverse City, Flint, or anywhere in between, online anxiety therapy through Connecting Heals is available to you.
