Counseling for Children, Teens, Adults and Families
Therapy for Anxiety and Chronic Pain
At Firefly Counseling and Wellness we are committed to supporting children, teens and adults with anxiety and chronic pain. We help individuals to decrease anxiety symptoms, recover from chronic pain and live more fulfilling lives.
Understanding Anxiety:
It is very difficult to live with anxiety, but some good news is that anxiety is extremely treatable!
If you have anxiety, you are probably trying to make it go away by avoiding the things or events that make you feel anxious. Unfortunately, this approach actually increases anxiety.
If you are a parent of a child with anxiety you might feel like you are constantly walking on eggshells, fearing your child will have a big reaction at any moment. Trying to avoid the things that trigger your child only makes their anxiety worse. It’s a vicious cycle and one that is exhausting for parents.
Anxiety is an alarm bell that tells you you're in danger. If you are in actual danger then anxiety lets you know you need to take action! You are probably familiar with this idea that anxiety causes you to have a fight, flight, freeze or fawn response so that you can get to safety. If you aren’t actually in a life threatening situation, your anxiety tells you know that something is out of balance or not working in your life. Learning to understand anxiety and why it shows up for you is crucial for learning how to decrease it.
At Firefly Counseling and Wellness we help you determine what your anxiety is trying to tell you. Next, we help you decrease your anxiety by making necessary changes and teaching you tools and strategies for effectively managing anxiety.
Understanding Chronic Pain:
Living with chronic pain is debilitating but just like anxiety, chronic pain is very treatable!
Pain and physical symptoms are another type of alarm bell. Pain is similar to anxiety in that it is a danger signal. Sometimes pain lets you know there is a structural problem, like a sprained ankle, cut or burn. Other times, pain lets you know you need to take a break from working too much or are approaching your life with fear, perfectionism, negativity or have unresolved stress or trauma.
If you experience chronic pain, you know what it’s like to get stuck in a cycle of pain, fear and more pain. Traditional medication has probably not been effective and you are wondering where to turn next.
We will help you to identify your pain and symptom triggers. teach you techniques for managing pain and help you to create a road map for preventing future relapse.
Chronic pain conditions we treat include: headaches, migraines, back pain, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, Long Covid, chronic fatigue and chronic Lyme Disease.
You and your family deserve to live a life that is free of constant anxiety or chronic pain!
ABOUT LAUREN WOLFE MS, LPC
I love working as a licensed professional counselor and have had the pleasure of supporting children, teens and families for over 20 years! Here’s a little about me, how I came to be a therapist and how I work with my clients.
As a child I struggled with symptoms of anxiety that negatively affected my life. Back then (in the 1980’s) it was not common for children to receive counseling. Social and emotional learning were also not typically provided in school. I had no idea what anxiety symptoms were or that I was experiencing them until I took a psychology course in college. This understanding led me to find a therapist and receive counseling, which sparked my interest in psychology. I have learned a lot about anxiety and how to effectively treat it since then! I wish I knew then what I know now.
As a young adult I realized that I was easily able to connect with children and found working with them to be extremely rewarding. I later combined my love of working with kids and teens with my interest in psychology and made it my career to support families. This work has been extremely fulfilling and I am grateful for the individuals I have had the honor of supporting.
In my work with individuals and families, I use my own experience with anxiety as well as what I have learned from years of educational training and therapeutic work with my clients. I am passionate about helping children, teens and parents to reduce anxiety because I know what a relief it is to live without constant fear! Using creativity and lightheartedness, I strive to make the therapeutic process fun. And seeing my clients take healthy risks while feeling calmer and more confident is both rewarding and inspiring for me.
Some of the modalities I use include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Exposure Response Prevention Therapy, Internal Family System and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT/Tapping).
I am certified in EFT by EFT International and am an Advanced Practitioner.
When not at work, I can be found teaching or practicing barre or yoga, reading on my Kindle or hanging with my husband, two young adult children or my two bossy dogs, Luigi and Snoopy.
ABOUT KAYLA DEFEO MS, LPCA
I believe that having a good, trusting connection with my clients is the starting point to help them in the growth they are looking to achieve. Whether working with adults or children, I use a combination of my counseling training, my experience working in residential facilities and my own life experience to help clients to reduce their anxiety symptoms.
I believe that anxiety is a normal and healthy emotion that sometimes gets too big. When this happens we begin to view the world through a lens of danger. Experiencing high levels of anxiety can cause all sorts of unpleasant symptoms. I enjoy teaching my clients how they can reduce their anxiety symptoms and live with more peace in their lives.
I enjoy working with adults and parents as well as working with kids and teens. I look for opportunities to incorporate art and play in counseling and draw upon a number of different therapy modalities to individualize treatment. Modalities I use include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Exposure Response Prevention Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Motivational Interviewing.
Besides treating anxiety, I also have experience working with individuals dealing with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), depression, trauma, addiction and children and adolescents with behavioral challenges.
When I’m not working, I can be found cooking Italian food, reading almost any book, gardening and spending quality time with my sweet feline’s Bruno and Theo.
Counseling for children and teens with anxiety
Is your child or teen experiencing symptoms of anxiety? Anxiety doesn’t always look like what we imagine. Below are some ways that anxiety symptoms often show up in children and teens:
Anxiety symptoms in children include:
● Irritability
● Big reactions to small problems
● Headaches
● Stomach aches
● Rudeness to parents or siblings
● Difficulty falling or staying asleep
● Looking for reassurance
● Excessive fear or worries
● Avoiding certain situations or activities
A child with anxiety might look like they are acting out, being naughty or just constantly being difficult. It is common for an anxious child to say mean things to parents or siblings, get into arguments at home and seem impossible to please. Many anxious children do well at school, are liked by teachers and other students and then come home and have big reactions to small problems. They often work so hard to keep it all together at school that they can no longer hold it together at home.
Sometimes when a child is experiencing high levels of anxiety they also experience difficulties at school. They might have trouble paying attention or need to be constantly redirected by their teacher. Some kids with anxiety feel they are constantly, "getting in trouble."
Many children with anxiety struggle at bedtime. Children might avoid getting into bed or once in bed make frequent visits to parents looking for reassurance that they are safe. Some anxious children wake their parents throughout the night or insist on sleeping with them. Nighttime is challenging for kids with anxiety because they don’t have distractions from their thoughts of fear and worry.
While some children seem to be constantly anxious, other children have a very specific fear like not wanting to attend school, or a fear of dogs or being called on in class. Some children are very afraid of new situations or meeting new people. Others are so afraid of being embarrassed or of failing that they stop taking healthy risks altogether.
Parents of an anxious child can feel annoyed or frustrated with their child or their child’s behavior. Parenting a child with anxiety is extremely challenging and can be exhausting for parents.
Anxiety is VERY treatable! At Firefly Counseling and Wellness, we help children, teens and adults to decrease anxiety, build confidence and move through fear to live more fulfilling lives.
When working with children we use play, art, games and lots of lightness and humor to help kids learn techniques for decreasing anxiety and worry and increasing their courage and confidence.
At Firefly Counseling and Wellness we love supporting parents! We offer parenting sessions and parenting support groups. And we always make parents a part of the counseling process whenever we work with young children. Incorporating parents in our counseling sessions help children to create lasting change.
Counseling for adults with anxiety or chronic pain
If you are an adult who is experiencing anxiety then you know how difficult it can be to feel anxious all the time. Or how frustrating it is to feel great and then have anxiety hit out of nowhere. Below are some ways that anxiety often shows up for adults:
Anxiety symptoms in adults are often similar to those in children and can also include:
● Sensations of a racing heart
● Difficulty concentrating
● Shortness of breath
● Muscle aches or tension
● Insomnia
● Lack of appetite
● Eating in attempt to comfort oneself
● Having big emotions to small problems
● Avoiding situations that increase anxiety
Just like kids, adults can have very specific fears and worries that trigger their anxiety symptoms. Or they might find that they feel on edge, amped up or agitated all the time. They might have trouble feeling relaxed or maybe even avoid sitting still because it’s so uncomfortable.
If you are an adult experiencing anxiety or chronic pain, we would love to help you have more peace in your life!
RATES
Counseling:
$225 for initial visit - 60 min
$175 for 45-50 min counseling session
We do not participate directly with insurance. We will provide you with what is needed for you to submit to your insurance to access any out of network benefits that you might receive.
CONTACT US
Please complete this form to inquire about an appointment:
Sessions are by appointment only.
Address
75 Glen Road
Suite G-03
Sandy Hook, CT 06482