Anxiety Therapy in Vancouver, WA

Find Calm, Reclaim Your Life. Compassionate, Evidence-Based Therapy for Adults in Vancouver, WA & Online Across Washington State

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Breaking Free from Constant Worry

When anxiety has a grip on your life, everything feels harder. Maybe you’re exhausted from overthinking every decision, replaying conversations in your head, or bracing for the next thing to go wrong. You might wake up with your heart racing, avoid situations that once felt manageable, or feel like you’re watching life pass you by from behind a wall of fear.

At Refuge, we understand that anxiety isn’t a weakness or something you can just “get over.” It’s your nervous system working overtime, trying to keep you safe. We offer specialized, evidence-based therapy to help you quiet the noise, regulate your body, and step back into the life you want to live.

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What We Do in Anxiety Therapy

Anxiety starts in the body before it reaches your mind. We help you understand your “fight, flight, or freeze” responses and provide you with actual solutions to find calm and safety in your own skin again.

Those spiraling thoughts aren’t the truth—they’re patterns. We help you identify and challenge the thought loops that fuel your anxiety, so you can respond to life with clarity instead of fear.

Avoidance keeps anxiety alive. In a safe, supportive environment, we help you gradually approach the things that scare you, proving to your nervous system that you can handle more than you think.

Real change isn’t about never feeling anxious again—it’s about knowing you have the tools to handle it when it shows up. We equip you with strategies that work in the moment and for the long haul.

What We Won’t Do In Anxiety Therapy

  • Tell you to “just relax”
  • Make you feel weak for struggling
  • Give you surface-level coping tips without deeper work
  • Focus just on positive thinking 

Instead, we’ll do the real work together.

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Anxiety Therapy for adults in Vancouver, WA

More Than Coping: Our Evidence-Based Approaches

Anxiety isn’t just “in your head”—it lives in your body, your thoughts, and your patterns. We use proven, integrative therapies designed to target anxiety at every level and create lasting change.

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Our Therapeutic Approaches

We integrate science-backed and experiential therapies to help you move from anxious to empowered:

While commonly used for trauma, EMDR is also highly effective for anxiety disorders. EMDR helps reprocess the memories, beliefs, and experiences that fuel your anxiety, reducing their emotional intensity. Through bilateral stimulation, your brain can release old patterns of fear and build new, calmer responses to stressors.

For those with chronic, treatment-resistant anxiety, KAP offers a breakthrough approach. Ketamine creates new neural pathways and allows for deeper emotional processing in a safe, therapeutic setting. Combined with talk therapy, KAP can help you break free from long-standing patterns of worry and fear, offering relief when traditional approaches haven’t worked.

Anxiety often stems from different “parts” of you competing for control—one part wants to move forward, another wants to keep you safe by avoiding risk. IFS helps you understand these internal conflicts with compassion, allowing you to calm the anxious parts and strengthen your inner sense of leadership and peace. This approach is particularly helpful for those with perfectionism, people-pleasing tendencies, or deep-rooted fears.

Many anxiety patterns are rooted in early relational experiences. If you struggle with fear of abandonment, worry about what others think, or feel unsafe in relationships, attachment-based therapy can help you understand how these patterns formed and how to build more secure, trusting connections with yourself and others.

Creative expression offers a powerful way to process anxiety that words alone can’t reach. Through art, music, or movement, you can externalize anxious feelings, gain new perspectives, and access deeper emotional healing. This approach is especially helpful for those who feel overwhelmed by talk therapy or who want a more experiential way to work through anxiety.

Sand Tray Therapy is a hands-on, experiential approach that uses a sandbox and miniature figurines to create visual representations of thoughts, emotions, and life experiences. This method is particularly useful for processing trauma, accessing subconscious emotions, and working through complex life challenges. By creating and observing symbolic worlds in the sand, clients can gain profound insights and healing without needing to verbalize everything. It’s an effective approach for both adults and children seeking deeper emotional expression.

Anxiety lives in your body—the tight chest, shallow breathing, tense shoulders. Somatic therapy uses movement, breathwork, and body awareness to release stored tension and retrain your nervous system to feel safe. This approach is especially powerful for those who feel disconnected from their bodies or who experience physical symptoms of anxiety.

Alpha-Stim is a non-invasive, FDA-approved device that uses microcurrent electrical stimulation to balance brainwave activity and reduce anxiety symptoms. Many clients experience noticeable relief from racing thoughts, restlessness, and tension. This tool can be a powerful complement to therapy, offering additional support for your nervous system.

Your life experiences don’t define you, but the stories you tell yourself about them shape your reality. Narrative therapy helps you rewrite disempowering stories, reclaim your personal power, and see yourself as the author of your own journey. This approach is particularly effective for those struggling with self-worth, identity, and overcoming past hardships.

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Why Choose Refuge Counseling & Wellness

At Refuge, you’re not just another anxious person to “fix.” You’ll find support and belonging in our deeply hospitable therapeutic center. We understand that living with anxiety is exhausting, and seeking help takes real courage. That’s why we’ve created a space that goes beyond cookie-cutter treatment plans to offer you a personalized, science-backed strategy for lasting relief.

Our therapists are highly skilled, compassionate guides who are passionate about helping you reclaim your peace of mind and live with confidence.

Meet Our Team
Renee Thompson

Founder & Therapist, MA, LMHC, CPC

Therapists Specializing in Trauma Therapy

Renee Thompson
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Ryanne Smith
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How Anxiety Therapy Works at Refuge

We get to
know you

Taking time to understand your unique experience with anxiety

We Make
a PLAN

Creating a customized therapy approach that targets your specific symptoms and goals

We help
you GROW

With guidance and support, you’ll work toward lasting calm and meaningful change

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Frequently Asked Questions About Trauma Therapy

We work with all forms of anxiety including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety, panic disorder, health anxiety, OCD, phobias, and anxiety related to trauma, relationships, or life transitions. Even if you don’t have a formal diagnosis, if worry and fear are impacting your daily life, we can help.

Many clients notice some relief within the first few sessions as they learn new tools and gain insight into their anxiety patterns. Deeper, lasting change typically takes several weeks to months, depending on the severity of your anxiety and how long you’ve been struggling. We focus on sustainable progress, not quick fixes.

We support adults ages 18 and up. We work with young adults, folks in mid life, and seniors. We also do couples therapy.

Refuge is private pay only and does not accept insurance.

Refuge Counseling & Wellness is out of network and therefore does not accept or bill any insurance. See each practitioner or service for current fees. A full, transparent breakdown of pricing will be provided for all clients.

Refuge Counseling & Wellness accepts credit card payments. Payments are due at the time of each service. 

Super Bills
Counselors at Refuge are able to supply you with a super bill. Super bills are a receipt with your diagnosis code that can be submitted to insurance for partial or full reimbursement for therapy services. Not sure if you qualify? Call your insurance provider and ask whether they will reimburse you for an out of network therapist. 

Health Savings Accounts (HSA)/Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) 

HSAs and FSAs can help you pay for therapy. Check your individual plan for details. 

Care Credit
Care Credit may be used to help with the cost of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy or Intensives. Individuals must apply. Ask your therapist for more information. 

Everyone can benefit from having a dedicated safe space to process their life. Therapy is especially helpful for people dealing with unwanted symptoms from trauma, burnout, anxiety, or depression, for example. 

But you don’t need a diagnosis to come to therapy. Whether you’re suffering from PTSD, working through grief, or simply want to get to know yourself better, therapy is an investment in your personal growth and wellbeing. 

We want you to get results, so we recommend a weekly 50 minute session, at least until significant progress has been made. Some clients will choose the intensive model where either multiple sessions a week or full days of therapy can be most effective. As you make progress, sessions can be moved to every other week, then to monthly or as-needed maintenance sessions.

That all depends on the complexity of your concerns, how your nervous system handles changes, how much support you have, and how much time outside of therapy you can commit to the work. 

At Refuge, we are committed to real results, not quick fixes. You will likely begin to feel relief at the first session and in the early weeks, but the deeper change takes time.

We offer anxiety therapy at our office in Vancouver, Washington as well as serve clients across Washington state via video sessions. Our office is located at 13912 NE 20th Ave. Suite 204 Vancouver, WA 98686.

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We’re ready when you are

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