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  • Home
  • Specialties
    • Sex Therapy
    • Anxiety and Depression
    • Addiction Treatment
    • Trauma Therapy
    • Borderline Personality
  • Modalities
    • Individual Psychotherapy
    • Couples Therapy
    • Family Therapy
  • Therapeutic Approach
    • Psychodynamic Therapy
    • Mindful Somatic Therapy
  • Bio
  • Resources
    • Self Care
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Psychotherapy for Anxiety and Depression in Marin County


Marla Leigh Caplan Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

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Anxiety and Depression: Twin Symptoms of Psychological Distress

  • Anxiety and Depression are often the first signs that something needs to be addressed in your life. 


  • Symptoms common to a wide variety of problems in the realms of relationship distress,  grief and loss, gender or sexual identity, addiction and trauma, anxiety and depression are also aspects of cyclical mood disorders.


  • Presenting in succession, anxiety and depression are energetic states that up and down regulate the central nervous system in your body's effort to restore balance and harmony when there is chaos in your psycho-spiritual or relational spheres. 


  • While a healthy degree of anxiety serves to motivate and protect us from danger, when anxiety is overwhelming it can feel immobilizing. Anyone who has ever felt trapped in their body or in their life knows that anxiety can be a crippling affliction that creates a sense of paralysis, making it incredibly difficult to make choices or take action. 


  • Sometimes emerging out of states of extreme stress and anxiety, mania is characterized by elevated, expansive or agitated states as impulsive as they are dangerous.


  • The counterpoint to states of tension and anxiety, depression is both insidious & pervasive, draining vibrant personalities of motivation, interest & pleasure until it becomes them.  People in chronic states of depression often feel that they have lost themselves, no longer seeing the distinction between who they are and how they feel. 


  • Valuable indications that  some kind of change needs to happen, treating anxiety and depression can help you avoid a range of health problems. 


  • By bringing mindful self awareness to your physical and psychological symptoms therapy for mood disorders can delve beneath the surface to address the core issues and effect lasting change.

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Resourcing for Anxiety and Depression

Art Kahn Selesnick Anxiety Stress Panic Therapy Counseling Mindfulness Meditation Relax Calm Mindful

Coping Skills to Manage Stress and Anxiety

Anxiety is a problem that needs attention and skillful treatment when it prevents you from freely engaging in the world in ways that are productive, joyful and fluid. It can show up in specific ways, such as social anxiety, where extreme discomfort makes connecting with others a challenge, or illness anxiety, especially prevalent in these times. For some people, anxiety impacts nearly all aspects of life, showing up in a vague but omnipresent way. In the case of generalized anxiety, locating the particular cause of anxiety can be difficult and itself can create disturbance. The effect of anxiety can dramatically limit the contours of an individual’s life, causing them to isolate, restrict their activities, resist change and impede a free exploration of many of the diverse facets of life that may still be unknown and therefore carry an intrinsic sense of danger.  

Somatic Therapy: Ground in Resilience and Strength

If you frequently experience rapid heartbeat, racing thoughts and it feels like there is an incredible weight on your chest or you notice yourself freezing up, seemingly unable to move in any direction for fear of making a mistake, it is time to take the first step towards treating your anxiety.


Together, we will explore your fears and the conditioning that may have led you to this place so you can express yourself emphatically in a way that feels authentic to you. We will look at your limiting beliefs and the underlying traumatic events that are shaping your automatic responses while finding ways to self-soothe and cope with the tension created by heightened anxiety. The goal here is to regain the freedom to expand your world. 

Therapy for Anxiety and Depression

Treatment for Mood Disorders
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Emotion Regulation and Balance for Mood Disorders

Living with Chronic and Acute Depression: Exploring Grief and Loss

Often showing up as absence and loss, depression is the "nothing" in "nothing's wrong." You may feel down or low for no apparent reason. You may feel tired or unmotivated, seeing life as a series of futile struggles that make it tempting to want to give up hope and find it challenging to do the things that you know might help. 


Reaching out to friends or colleagues may be difficult. Perhaps you don’t want to be seen this way or you feel you don't have anything to offer or you are convinced that you are broken beyond repair. Unfortunately, these thought processes only intensify the isolation and loneliness that has likely taken over your world.


You may notice yourself taking a lack of interest or pleasure in things that you would ordinarily find engaging and enjoyable. You may indulge in negative self talk, calling yourself useless or lazy or ungrateful as you grieve the person you once were. 


You may feel constantly fatigued. Some days it may be hard to get out of bed. You may find yourself overeating or unable to eat much at all. Like changes to your diet, you may experience changes in the way you sleep. You may find yourself sleeping all the time, regularly waking from nightmares or struggling to fall asleep even when you are otherwise exhausted. 


Trouble eating and sleeping exacerbate mood swings, creating heightened emotional reactivity that strains relationships and makes everyday encounters with the world unpredictable. You might blame yourself for not being “normal.”  All of these symptoms are incredibly common to varying degrees for people living with depression. 


Chronic depressive states have a way of settling into the contours of your life in a way that takes over, making it hard to separate yourself from the depression or imagine life in any other way. Perhaps one day you overhear yourself telling someone "I am depressed" and realize you have come to identify with your condition. As debilitating as it may be, it's become familiar, perhaps comfortable, and even harder to let go.


When all your usual strategies are no longer working or you cannot access them to begin with, it's time to reach out. Therapy for mood disorders and depression can help.

Therapy for Cyclical Mood Disorders in Tiburon: Riding the Wave of Depression, Anxiety and Mania

In individuals with cyclical mood disorders such as bipolar disorder or cyclothymia, a depressive episode may last for several weeks and then, almost out of nowhere, emerges a feeling of uncontainable, manic energy that builds until it urgently needs to be released, creating an elevated or irritable mood, hyperactivity, hypervigilance, hypersexuality, racing thoughts, pressured or rapid speech, exaggerated perceptions of self, grandiosity, impulsivity, risky behaviors and violence.


In contrast to an extended period of depression, mania may seem like a preferable alternative. Many people living with bipolar disorder choose not to seek treatment for this reason - manic episodes are the times they feel most powerful, productive, energized, and filled with a sense of limitless possibility. 


Individuals with "artistic temperaments" sometimes believe that their manic states put them in touch with their muse, allowing them to access the inspiration, creative flow states and talents they consider to be the gifts that make them unique and valuable - gifts they may secretly fear don't belong to them otherwise.  From that perspective, it's easy to see why someone would resist diagnosis and treatment. 


The truth is that both depressive states and manic episodes can be equally destructive, ruining careers, relationships and  putting those who are suffering at risk of addiction out of a need to self-medicate for a low that feels too deep to crawl out of or a high from which they can't come down. 


The idea is to step off the rollercoaster long enough to see that those talents belong to you, not the muse. Perhaps then you will see that you don't need to get perilously high in order to avoid the dark abyss. By creating balance in your life, you can integrate productivity and rest in equal measure, bringing a light into the dark instead of staring directly into the sun.

Depression Therapist in Marin County: Mill Valley, Tiburon & Sausalito

Often what creates change in psychotherapy is a loving, supportive relationship where you can feel safe to explore those areas that you have repressed for fear of being judged or misunderstood. Allow me to hold your suffering with compassion and help you heal from your pain.


As therapist with over a decade treating anxiety and depression and supporting clients with mood disorders, I will help you understand where your moods originate, identify your triggers and find patterns in your cycle so you can begin to anticipate times where you need more support. Over time, I will help you process repressed or latent emotions, create coping skills, rebuild your sense of self, and learn where to make changes in order to restore balance to your life. 


In the context of a supportive therapeutic relationship, you will begin to see yourself differently and, after some time, may begin to notice that you are different - the haze has lifted, you are finding ease in the things that once felt so hard, taking enjoyment in simple pleasures, re-connecting and repairing relationships with your loved ones - even flourishing. I am here to help you see that all of this is possible. You don’t have to suffer endlessly and you don’t have to find your way through the dark alone.


Fill out the form below to schedule a call or text me at 415-857-5560 to set up a time to meet. I see clients for therapy in person at my office in Tiburon and online anywhere in California. 

Marla Leigh Caplan MFT trauma therapist San Francisco Marin County artist visionary new perspective
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Insight Oriented Therapy in Marin County

It takes courage to take the first step. Text me at 415-857-5560 for a quick reply. I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist offering online therapy in California & in person appointments to local San Francisco Bay Area residents. My office is close to the Tiburon Ferry with proximity to Mill Valley & Sausalito.

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Marla Leigh Caplan Psychotherapy

Marriage and Family Therapist License #114969

Online Therapy in CA. In Person Therapy in Marin.

1805 Mar West Street, Tiburon, California 94920, United States

(415) 857-5560 marlaleighmft@gmail.com

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Photo Credits

Portrait by Danny Dong

Artwork by Kahn & Selesnick

Self-portrait by Marla Leigh Caplan

Copyright © 2019-25 Marla Leigh Caplan - All Rights Reserved.

  • Home
  • Sex Therapy
  • Anxiety and Depression
  • Addiction Treatment
  • Trauma Therapy
  • Borderline Personality
  • Individual Psychotherapy
  • Couples Therapy
  • Family Therapy
  • Psychodynamic Therapy
  • Mindful Somatic Therapy
  • Bio
  • Self Care
  • Reviews
  • BPD Test

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