Treating Young Adults with Anxiety
Step Into New Peace
Anxiety goes far beyond simple worry. The free-floating sense of dread hijacks your thoughts, keeps your chest tight, disrupts your sleep, and convinces you that certain disaster is always just around the corner. We've worked with hundreds of young adults whose anxiety has become a wall between them and independence. Our Portland-area programs offer clinical and community support that addresses both the overwhelming symptoms of anxiety and the practical skills needed to move forward with confidence.
Many of our clients arrive after years of trying to push through on their own. Some have developed elaborate strategies to manage their fears. Others have white-knuckled their way through panic attacks, terrifying social situations, or major academic challenges while suffering silently. Most have watched as anxiety gradually limited their world, making independence feel increasingly out of reach.
As big as it can seem, anxiety is a necessary physiological response that can become overactive. There are proven ways to reclaim your life from anxiety and get back to baseline, even when it feels impossible.
Anxiety in Young Adults
Anxiety often rears its head during the transition to emerging adulthood. Just as young adults face increasing responsibility and life-defining choices, anxiety can undermine their confidence, distort their thinking, and trigger avoidance patterns that make authentic growth impossible.
For young adults, anxiety frequently shows up as:
- Avoidance
- Irritability
- Overwhelming Worry
- Panic Attacks
- Perfectionism & Fear of Failure
- Physical Symptoms
- Social Anxiety & Isolation
These symptoms can prevent capable young adults from taking risks, trying new experiences, or stepping into important adult responsibilities. Without effective treatment, anxiety becomes even more entrenched over time, narrowing possibilities and reinforcing fear-based patterns until it’s a way of life.
Our Approach to Anxiety Treatment
Anxiety treatment at Cornerstones of Maine combines evidence-based therapies with real-time practice in a supportive community of peers. This approach addresses both the underlying causes of anxiety and its practical impacts on daily functioning.
Clinical Modalities
Treatment for Anxiety
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Anxiety thrives on distorted thinking—overestimating threats, underestimating coping abilities, and catastrophizing outcomes. Our therapists help young adults identify these negative thought patterns, test their accuracy, and develop more balanced perspectives. This isn't about forcing "positive thinking;" it's about seeing reality more clearly. There are times when anxiety is appropriate, and young adults learn how to move through those moments..
Exposure Therapy
Avoidance obviously provides immediate relief, but it makes anxiety stronger in the long run. Our program uses carefully designed exposure exercises to help young adults face frightening situations in a supported, safe way. Whether it's speaking in a group, taking public transportation, or making a doctor’s appointment, this supported practice breaks the avoidance cycle and sparks new confidence.
Mindfulness & Somatic Exercises
Anxiety disconnects us from the world around us, focusing the mind instead on future worries or past regrets. Mindfulness exercises help young adults ground themselves, creating space between themselves and their anxiety. Somatic approaches hone in on the physical symptoms of anxiety, teaching concrete skills for calming the nervous system.
Motivational Interviewing
For some young adults, feeling “stuck” has become the status quo. After years of perceived failure, it can be hard to find the motivation to change. Motivational interviewing is a collaborative therapeutic modality that helps clients identify their goals, overcome the insecurities preventing them from achieving them, and find real motivation to move forward.
Psychodynamic Therapy
Sometimes, past hurts and fears can continue to impact our lives for years. Psychodynamic therapy helps clients safely explore the ways that unconscious thoughts and feelings can manifest in life. It’s a modality particularly suited for treating social anxiety, disordered eating, relationship problems, and more.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT helps young adults develop a different relationship with anxiety as they learn to clarify their values and live by them—even when anxiety is present.
Real-World Anxiety Management
Social Skills Coaching
For young adults with social anxiety, our community setting provides a supportive laboratory for social interactions. From casual chats to group sessions, to handling disagreements, clients build social confidence through real experiences—not just hypotheticals.
Practical Exposure Opportunities
The Portland area is full of opportunities for real-world practice of new skills. Clients can utilize public transportation, order takeout, apply for jobs, communicate with strangers, or handle schedule changes—all with support and preparation from our team and their peers.
Digital Detox & Technology Management
Social media comparison games and being glued to your phone can fuel anxious thoughts. Our program helps clients develop healthy relationships with technology, creating boundaries that reduce anxiety, yet still allow them to engage with the digital tools needed for independence in the modern world.
Sleep Hygiene & Physical Wellbeing
Anxiety can be both caused by and the cause of physical symptoms. We focus on sleep hygiene, exercise, nutrition, and other physical wellbeing practices that create a foundation for healthy anxiety management.
Medication Management
Medication may provide valuable support for anxiety disorders. Our psychiatric team offers psychiatric assessment and medication management when appropriate.
Family Therapy
Anxiety impacts family dynamics, sometimes leading to well-intentioned accommodation that actually reinforces negative patterns. Our family therapy program helps family members truly understand anxiety—and how to support their young adult's recovery with healthy boundaries.
Building a Life Beyond Anxiety
Our ultimate goal isn't to eliminate anxiety completely; no one should go through life numb. It's to help young adults make intentional life choices that are not shaped by their disordered thinking. Indeed, anxiety is a normal part of life, so we focus on developing management strategies rather than promising a life without it. Through our program, young adults learn:
- A deep understanding of their own unique anxiety triggers
- A concrete toolkit of strategies that they can use any time, anywhere
- The ability to challenge anxious thoughts with real-time evidence
- Experience facing their fears successfully through supported exposure
- A clear sense of their core values, which can motivate them through anxiety
- A supportive community and professional network that has their back
From there, young adults can pursue new milestones of adulthood—education, careers, relationships, and independent living—as never before.
Finding a Path Through Anxiety
Are you or a young adult you love struggling with anxiety that's interfering with the transition to independence? We've helped hundreds of young adults learn what it takes to face their fears and live a bold life of independence. Contact our team today to learn more about our anxiety treatment for young adults in Portland, Maine.