Panic attacks can make you feel like your body has turned against you. Your heart races, your chest tightens, and you’re convinced something is terribly wrong—even when you’re objectively safe. If you’ve experienced panic in New York City, whether on a crowded subway, before an important meeting, or seemingly out of nowhere, you know how frightening and disorienting these moments can be.
The good news is that panic is highly treatable through therapy. With the right support and evidence-based approaches, you can learn to understand what’s happening in your body, interrupt the panic cycle, and regain control of your life.
What Is Panic?
Panic is your body’s alarm system firing when there’s no real danger present. A panic attack involves an intense surge of fear that peaks within minutes and includes physical symptoms like rapid heartbeat, sweating, trembling, shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness, or feeling detached from reality. You might feel like you’re losing control or even dying.
These sensations are terrifying, but they’re not dangerous. Your nervous system is responding to perceived threat, triggering your fight-or-flight response at full intensity—essentially pulling a false alarm.
For many young professionals and college students living in NYC, panic can become intertwined with daily life. The constant stimulation, packed trains, demanding work environments, and pressure to perform can all contribute to heightened anxiety that occasionally spills over into panic. You might start avoiding situations where you’ve panicked before, which only reinforces the fear and makes your world feel smaller.
/ How We Help With Panic Attacks
We use evidence-based therapeutic approaches tailored to your specific needs and panic patterns. Our approach combines clinical expertise with real-world relatability, making therapy feel grounded and accessible rather than abstract or clinical.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is highly effective for panic because it targets the thoughts and interpretations that fuel panic attacks. When your heart races, your immediate thought might be “I’m having a heart attack” or “I’m going to pass out in front of everyone.” These catastrophic interpretations intensify your fear, which intensifies your symptoms—creating a vicious cycle.
Together, we’ll examine these automatic thoughts and develop more realistic interpretations of your physical sensations. You’ll learn to recognize cognitive distortions like catastrophizing and all-or-nothing thinking that make panic worse. This shift doesn’t eliminate the physical sensation, but it prevents the interpretation from amplifying your fear.
Exposure-Based Strategies
One of the most powerful components of panic treatment involves gradually facing the situations and sensations you’ve been avoiding. This isn’t about forcing yourself into overwhelming situations—it’s a gradual, systematic process designed at a pace that works for you.
We might start by intentionally creating some of the physical sensations associated with panic in a safe environment, helping you learn that they’re uncomfortable but not dangerous. From there, we’ll work on exposure to real-life situations you’ve been avoiding. Each successful experience builds your confidence and teaches your brain that these situations aren’t actually threatening.
Mindfulness and Acceptance
Through mindfulness-based approaches drawn from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), you’ll learn to observe panic sensations without judgment or resistance. Rather than fighting against the sensations or trying desperately to make them stop, you’ll develop the ability to acknowledge what you’re experiencing without adding a layer of secondary fear on top of it.
Mindfulness helps you develop a different relationship with uncertainty—a key factor in maintaining panic. You’ll build capacity to sit with not knowing, which reduces the urgency and intensity of anxiety.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills
DBT offers practical skills for managing intense emotional and physical distress during a panic attack or in the moments leading up to one. These include grounding techniques that keep you connected to the present moment, breathing exercises that regulate your nervous system, and self-soothing strategies that signal safety to your body.
These skills aren’t about stopping panic—they’re about making panic more manageable and reducing its duration and intensity. Over time, having reliable tools makes panic less frightening because you know you can handle it.
/ What to Expect When Working With Us
Free 15-Minute Consultation
We’ll start with a free 15-minute consultation call where you can share a bit about what you’re experiencing and ask any questions about the therapy process. This is your chance to get a sense of whether our approach feels like a good fit for what you’re looking for.
Initial Intake Session
Your first full session will be an intake where we explore your history with panic and anxiety, what’s brought you to therapy now, and what you hope to achieve. We’ll want to understand when your panic attacks started, how frequently they occur, what situations trigger them, and how they’ve impacted your daily life.
Individualized Treatment Plan
Following the intake, we’ll develop a treatment plan specific to your needs. This isn’t a rigid protocol—it’s a flexible roadmap that draws from CBT, DBT, ACT, and mindfulness, with the specific combination depending on what resonates with you and what your panic pattern suggests will be most helpful.
Your goals might include reducing the frequency and intensity of panic attacks, eliminating avoidance behaviors, managing anticipatory anxiety, or developing confidence in your ability to handle uncomfortable sensations.
Ongoing Therapy Sessions
In our ongoing 50-minute sessions, we’ll use the time in different ways depending on where you are in the process. Early sessions often involve education about panic, anxiety, and the nervous system. We’ll identify and practice specific coping strategies, and we’ll assign exercises for you to try between sessions—therapy is most effective when you’re actively practicing new skills in your daily life.
As therapy progresses, we’ll engage in more experiential work, which might include exposure exercises, mindfulness practices, or troubleshooting obstacles as they arise. The number of sessions needed varies between individuals depending on the severity of your panic, how long you’ve been struggling, and what other life stressors you’re managing.
You’ll have a consistent weekly session time reserved for you, with scheduling managed through a secure online portal. Because we provide online therapy, you can attend sessions from wherever you’re comfortable in New York City or New Jersey.
Who We Work With
We specialize in working with young adults and college students in their 20s and 30s who are managing anxiety and panic while navigating the demands of life in NYC. Whether you’re a working professional dealing with constant pressure or a college student managing academic stress and social anxiety, we create a space where you can be honest without having to perform.
Our work is informed by both professional training and personal experience, which is also shared in our published work. This combination makes therapy feel grounded, accessible, and tailored to what you actually need—not just theoretical concepts, but practical tools you can use in your daily life.
Take the First Step
If panic has been limiting your life, you don’t have to figure this out alone. Recovery from panic means those sensations no longer control your life or limit what you can do. You’ll develop confidence in your ability to handle uncomfortable feelings, recognize early warning signs, and have tools ready to interrupt the panic cycle.
You deserve to move through your days without constant worry about when panic might strike. You deserve to make choices based on what matters to you, not on what you’re afraid of.
We invite you to reach out for a free 15-minute consultation call. We can discuss what you’re experiencing, what you’re hoping to achieve through therapy, and whether our approach might be a good fit for your needs. You can also reach out to learn more about scheduling and additional details.
Panic is treatable. With the right tools and support, you can build a life where panic no longer calls the shots—and we’re here to help you get there.
Frequently Asked Questions About Therapy for Panic
Before scheduling a full-length 50-minute intake session, we offer free 15-minute introductory calls with all potential new clients. During this call, we’ll discuss why you’re seeking therapy, and I’ll share logistical information about rates, insurance, and scheduling.
Prior to the initial 50-minute intake session, you’ll complete the practice’s intake paperwork. The first session is intended for us to get to know each other and talk about what you’d like to accomplish in therapy. We’ll ask you questions about your background, your mental health history, what current problems you’re facing, and what you want out of therapy.
If we’re a good fit, we will create an individualized treatment plan that is unique to you and your specific needs, using tools and techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and mindfulness.
All individual therapy sessions are 50-minutes.
We meet with most clients on a weekly basis. We ask that new clients commit to weekly sessions at the start of treatment, and depending on how things progress over time, we may recommend that we increase or decrease the frequency of sessions to best meet your needs.
If you experience panic during a session, we’ll work through it together. Sessions provide a safe environment to practice the coping strategies we discuss. Having a panic attack in therapy can actually be valuable—it gives us a real-time opportunity to apply techniques and help you build confidence in managing panic when it arises.
Exposure to feared situations is an important part of panic treatment, but it’s always done gradually and collaboratively. We’ll work together to create a plan that challenges you without overwhelming you. You’re always in control of the pace, and we’ll only move forward when you feel ready. The goal is to build confidence, not to force you into situations before you have the tools to handle them.
Currently, we offer online sessions only.
Online therapy is delivered via a secure video platform. Online therapy provides all of the benefits of traditional therapy in addition to flexible scheduling and the convenience of participating in sessions from home.
Session fees for individual therapy range from $125-$250 per session depending on the clinician you work with. Group therapy sessions are $80 per session. We also offer a limited number of sliding scale spots to help make therapy more accessible. Your specific fee will be discussed with you prior to beginning treatment.
Mindful Mental Health Counseling is out-of-network with insurance. Private pay is a great option for people who want maximum privacy, confidentiality, and flexibility.
If you do not opt for private pay, you may also be eligible to use out-of-network benefits in order to receive reimbursement for sessions. Often, out-of-network benefits cover anywhere from 70-80% of the full session fee. Check with your insurance company directly to ask about out-of-network benefits.
- Do I have out-of-network benefits for outpatient mental health services?
- What is my out-of-network deductible?
- How much of my deductible has been met this year?
- How much will I be reimbursed for a 45-minute psychotherapy session (CPT code: 90834)?
- How do I submit claim forms for reimbursement?
If you plan to utilize out-of-network benefits, we will provide you with a monthly invoice to submit to your insurance company for reimbursement.
Yes. If you are unable to pay the full session fee and do not have out-of-network benefits, please contact us to discuss a sliding scale rate. We reserve a limited number of sliding scale spots for new clients.
If the sliding scale rate is still not within your budget, we can refer you to other local providers in the area.
24 hours notice is required for all cancellations. Otherwise, you will be charged for the full fee for the canceled or missed session.
At Mindful Mental Health Counseling, we are licensed in New York and New Jersey. Clients must live in either New York or New Jersey to work with our team.
