Anxiety Therapy in Oakland & The Bay Area
Evidence-Based Therapy for Anxiety, Panic, OCD & Phobias
Christina Pascarzi, PsyD
Clinical Psychologist in Oakland, CA
Anxiety can slowly make your world smaller.
Maybe you’ve stopped driving on the freeway. Maybe flying feels out of reach. Maybe you spend a lot of time trying to prevent panic attacks, avoid uncomfortable situations, or manage intrusive thoughts before they spiral.
For some people, anxiety shows up as worry and rumination. For others, it’s more physical. A racing heart, dizziness, shortness of breath, or the constant fear that something is about to go wrong.
Whatever form it takes, anxiety often pulls people into cycles of avoidance that start to shape daily life.
I’m Dr. Christina Pascarzi, a licensed clinical psychologist in Oakland specializing in evidence-based treatment for anxiety disorders, OCD, panic attacks, and phobias. I work with adults throughout Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, and the greater Bay Area using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Exposure Therapy.
My approach is warm, collaborative, and grounded in helping people build a different relationship with anxiety rather than endlessly trying to avoid it.
Exposure Therapy for Anxiety, Panic & Phobias
Many people come to therapy once they realize anxiety has been limiting where they go, what they do, and what they feel capable of handling.
You might avoid bridges, tunnels, airplanes, BART, freeways, crowded places, social situations, uncertainty, or even certain physical sensations in your own body. In the short term, avoidance can feel relieving. Over time, though, it strengthens fear and reduces confidence.
Exposure therapy helps interrupt that cycle.
Exposure Therapy is one of the most effective treatments for anxiety disorders, panic disorder, OCD, and phobias. Rather than only talking about fear abstractly, we work gradually and intentionally with the situations, sensations, thoughts, and uncertainties that anxiety has taught your nervous system to avoid.
For some clients, that work happens in virtual sessions. For others, especially those struggling with transportation anxiety and panic, treatment may involve real-world exposure work in places that actually trigger fear. That can include freeway and bridge driving, riding BART or the ferry, round trip flights, or other in vivo exposure exercises designed collaboratively and approached step by step.
The goal is not to “white knuckle” your way through fear or try to force yourself to “just calm down.” The goal is to help you build flexibility, confidence, and the ability to move toward the life you want even when anxiety shows up.
Areas of Specialization
I specialize in treating anxiety disorders and related conditions including panic disorder, OCD, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, health anxiety, and specific phobias.
I also work extensively with transportation-related fears, including fear of driving, fear of bridges or freeways, flying anxiety, and other fears related to public transportation. These fears are more common than many people realize and can become deeply disruptive over time, especially when life starts organizing itself around avoidance.
Treatment often includes a combination of CBT, ACT, exposure therapy, interoceptive exposure for panic symptoms, and structured between-session practice designed to help clients gradually reclaim situations they’ve been avoiding.