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 stop intrusive thoughts before they spiral.
For some people, anxiety shows up as worry and rumination. For others, it’s more physical, like a racing heart, shortness of breath, or a gut feeling 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 can help you build a different relationship to your anxiety so avoidance doesn't feel like your only option.
I’m Dr. Christina Pascarzi, a licensed clinical psychologist in Oakland specializing in evidence-based treatment for anxiety disorders, OCD, panic attacks, and phobias. My approach is warm and goal-oriented. I create an individualized road map to help you overcome your fears in a way that feels empowering and even (stay with me now) exciting. It’s challenging work, but it works.
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.
Exposure Therapy for Anxiety, Panic & Phobias
Many people start therapy when they realize their anxiety has been limiting what they do, where they go, 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 erodes 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. Exposure Therapy does not involve “white knuckling” your way through fear or expecting yourself to “just calm down.” It's a supportive process of relearning safety and rebuilding self-trust.
For some clients, that work happens in virtual sessions. For others, especially those struggling with transportation anxiety, treatment can involve real-world exposure work in places that actually trigger fear. This might include freeway and bridge driving, riding BART or the ferry, round trip flights, or other in vivo exposure exercises that we design collaboratively and approach together step by step.
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 you begin to arrange your life around avoiding the situations you fear.
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.