What we treat

Anxiety Treatment for Adults in Sorrento Valley

For adults 18 and older whose anxiety has outgrown what weekly therapy can hold. Call (858) 567-4246.

Clinically reviewed by Amy Evans, MA, LPC, LPCC & Dr. Vahig Manugian, DO — October 2026

When worry stops switching off

Anxiety is not only a feeling. People describe a mind that will not stop running ahead, a body that stays braced long after the thing it braced for has passed, and a day organized quietly around avoiding whatever might set it off.

It shows up differently from person to person — as constant background worry, as panic that arrives without warning, as dread about health, or as the particular exhaustion of rehearsing conversations before having them. What it has in common is cost: sleep, work, and the shrinking of a life to the parts that feel safe.

None of that is a character flaw, and none of it means you have left it too late.

A group room with blue armchairs arranged in a circle around a patterned rug and windows framing a eucalyptus tree
One of our group rooms.

How we work with it

Structure, skills, and enough repetition to make them stick

Anxiety responds to practice. A skill you have read about once is not a skill you can reach for at 3 a.m.

  • Intensive Outpatient Program

    Clinician-led groups three mornings a week — Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Nine hours a week rather than one, which is what turns a coping skill into something automatic.

  • Skills that are taught, then practiced

    Our Growth Group curriculum draws on cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy for the thoughts and the distress, and acceptance and commitment therapy for the avoidance that anxiety quietly builds around itself.

  • A weekly hour of your own

    Individual therapy is included in the program — a private session every week with your own therapist, for the specifics a group cannot hold.

  • The body gets a say

    Anxiety lives in the body as much as the head, so yoga and somatics, mindfulness and sound bath, and a sleep health group led by a nurse practitioner are built into the program week, not bolted on.

If medication turns out to be part of what helps, psychiatric care runs inside the program — you are not sent out to find your own prescriber and left waiting on an outside appointment. It is not a requirement, and that decision is made with you.

Is this the right level of care?

Our programs are built for adults 18 and older who need more than weekly therapy and can take part safely in a scheduled outpatient setting. If weekly therapy is holding, that may be all you need — and we will say so.

An outpatient program is not the right fit for anyone who needs round-the-clock supervision, medical detoxification or inpatient care. We also do not provide substance use or eating disorder treatment. Where that is what is needed, we will provide appropriate referrals so you get the care that fits.

The initial assessment exists to settle this properly, before anything is scheduled. See how admissions works.

A movement room with yoga mats and blocks laid out on a wood floor in front of a wall of windows
The movement room.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

If what you want to know is not here, call (858) 567-4246 and ask.

Will I have to take medication?

No. Medication is one option among several, not a condition of being here. If a prescriber thinks it is worth considering they will explain what it is for, what to expect and what the alternatives are — and the decision stays yours.

Will I have to speak in group?

Groups are no more than twelve people, which is small enough that nobody sits through three hours without speaking unless they choose to — and small enough that the clinician leading knows how each person is doing. How much you say, and when, is something you and your clinician work out.

Can I keep working while I attend?

That is what the schedule is built for. Groups run Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., which leaves afternoons clear. Whether that fits your particular situation is worth talking through on the first call.

Will insurance cover an outpatient program for anxiety?

Usually it depends less on the diagnosis than on the level of care the assessment establishes, which is one reason the assessment comes before a start date.

We verify your benefits during admissions, before your start date is set, and then walk you through what your plan covers, what it does not, and what your out-of-pocket costs look like. Start with our insurance verification form, or call us.

See everything we work with on what we treat, or the full range of programs and therapies.