Avoidance issues:

Hi there, I’m Cali Keating LCSW-S and I’m an exposure therapist seeing clients in Florida and Texas. If you’ve made it to this page, you’re curious about how therapy can help with control issues.

If you notice any of these moments in your life, you may have some avoidant issues that therapy can help with.

Signs you may have avoidance issues:

  • You feel most at ease when doing all consuming hobbies or activities that “turn your brain off,” like videogames, watching TV, Tik Tok, or reading. You’re spending excessive time in this brain turned off mode and not doing the life skills or making the healthy choices you want to make. Anytime you feel overwhelmed, this is the activity you do.

  • You feel like you have motivation issues and you are often drawn to tips and skills to raise your motivation, but these rarely work sustainably. 

  • You keep your circle very small and avoid meeting new friends. It’s exhausting to even contemplate meeting new people, but you often feel lonely.

  • You have a short list of places you are willing to go outside of the house. You relate to content about agoraphobia sometimes, or all the time.

  • You want a partner, but you avoid the activities that might introduce you to a partner a lot of the time.

  • You have experienced a very disturbing and exhausting level of burnout, and after taking a reasonable amount of time to recover, you still haven’t gone back to work or studies. You often question if this is how you want to be spending your time and feel shame about your status, instead of relaxed that not working is right for you.

Where do avoidance issues come from?

Many of my therapy clients with avoidance issues have these elements in their history:

  • Some level of trauma, that could rise to PTSD or C-PTSD

  • Autism

  • Generalized Anxiety Disorder

  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

  • Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)

  • ADHD

  • Severe burnout or autistic burnout

You have other options besides over avoiding all discomfort.

I want to be very clear that doing therapy for avoidance issues does not remove all your boundaries and leave you vulnerable to all painful stimuli. If you choose to try acceptance and commitment therapy for avoidance issues, we will identify where you want to expand your comfort zone vs boundaries you need to stay aligned with your values. It’s ok to not know this ahead of time, I can give you examples of what other clients with PTSD, autism, and severe anxiety disorders decided on as boundaries and accommodations to keep vs. avoidance issues to work on.



Can you help me expand my capacity in a way that’s safe for me?

Acceptance and commitment therapy helps clients grow their comfort zone and capacity. We make positive goals based on your values, to help you have more zest and joy in your life. We make positive goals based on your values, to help you have more zest and joy in your life. It’s possible that prioritizing your boundaries over the opportunity to have new experiences is leaving you hopeless and de-motivated. If so, let’s work together to break some rules in your real life that you wouldn’t normally break. These exposures to some discomfort will be planned, implemented in small chunks, and we will start small until you gain confidence that maybe you can handle more overwhelm than you think.