Online in Seattle and Throughout Washington
Therapy for High-Functioning Anxiety in SeattlE
Specializing in Perfectionism, Burnout, and Unprocessed Grief
Successful in Seattle
You've built an impressive career in one of the most competitive cities in the country. Whether you're working at Amazon, Microsoft, a local startup, or Swedish Medical Center, you're known as someone who delivers. Reliable. Competent. Always on top of things.
But no one knows how exhausting it is to be you.
You wake up already tense, checking emails before you're fully conscious. Your shoulders ache from hours of unconscious clenching. Even with friends and family, you can't turn off the performance: always managing everyone's emotions, being the responsible one, the one who has it all together. You're tired of being everyone's rock when you're quietly crumbling.
This is high-functioning anxiety: the ability to excel professionally while struggling internally.
Understanding High-Functioning Anxiety
Seattle’s work culture can make anxiety worse. Tech jobs move quickly and require you to keep up all the time. Healthcare workers have more patients and less support. In startups, working long hours is often seen as a sign of commitment, even though it’s unsustainable.
These environments reward anxiety-driven behaviors:
Hypervigilance becomes “attention to detail”
Perfectionism gets labeled “high standards”
People-pleasing is seen as “being collaborative”
Overwork is praised as “dedication”
These habits might help you get ahead at work, but they can leave you feeling drained. The things that make you successful on the job can also make it hard to relax, connect with others, or feel good about what you have achieved.
And it’s not just work…
The same strategies that help you excel at work are destroying your relationships.
At home, you're either checked out and scrolling on your phone or overanalyzing every interaction with your partner.
Friends have stopped inviting you to things because you always cancel at the last minute. Your partner walks on eggshells, never knowing if they'll get the withdrawn version of you or the one who needs to control every detail of weekend plans.
You might recognize yourself in these scenarios:
Reading way too much into your partner's tone when they're just tired
Avoiding difficult conversations until resentment builds and you explode
Getting irritated when your partner doesn't do things “the right way” (your way)
Needing to be needed, then feeling suffocated when people actually depend on you
Going from zero to rage over small things, then feeling guilty for hours
Pulling away when things feel too close for comfort
If that sounds like you, you’re in the right place.
Why Traditional Therapy May Not Have Helped
Many of my Seattle clients have tried therapy before. They developed insights into their thoughts and behaviors, learned about attachment styles, and can articulate exactly why they feel anxious. Yet the anxiety persists.
This happens because anxiety doesn't live only in your thoughts. It's stored in your body and nervous system. Years of stress have trained your body to stay on high alert (tense shoulders, holding your breath without realizing it, or the stomach-drop feeling like you just went on a rollercoaster ride).
Understanding this information intellectually doesn't change it. That's why I incorporate art therapy and somatic approaches into our work together.
How Art Therapy and Somatic Therapy Create Change
Art therapy provides a way to express and process emotions that are difficult to put into words. Using art materials, you can externalize feelings that have been trapped in your body. This helps you voice internal experiences that verbal processing alone can't reach.
Somatic therapy focuses on the body-mind connection. I’ll help you:
Recognize early signs of anxiety in your body
Learn to release physical tension as it builds
Develop tools to regulate your nervous system
Distinguish between actual threats and anxiety responses
…So that you can stop living in constant emergency mode and can tell the difference between a real problem and your anxiety talking.
Most of my clients don't realize their body has been screaming “danger” for years about things that aren't actually dangerous, like your partner being quiet, your boss scheduling a meeting, or someone not texting back immediately.
Art therapy and somatic therapy work because they address anxiety at its source — in your nervous system and body — rather than just managing the surface symptoms.
What Working TOgether Looks Like…
I provide online therapy exclusively, which means you can do this important work from the privacy of your home or office. No commuting through Seattle traffic. No worrying about running into colleagues in a waiting room.
I don't just listen to your words. I also track your breathing, your posture, how your voice changes when you talk about certain topics. I'll notice when you leave your body mid-conversation, dissociating instead of feeling.
We'll use drawing or movement to express the anger you don’t know how to verbalize.
We'll practice actually feeling emotions in your body instead of just analyzing them in your head.
You've been in your head long enough. My job is to help you reconnect with your body's wisdom so that you can express what you don’t yet have the words for.
Through our work together, Many of my clients learn to do things like:
You stop being the family emergency coordinator and actually use your vacation days, because you can set boundaries without spending the next week convinced everyone hates you. You finally trust that other people can handle things without you.
Your partner can actually support you instead of finding out months later you’ve been quietly resentful, because you stop pretending everything's fine. You can ask for help without writing a three-paragraph text apology for having needs.
You wake up rested and present for your life instead of already behind before breakfast, because you can sleep past 3 AM without writing emails in your head or replaying every awkward interaction since 2019.
Money conversations become practical planning instead of relationship-ending blowouts, because you can disagree without it spiraling into questioning your entire worth as a partner, and being disappointed doesn’t mean you're expecting too much.
You create actual intimacy instead of the roommate situation you've been calling a marriage, because you let your partner see you messy, tired, or unsure without believing you're failing them.
Your body stops hurting all the time, and you don't need three ibuprofen to get through the day because you're not clenching every muscle through meetings, your stomach doesn't drop at every notification, and you notice when you're holding your breath and can release it.
Logistics and Getting Started in Therapy
Scheduling: I offer appointments Monday through Wednesday and I am 100% telehealth/online only. I maintain a small caseload to give my clients the best experience. Please contact me to inquire about my current availability.
Investment: Sessions are $250 for 55 minutes, $375 for 90-minute intensive sessions. While I don't accept insurance directly, I provide Superbills for potential out-of-network reimbursement.
Licensure: I'm a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Washington State, with additional certification in art therapy.
Approach: I believe in being direct and transparent. You'll always know where we stand in our work together, what we're working toward, and why we're using specific approaches.
Jeniffer Duncan, LMHC
I combine art therapy and somatic approaches because the patterns you're trying to change aren't stored in the logical part of your brain. They’re held in your nervous system, your body, and parts of your psyche that words alone can’t reach.
While you can intellectually understand why you feel anxious, or why your grief hasn’t resolved, lasting change requires working with the whole person.
That’s where I come in.
Jennifer Duncan, Washington Licensed Mental Health Counselor
License: MHC.LH.61685622 · Verify with WA State BoardLet’s Get Started
Contact Me
Contact me to schedule your first therapy appointment.
Complete this form and I’ll be back in touch via email, text, or phone within 1-2 business days.
Call or Text
503-974-4140
jduncanlpc@gmail.com
MAILING ADDRESS (Services are conducted 100% online)
4207 SE Woodstock Blvd. #398 Portland, OR 97206