High-Functioning Anxiety Treatment
High-functioning anxiety is not a clinical diagnosis. It is a description, and a useful one: the anxiety is real, the performance is intact, and nobody has noticed what holding both together costs.
The people who use this phrase about themselves are rarely in crisis. They hit the deadline. They are the reliable one. The difficulty is underneath it — rehearsing a conversation for hours beforehand, rereading an email eleven times, lying awake running through a day that went perfectly well.
Because nothing is visibly going wrong, this version of anxiety often goes untreated for years. What finally prompts the call is usually not a collapse. It is exhaustion, and the recognition that the effort needed to look this composed has been quietly climbing.
We see clients at our Northbrook office on Academy Drive and our Libertyville office on Hollister Drive, and by telehealth anywhere in Illinois.
What people describe when they call
- Performance that has never slipped, held up by hours nobody else sees
- Overpreparing for things that do not warrant it, and filing it under being thorough
- Difficulty saying no, followed by resentment about the thing you agreed to
- A mind that starts racing at night about a day that went fine
- Physical symptoms with no medical cause — jaw tension, stomach trouble, headaches
- Achievement that brings relief rather than satisfaction, and not for long
How we treat it
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the first-line treatment and where most of this work begins, but the target is different from anxiety that announces itself. The thoughts driving it are usually not catastrophic, they are conditional — if I stop checking, something will slip; if I say no, I become the person who lets people down. Those are the beliefs the work goes after.
A large part of treatment is behavioural rather than cognitive, and it is uncomfortable in a specific way: deliberately underpreparing for something low-stakes, sending the email on the second read, leaving a message unanswered for an afternoon. The anxiety predicts a consequence, and the practice is in finding out.
Where the pattern is long-standing or tangled up with self-worth, our clinicians also draw on Acceptance and Commitment approaches, psychodynamic work and mindfulness-based skills. Many people describing high-functioning anxiety also meet criteria for generalised anxiety disorder or social anxiety, in which case we treat that directly — the description and the diagnosis are not in competition.
Clinicians who work in this area
Matched from each clinician's own stated specialisms. Our Intake Team will pair you with the right person for your situation rather than the next available slot.
- Angela Eads, Ph.D.Licensed Clinical Psychologist
- Benjamin Michaels, Psy.D.Licensed Clinical Psychologist
- Andrew Hamlyn, LCPCLicensed Clinical Professional Counselor
- Ellen Rodman, M.S., LCPCLicensed Clinical Professional Counselor
- Bella Sisarica, MA, LCPCLicensed Clinical Professional Counselor
- Daisy Morales, MA, LPCLicensed Professional Counselor
- Rebecca Rice, LCSW, R-DMTLicensed Clinical Social Worker · Registered Dance/Movement Therapist
- Abby Merel, LCSWLicensed Clinical Social Worker
Insurance, including Medicare
Grand Oaks Behavioral Health is in-network with most major plans — Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Aetna, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Evernorth (Cigna), UnitedHealthcare, BCBS Community Medicaid, Oscar — and with Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans, which a good number of behavioral health practices in the area do not accept. We also take BCBS Community Medicaid. Our Intake Team verifies your specific benefits and tells you your cost before your first appointment.
Where we see clients
604 Academy Drive, Northbrook, IL 60062 and 1800 Hollister Drive, Suite 201, Libertyville, IL 60048, plus telehealth anywhere in Illinois. We regularly see clients from Northbrook, Glenview, Deerfield, Highland Park, Northfield, Wilmette and across Lake County and the North Shore.
Common questions
Not a formal one. It does not appear in the DSM-5, and no clinician will diagnose you with it. It is a popular description of a real pattern, and most people who identify with it do meet criteria for a recognised anxiety disorder on assessment — generalised anxiety disorder most often. The description is a useful starting point for a conversation; the assessment is what shapes the treatment.
That is the question almost everyone asks, and it is worth separating two things: whether you are coping and what coping is costing. Managing by working longer, sleeping less and declining things you would like to do is a cost, even when the output looks unaffected. Therapy is reasonable when the gap between how things look and how they feel has stopped being tolerable.
This is the most common worry people bring, and it is a fair one — anxiety often gets credited for the achievement it rides alongside. Treatment targets the compulsive part, not the capable part: the rechecking, the overpreparing, the inability to stop. Most people find the standard holds and the cost of meeting it drops.
Treatment is billed under the diagnosis assessment establishes — commonly generalised anxiety disorder — and Grand Oaks is in network with most major plans including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Aetna, Evernorth (Cigna), UnitedHealthcare, Oscar, Medicare and Medicare Advantage. Our Intake Team verifies your benefits before the first appointment.
Related
Not sure which of these fits? That is what the first call is for. Phone (847) 549-1189 and our Intake Team will talk it through with you before anything is booked.
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