Transforming Anxiety: Dr. Padnick on Turning Stress into a Tool for Success
Choice Not Chance Podcast,
March 17, 2025
“I wish people would seek counseling way sooner than they do. Generally, people wait much too long. If you feel like you’re struggling and you’re dissatisfied with your life, dissatisfied with your relationships, you have anxiety, you’re not sleeping well, you have bouts of depression, or you find that you’re drinking more than you should, go find a good psychologist, analyst, or a therapist to talk to, why wait until it has more of a grip on you.”
– Dr. Steven Padnick
With decades of experience in psychology, Dr. Steven Padnick joins Marie Chindamo on the Choice Not Chance podcast to talk about the true impact of stress and anxiety on our well-being. In this insightful conversation, he discusses how anxiety can be a helpful signal rather than a burden, the importance of early intervention, and practical strategies for self-awareness and emotional resilience. Listen in as he shares his expertise on transforming stress into a tool for success and living a more intentional life.
Addressing Covid-19
August 12, 2020
Listen to Dr. Steven Padnick talking about Covid-19 on Business Talk Radio
Right now, today, last night, yesterday, tomorrow, and until when?
We are living with COVID-19. It re-awakens old trauma, toxic feelings, and adverse behaviors. Our brains respond to this pervasive stressor and signal our body to activate the “alarm reaction”. This physiological, biochemical reaction to perceived threat renders us even more susceptible to both physical and mental health symptoms.
“Therapeutic talking” can mitigate this threat.
Please reach out to me or any of my colleagues in our practice. We are making ourselves extra available during these troubling times. Let’s not be emotionally isolated but find our connections!
With care and compassion for all of us.
Sincerely,
Dr. Steven Padnick
Recommended Readings
Where’s My Sanity?
by Dr. Claudia Sheftel-Luiz, Ed.M.
Claudia Luiz’s book builds a bridge between the old and the new.
Free of jargon, very readable and digestible, Where’s My Sanity? presents a “modern approach” to modern psychoanalysis. Dr. Luiz’s “stories that help” illustrate the healing power of emotional communication and direct emotional experience in the therapeutic process.
Whether one is currently a patient, a therapist, or an individual considering psychotherapy, Dr. Luiz’s book is emotionally touching and personally enriching.
Reboot
by Jerry Colonna
My dear friend Jerry’s globally renowned best seller is a deeply moving account of transitions. It’s a personal rendering of life changes: emotional, family, business, and interpersonal. Amazingly poignant now as it resonates with COVID-19 and our human struggles to adapt to our new reality.
The Body Keeps The Score
by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
Most of us are not strangers to trauma: domestic or sexual abuse, natural disasters, neglect, war wreak havoc not only in our minds but in our bodies as well. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk uses modern neuroscience to demonstrate that we are closer to our traumatic experiences than we think, and severe trauma is ‘encoded in the viscera;’ it remains in the circuitry of not only our brain but our physical body as well. His book is a treasure trove of information, including numerous case studies, on trauma and healing.
My Mother, My Daughter, Myself
by Dr. Jane G. Goldberg
Dr. Jane Goldberg, an eminent modern psychoanalyst explores how our relationships with our mothers affect our other love relationships, our values, and self-esteem throughout our lives. Dr. Goldberg uses her experiences as a mother, a daughter, and a psychoanalyst throughout the book to bring us in a full circle to grasp the complexity and continuity of our relationships to others and to ourselves. Dr. Phyllis Meadow comments it “touches our hearts as well as our minds. Her insights are brilliant.”