Therapy in West LA Archives - West LA Psychologist

How Anxiety Drives the Need to Fix and Overachieve

March 31, 2026March 26, 2026 by Dr. Raymond Nourmand, Ph.D.

Modern society is outspoken on the idea of the push, the hustle, and the grind. In fact, it seems like most people engage in it, and don’t even know why they do it. They may tell themselves “it’s to make a good living” or “live comfortably,” but the fact that so many participate in it, get all the things they wanted, and still feel a need to keep pushing hard raises some important questions. What’s really going on here? Where is the finish line? When does it end?

To fully understand what’s going on here, it’s important to look at how psychological fawning works. Fawning is a psychological reaction in times of high anxiety that focuses on pleasing or “fixing” elements of the environment in order to feel okay. It usually starts in childhood and is designed to help a child cope with an anxious and emotionally out-of-control environment. What the child is seeking to do amidst the chaos and disarray is comport and twist themselves in such a way to get the anxiety to go away. Essentially, they try to “fix” whatever is causing them anxiety. Maybe they try to calm a volatile parent. Get the attention of an emotionally neglectful caregiver. Or simply do things to feel important when no one seems to be caring for them. Either way, the child learns here that the goal is to “work” to create the calm, warmth, and security they’re missing. They have to exert themselves to “fix” the situation: to alleviate the parent’s volatility, be noticed by the emotionally unavailable figure, and feel worthy despite the lack of emotional security in the air, respectively. It’s too difficult to admit the shit they’re going through is real. And that perhaps the people around them and the situations they’re in are simply too hard to handle.

What usually happens here is the fixing-child grows up and uses this “fixing” attitude as a default way to handle anxiety. Feeling bad at home? Work harder at school, raise those grades, and get better marks. Maybe then people will love you. Relationships a drag to deal with? Just hustle to achieve and make more money, look better to prove how valuable you are so they will treat you better. Difficulties with the family? Spend more time at work. Maybe if you work hard enough, do more, and make more that feeling will go away. Notice in all these cases, the person’s trying to “fix” their emotions with things like accomplishments, achievement, and external validation, none of which actually provide any meaningful solutions to their underlying angst. The sadness. The loneliness. The pain.

The caveat to this fixing dynamic is that people engaging in it usually don’t know they’re doing it. It’s a very unconscious process. And frequently leads to tremendous suffering for those in it and the people around them. While the fixer may look like they have it all on paper — the titles, the awards, the properties, the cars, the cash, and perhaps even the looks — they are fundamentally living a life run by anxiety. In other words, their fuel is fear. The fear of being still. The fear of not having enough. The fear of not being enough. As a result, they are frequently unsettled. Obsessing. Scheming. For the next fix. Pun intended.

One of the most tragic elements of the chronic fixer is that over time fixing becomes part of their identity. Often without knowing it, the fixer actually thrives off problems. They need problems. And in the absence of them, sometimes they’ll subconsciously manufacture problems just so they can turn around and solve them. To feel accomplished. To feel valuable. To feel like they are doing something good and virtuous. Otherwise, what will they do with themselves? How will they feel worthy? Where do they get their value from? Moreover, a grim, yet glaring reality is that despite what they say, fixers don’t actually want peace and quiet. They can’t stand it. The absence of chaos, drama, and problems secretly makes them feel like they are not important anymore.

While the need to fix has likely led to many advancements in society and helped many acquire the wonderful blessings they have, it is arguably also the very thing that makes it difficult for them to truly enjoy what they’ve acquired as well. Imagine having everything you ever wanted materially. You got the money. The homes. The cars. The people around you. The body. The partner. The kids. But you still feel anxious. Stressed. Depressed. Unfortunately, this is a sad, but common story amongst many overachievers in large metropolitan cities like Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. Needless to say, it’s an exhausting and confusing way to live.

There is good news in all this, though. When a person truly gets to the bottom of their anxious fixing tendencies, and addresses them at the root and core, a beautiful transformation happens. Work becomes work. Relationships become meaningful. And life becomes worth living. Because you are no longer being driven by a fear of what happens if you don’t do this, but rather from a love and joy that will only increase your efficiency. You will do more. With less effort. And actually enjoy the process. Perhaps for the first time. Think about it. If you can do all you’ve done driven by fear and anxiety, imagine what you can do once you remove that and replace it with love, passion, and joy.

You won’t feel a need to fix anymore. Because you’ll see there’s no problem to begin with.

Men, Communication, and Connection: Breaking Down Barriers

November 19, 2025 by Dr. Raymond Nourmand, Ph.D.

From the beginning of time, men have been told that when experiencing stress, adversity, or plain old discomfort, they need to “be strong.” They should hide what they are feeling inside. Suck it up. Keep a stiff upper lip. Take it like a man.

But what does that mean? Why do people say that? How does not showing emotion translate to being strong? Because if you take a deeper look at what people are saying, it looks like the opposite is actually true.

To be strong, well, that would entail showing your emotions.

When you think of someone strong, you think of someone who has strength. Someone who recognizes that he is afraid, but perseveres and exercises the courage to overcome that fear. Whether we are talking physical, psychological, or emotional stress, fear is fear. And men have been socialized to fear showing their emotions.

When people feel anxious, angry, sad, depressed, and other unpleasant feelings, their body is naturally wired to express that emotion, and to release that energy. Our emotions are there for a reason. They are meant to be there. They are signals. They are our bodies’ ways of telling us that something is going on, something needs attention, something needs to be attended to, and something needs to be addressed in our life. To disrupt that natural process can be really damaging.

While women have traditionally been socialized to express themselves, for some reason the opposite message has been passed down to men. Somewhere, somehow, along the development of society men have been repeatedly told to avoid expressing their feelings, discouraged from talking about what is going on inside them, and told that to share their feelings is “bad,” “wrong,” and that they should effectively “stop it.”

If to be strong means to face your fear, and your fear is to express your emotions, then to be strong would actually translate to share your feelings.

Guys, being strong means to express yourself. Yes, it can feel weird and awkward at first and maybe even downright uncomfortable at times. At the same time, it can be incredibly liberating, too.

Expressing yourself allows you to communicate to your environment what is going on inside you, giving them the chance to attend to you. Whether it’s encouragement, support, or help you need, if you don’t say anything about it, how will people know how they can help you?

Men, the next time someone tells you to “be strong”, “suck it up”, or “take it like a man,” remember that real men show their emotions.

Real men are secure in who they are and are not afraid to share what is going on inside them, what they are thinking, what they are feeling.

Real men face their fears.

So if you’re afraid to express yourself, remember, be strong. Let it out.

There’s a world of connection waiting for you on the other end.

3 Ways Secure Relationships Differ from Insecure Relationships

October 22, 2025 by Dr. Raymond Nourmand, Ph.D.

Back in 1938, a landmark study began wherein several hundred people were followed for over 80 years. Famously known as the “Harvard Study of Human Development,” this study concluded that peoples’ long term happiness and health is positively associated with the quality of their relationships. Basically, if you want to see how someone is doing mentally, emotionally, and physically, looking at the nature of their relationships can be very telling. Generally, people who report better quality relationship tend to fare better in all these areas. Plain and simple. And it’s easy to understand why. When we feel safe, secure, and calmed by our relationships, life becomes so much more fun to navigate through. And unfortunately, the opposite is true as well. Frequently, people in more secure relationships tend to feel better about themselves and the world, while those in insecure relationships often feel unsettled, ungrounded, and constantly on-edge. To clarify some differences between what secure and insecure relationships look like, in this post, I will outline 3 specific ways that secure relationships differ from insecure relationships.

1. Connection vs. Control. One way secure relationships differ from insecure relationships is that secure relationships prioritize connection. People in secure relationships tend to be more mindful and mutually invested in how their words and actions affect other people. They genuinely care about people. As a result, they are inclined to behave in ways that promote kind, respectful, and empathic exchanges. Notice that such types of interactions usually create a warm atmosphere for people to feel safe being themselves, while allowing others to be themselves as well. Incidentally, this mutual care and considerateness can invite people to be their authentic selves, and enjoy each other’s company in a manner that fills everyone up. On the other hand, insecure relationships generally emphasize the need for control. Usually driven by anxiety, here people may be more inclined to do things to get something out of other people, or perhaps even “one up” them. Often pushing, shaming, and manipulating become go-to moves to get people to do what you want them to do, regardless of how it might make them feel. Here, tabs are kept, and selfish desires prevail with less regard to how others might feel about the actions taken, or how the actions are taken.

2. Dialogue vs. Being Right. Another way secure relationships differ from insecure relationships is that secure relationships usually foster open discussion. This means that when interacting with others, the goal is not to necessarily achieve a particular end goal in a specific way as much as it’s about soliciting the other person for their thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. Naturally, there is a desire for collaboration and mutual exchange. Because the other person matters, too. This may involve asking open-ended questions, seeking clarification, and expressing curiosity to the other person because you value their experience as a human being and want to acknowledge their value as a person. Alternatively, insecure relationships usually become about arguments and winning. They embody an adversarial mindset, where there are “winners” and “losers.” Someone is right, and someone is wrong. This spirit can generate unhealthy competition, and breed resentment in the one who gets the short end of the stick, making them feel smaller, weaker, and inferior. It promotes a sense of selfishness, entitlement, and dismissiveness to how one’s actions may make someone else feel. Unfortunately, this can, in turn, lead to a “dog eat dog” dynamic that will only exacerbate these sentiments.

3. Growth vs. Anxiety. Finally, another way secure relationships differ from insecure relationships is that secure ones promote a sense of personal growth and expansion that is enjoyable and fulfilling for all sides. As we rise and excel in our lives, we want people who will celebrate and exalt our achievements, sharing in our joy. This motivates us to want to be better people and to give back to the world around us with confidence, self-worth, and passion. Furthermore, in this context, one person’s win is not perceived as a threat to others. Instead, everyone can win. Together. And in their own ways. However, insecure relationships tend to create anxiety, fear, and worry in others. Organically, when seeking control is the backdrop, and being right is the objective, it is difficult to feel safe in such a climate. Instead, there is a patterned sense of urgency, scarcity, and alarm that prompts people to push, hustle, and prove in ways that compromise mental and emotional warmth, security and peace. In fact, when operating from such a sense of survival, there is naturally less focus and attention given to what is said, how it is said, or how it may affect other people. Sadly, this can exhaust people, and unknowingly push them away.

When we focus on building connection, engaging in dialogue, and promoting a sense of personal growth in our environments, our relationships can thrive and provide a sense of nourishment to our souls. As people, we are social creatures. We thrive off of emotional closeness, and do our best when we feel whole, complete, and one with ourselves and the world around us. Cultivating healthy and secure relationships is an investment in our own happiness and longevity that can pay dividends for the rest of our lives. The more we can learn how to be in relationships that promote connection, caring, and love from all directions, the healthier and happier we are likely to become.

And the kinder footsteps we will leave for others to step into.

4 Steps to Healing Fearful Avoidant Attachment

August 10, 2025August 7, 2025 by Dr. Raymond Nourmand, Ph.D.

Fearful avoidant attachment refers to a style of engagement in relationships characterized by a fluctuation between anxiously wanting emotional closeness, and then obsessively creating distance once that closeness has been achieved. If that sounds confusing to you, that’s because it is. A heartbreaking condition, fearful avoidant attachment is often a survival mode of relating, coming from a traumatic childhood where a child’s needs were not consistently seen, acknowledged, or met. Once the child got emotionally close to their parent or caregiver, they were often overlooked, their emotions got put down, and they were rejected. Experiencing this repeatedly over time makes a child wary of getting emotionally close, but that innate desire to connect is still very present, too. Early-on developing the belief that they are undeserving and unworthy of love, people with fearful avoidance often become ambivalent about relationships, whereby the person wants to get emotionally close to people, but is also scared to get emotionally close to people because of what “closeness” has historically signaled: disappointment, rejection, pain. People with fearful avoidant attachment tend to feel chronically anxious, depressed, lonely, and are arguably more prone to addictions than people with other attachment styles. Constantly feeling not good enough, always trying to prove themselves, nothing works. Because there is no amount of achievement, awards, money, good looks, or praise that will fill the emptiness they feel from lack of emotional connection. Deep down, people with fearful avoidant attachment don’t want to push emotional connection away, but they can’t help it. They unconsciously find reasons to wallow, look down on themselves, withdraw, create drama, and push healthy connections away to create distance and avoid the closeness they actually crave inside. That’s how deathly afraid of emotional connection they are. It is alien to them. Sadly, for many, this becomes a way of life. And will stay a way of life. The fact that society seems to promote avoidance doesn’t help either. However, change is possible. Fearful avoidant attachment can be successfully overcome. In this post, I will outline 4 simple steps to healing fearful avoidant attachment.

It’s important to note that recognizing one has a fearful avoidant attachment style is paramount to healing it. We can only change something once we acknowledge it exists. If you are wondering whether you have a fearful avoidant attachment style, consider: do you feel like it is hard to get close to people? Do you constantly think people are judging you or thinking poorly of you? That they’re out to get you? That you are always one step away from disaster? That bad things are just around the corner? Constantly jumping to conclusions? Taking things personally? Thinking you know what will happen even when you don’t? If so, you may be suffering from a fearful avoidant attachment style. In which case, keep reading. Breaking free from this will change your life. Imagine being yourself more. Being more optimistic about life. And living more authentically with confidence.

Healing fearful avoidant attachment is a process. Overwriting it takes diligence, practice, and patience. But the results will transform your life into something beautiful. Imagine being comfortable in your own skin, living with calming peace of mind, and feeling confident about yourself in relationships. Here are the steps.

1. Go slowly. With a nervous system wired for urgency and after years of assuming the worst, it’s important to slow down. Although it may be tempting to assume something bad will happen, to jump to negative conclusions quickly, and prepare for things to fall apart, understand this tendency is nothing more than a survival mechanism that was borne out of trying times when you were younger. It’s a trauma response. It originated to give you a false sense of control when things were out of hand, but it also created a lot of errors, false rules, and spurious associations. The only way to counteract these patterns is to slow down when it comes to interpreting events, and approach events with curiosity and wonder.

2. Challenge immediate negative assumptions. Once you have slowed down and recognized you don’t actually know what is happening, it is important to cross-examine any negative assumptions. Challenging these negative beliefs is important to dismantle the negative loop that has formed in your mind over the years. Ask yourself, “Is there evidence for this interpretation?” “Could I be wrong?” “Is there another way to look at this?” Often there is not adequate evidence. Yes, you can be wrong. And absolutely, there is always another way to look at it. Remembering that automatic negativity is simply a product of the fearful avoidant style can be empowering. Fearful avoidant attachment is literally telling you something bad is imminent because it wants to create distance to avoid closeness. By understanding that you don’t really know what the person meant, why they did what they did, or why what happened happened, you are ready to engage curiously to better understand what actually happened.

3. Explore alternative explanations. Come up with alternative, more positive ways to interpret the events. By doing this, you are teaching your mind to consider that people are not as bad as you may have been conditioned to believe that they are. Or that the avoidant attachment style convinced you of over the years. And you are not as problematic, bad, or unworthy as you think you are either. Maybe they didn’t respond because they got busy and forgot to respond to you. Perhaps they are nervous because they like you, too. It’s possible they were just trying to help in their own way. By merely thinking of these alternative interpretations, and recognizing everything is not your fault, your mind is starting to get used to the possibility that you are good, good things can happen, people can be nice, and the world could be safe. The more these pathways are reinforced, the more accessible and easy they are for your mind to retrieve and believe.

4. Invite connection. When you go slowly, challenge your negative assumptions, and start thinking of how you and circumstances may actually be better than you thought, it is easier to communicate in a manner that invites connection. Instead of getting angry or resentful, now you can approach the situation more level-headed, with curiosity, neutrality, and respect. Ask questions from a place of curiosity, a desire to know, a want to understand because you care. This demonstration of interest is significant. You are learning to trust again. With such a demeanor, you are inviting connection in a simple and very meaningful way. You are respecting yourself, and extending that respect to the other side with a gentle invitation for kind dialogue.

By understanding how the fearful avoidant attachment style has shaped your negative perceptions, thoughts, and interpretations over the years, you can actively start to remedy the situation. The key is recognizing that the problem is not necessarily the world, but rather how you are interpreting the world. Rooted in childhood experiences and shaped by traumas outside your control, the way you perceive the world can improve. Practicing the above steps for healing fearful avoidant attachment can significantly change the way your mind processes information over time. Processing the events that led you to think so negatively can add a powerful layer of depth to this process as well. The more you practice these steps, the faster your mind will create new neural pathways to see reality more clearly, relationships more objectively, and yourself as more valuable than you ever knew. As this happens, it will become easier to participate in relationships because you will no longer expect things to automatically go wrong. Heck, you may even start to expect good things from others. And most importantly, you will understand that you are worthy and deserving just as you are, and that you can handle whatever comes your way. This doesn’t mean you will like everyone you meet, but it will give you a clarity to be able to see better who you truly like and want to get close to, and who you may not want to get close to. Sans anxiety or urgency.

If you want help healing fearful avoidant attachment within yourself so you can have more peace of mind, stability, and confidence in relationships, feel free to call or email for a free phone consultation.

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