Anxiety, Depression, Trauma & Perfectionism · By Antonette Anuwe, LPA
Licensed Psychological Associate • Little Dove Psychology
(512) 240-2633
A brief hello from Antonette, who works with teens and adults navigating anxiety, depression, trauma, and the quiet pressure of doing it all without falling apart.
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If you are looking for a CBT therapist in Austin for yourself, your teen, or someone you love, you have probably been carrying this for a while. The racing thoughts. The self-doubt. The sense that no matter what you decide, you are already scanning for what you should have done differently.
If you are reading this, something brought you here. Maybe it was a moment that finally felt like too much. Maybe it was the slow accumulation of days spent managing feelings you can’t quite name, racing thoughts that won’t settle, self-doubt that follows every decision, crying spells that arrive without warning and leave you feeling wrung out. Maybe it was the quiet fear that this is just how life is going to be.
Whatever brought you here, you are not imagining it. And you are not alone.
The emotional pain of your past has a way of showing up uninvited, coloring the present in ways you didn’t ask for and can’t seem to stop. It arrives in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday, in a conversation that should have been fine, in a decision that shouldn’t feel so heavy. You have been carrying it for a long time.
The racing thoughts come without warning. So does the fear. The self-doubt. The sense that no matter what you decide, you are already scanning for what you should have done differently, what you missed, what you got wrong. The regret arrives almost before the moment is over. You focus on what could have been better more than you let yourself feel okay about what is.
So you manage. You fill the day with distractions because sitting with the feelings is too much, too loud, too heavy. It works, until it doesn’t. Then the meltdowns come, and in those moments you feel completely out of control, like everything you have been holding together gives way at once. And then you pick yourself back up and start managing again.
What you fear most is that this is just how it will always be. That the chaos is not a season but a permanent condition. That the future will look just like today.
But underneath all of it, there is a question you keep returning to.
What would it be like to not be ruled by the past? To not dread the future? To actually be here, in your life, right now?
That question matters. It means something in you still believes a different way of living is possible, even if you cannot quite picture it yet. You are here, reading this, which means part of you is still reaching toward something better.
That part is worth listening to.
You are the one people count on. The one who hits the deadlines, holds the team together, says yes when there is no more yes to give. From the outside, you are doing all of it. From the inside, your best never feels like enough.
This is the trap of perfectionism: the constant scanning for what you should have done better. The reflexive dissatisfaction with the work you just finished. The exhausting belief that you have to keep raising the bar or everything will fall apart. Many high-achieving teens and adults who reach out to me describe the same loop: persistent striving, recurring burnout, and a quiet sense that no matter how much they accomplish, it never feels like enough.
You may be running on fumes. You may have crossed the line from driven into depleted without noticing when it happened. You may be wondering if there is a way to keep caring about doing well without it costing you this much.
There is. The work I do with high-achieving clients in Austin and across Texas is not about lowering the bar or losing your edge. It is about loosening the grip of perfectionism so that achievement is something you choose, not something that owns you. We use CBT, DBT, and mindfulness to interrupt the patterns of overthinking and self-criticism, build emotional steadiness underneath the striving, and help you feel real satisfaction with your efforts again.
I’m Antonette Anuwe, a licensed psychological associate at Little Dove Psychology in Austin, Texas. I work with anxious and overwhelmed teens and adults, including high achievers stuck in perfectionism and burnout, who are ready to stop being consumed by their emotional pain and start living with more intention, confidence, and freedom.
I know what it looks like to sit across from someone who is exhausted by their own inner world. Someone who is self-aware enough to see the patterns but can’t seem to stop them. That gap between knowing and feeling is real, and it is exactly where the work begins.
What I bring to this work is warmth, authenticity, and a genuine belief that healing does not have to be solemn to be powerful. I take your history seriously. I take the cultural nuances that shape how you move through the world seriously. And I also believe that real human connection, one that includes humor, honesty, and yes, even a little irreverence alongside the hard stuff, is one of the most effective ingredients in good therapy. Whether we meet in person or virtually, my therapy room is a place where you can actually exhale.
I work with teens and adults navigating anxiety, depression, and trauma. Many of the people I sit with have spent years managing their emotions by pushing them away, staying busy, staying numb, until the feelings find their way out anyway. Clients often arrive describing exactly what you are reading here. And they leave with something they did not expect: not the absence of emotion, but a new and steadier relationship with it.
As a CBT and perfectionism therapist in Austin, my approach draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy, with a strong emphasis on mindfulness practice. The work is especially well-suited to high achievers carrying the weight of constant self-criticism and recurrent dissatisfaction. In plain terms, that means we look at the thoughts driving your emotional experience, examine the patterns keeping you stuck, and build real, practical skills you can use when life gets hard.
This is not talking about feelings in circles. It is learning how to relate to your emotional experiences differently. Instead of being overwhelmed by pain or locked into avoidance, you learn how emotions are actually meant to function, and how to let them do that without consuming you.
In our work together, you can expect to:
The goal is not to become someone who never struggles. The goal is to become someone who knows what to do when they do.
Change is possible. Not the kind that erases your past, but the kind that stops letting it make your decisions for you. Many clients who begin describing chaos and avoidance find that over time they move through their days with more confidence, more presence, and a clearer sense of who they are and how they want to live.
If you are ready to stop pushing through on your own and start building something steadier, reach out to Little Dove Psychology at 512-240-2633 or visit our schedule page to schedule a consultation. This is one step, and it is a real one.
Yes. A significant part of my work is with high-achieving teens and adults whose perfectionism has crossed into anxiety, burnout, and recurrent dissatisfaction. The therapy is not about lowering your standards. It is about helping you build a healthier relationship with achievement so that doing well becomes a choice rather than a compulsion. We use CBT and DBT to interrupt the self-criticism patterns, mindfulness to slow the overthinking, and skill-building to help you feel real satisfaction with your efforts.
Yes. Burnout is one of the most common reasons high achievers reach out. By the time they call, they are often running on fumes and starting to wonder if they can keep up the pace they have been holding. Therapy helps you understand the patterns that drove the burnout in the first place, build the emotional tolerance and self-compassion that has been missing, and design a sustainable way to keep caring about your work without it consuming you. Many clients describe feeling like themselves again within a few months of starting.
Yes. High-achieving teens often carry an intense kind of perfectionism that adults around them might mistake for healthy ambition. The internal experience tells a different story: persistent anxiety about grades, college, friendships, the future. I work with these teens using the same evidence-based methods I use with adults, adapted for adolescent development and the specific pressures of school, sports, and social life. The goal is to help them build confidence and self-trust before the perfectionism solidifies into adult patterns of burnout.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is one of the most well-researched approaches in therapy. It works by helping you understand the connection between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. When we change the way we relate to our thoughts, our emotional experience often shifts as well. As a CBT therapist in Austin, Antonette uses this framework alongside DBT and mindfulness practice to help clients build practical, lasting skills rather than just insight.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, grew out of CBT and was originally developed to help people who experience intense emotional responses. It places a strong emphasis on skills like mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. In Antonette's practice, CBT and DBT are used together depending on what each client needs, so the work feels tailored rather than one-size-fits-all.
Antonette's style is warm, direct, and genuinely human. She brings humor and irreverence into the room when it fits, and she takes your history and cultural background seriously as part of how she understands you. Sessions feel like a real conversation, not a clinical checklist. Clients often describe her space, whether in person or virtual, as somewhere they can finally let their guard down.
No. Many people who reach out are not sure what label, if any, fits their experience. What matters is that something feels hard and you are ready to work on it. Antonette works with teens and adults experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma, and the general weight of trying to hold everything together.
This varies from person to person depending on what you are working through, how frequently you meet, and how the work progresses. Some clients notice meaningful shifts within a few months. Others find that longer-term support fits their needs better. Antonette will talk through your goals with you early on so you have a realistic sense of what to expect.
Yes. Antonette offers both in-person and virtual therapy sessions, so you can access support in whatever format works best for your life. Virtual sessions are available to clients located in Texas.
That is more common than you might think, and it does not mean therapy cannot work for you. It often means the fit, the approach, or the timing was not right. Antonette's style is practical and relational, grounded in evidence-based methods like CBT and DBT, and she works to make sure the approach matches what you actually need rather than applying a generic framework.
The best way to find out is to have a conversation. A consultation gives you a chance to ask questions, share a little about what you are going through, and get a feel for whether the connection is there. Therapy works best when it feels like a real human relationship, and Antonette believes that fit matters as much as credentials.
For current information on session fees and insurance, please visit littledovepsychology.com or call 512-240-2633. The team at Little Dove can walk you through your options and help you figure out what works for your situation.
Yes. Antonette works with both teens and adults. Adolescence brings its own particular brand of anxiety, self-doubt, and emotional intensity, and Antonette's warm, relatable style tends to resonate well with younger clients who might feel guarded or skeptical about therapy.
That uncertainty is completely normal and you do not have to have it figured out before you reach out. Many people who contact Little Dove Psychology are in exactly that place. A consultation is low stakes. It is just a conversation, and it can help you decide whether now is the right time.
You can schedule a consultation directly at littledovepsychology.com/schedule or call 512-240-2633. Antonette is based in Austin, Texas and offers both in-person and virtual sessions for teens and adults across Texas.