Anxiety & Test Anxiety Treatment in San Jose
Psychiatric evaluation, medication management, and supportive therapy for anxiety that gets in the way of school, work, sleep, and everyday life.
When the anxiety never fully turns off
Some anxiety is normal and even useful. It becomes a problem when it keeps you up at night, makes you avoid things you need to do, or shows up as a racing heart and a blank mind at the worst possible moment.
BrainHelp works with students, professionals, and adults whose anxiety has started to take over. The goal is not just fewer symptoms. It is feeling settled enough to focus, sleep, and perform the way you know you can.
Types of anxiety we treat
BrainHelp treats generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), the constant worry, tension, and trouble relaxing that wears you down day after day, and panic disorder, with sudden waves of fear, a pounding heart, or shortness of breath. Many patients come in for social and performance anxiety: dread before presentations, clinicals, interviews, or speaking up in class. Others are dealing with test anxiety, where they know the material and still blank on the exam, or with health anxiety and stress that has slowly built up into burnout.
Patients come from across San Jose and the South Bay for in-person visits, and from anywhere in California by telehealth.
Perform at the level your preparation deserves
Test anxiety is more than normal nerves. You study for weeks, know the material, and then your mind goes blank when the exam starts.
It shows up most in high-stakes programs. Nursing students facing the NCLEX, medical students before the USMLE, PA students preparing for the PANCE, and graduate students before qualifying exams are some of the people BrainHelp sees most.
Treatment is tailored to you and may include:
- ✓A psychiatric evaluation to understand what is driving the anxiety
- ✓Checking for underlying ADHD, which often looks like test anxiety
- ✓Medication for ongoing anxiety when it makes sense
- ✓As-needed options for the physical symptoms of performance anxiety, when appropriate
- ✓Closer monitoring in the weeks around a board exam
- ✓Supportive therapy and practical strategies for studying and test day
How anxiety is treated
SSRIs, SNRIs, and other evidence-based medications for ongoing anxiety, plus as-needed options for situational anxiety. Non-benzodiazepine options are used first.
Time at every appointment to talk through what is causing stress and build practical skills to manage it.
Referrals for CBT and exposure therapy, and collaboration with your existing therapist so everyone is working from the same plan.
Anxiety often comes with low mood. See depression treatment.
I'm here to help.
Chester Profeta, PMHNP-BC
I'm a board-certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner with over 16 years of healthcare experience, including inpatient psychiatry, outpatient psychiatric care, and teaching as a BSN and MSN PMHNP Clinical Instructor. I founded BrainHelp to help students and professionals who are held back not by a lack of ability, but by untreated ADHD, anxiety, depression, and burnout.
- ✓Listens to your full story, not just a checklist of symptoms
- ✓Medication is only one part of your treatment, alongside supportive therapy and practical strategies
- ✓Fits your schedule with evening and weekend telehealth across California