Years ago, I had the privilege of going into homes to provide support and therapy. I will spare you the specifics of the populations I served and the challenges I helped people face. However, there are some lessons from that career season that have stuck with me and been brought back to my mind since […]

At the end of 2020 I started listening to a podcast by a female therapist in another part of the country. In one of these episodes towards the end of last year she was talking about anxiety in general, but then made a specific prediction about how and why anxiety would be on the rise […]

If you have ever seen a therapist, watched a therapist on TV you have probably heard the term cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT for short. CBT is based on the cognitive model of psychotherapeutic treatment that helps people learn how to identify and change destructive or disturbing thought patterns that have a negative influence on […]

There are few things in life that are harder to deal with than chronic pain. Pain, chronic or not, is one of the most intense motivators of anxiety, frustration, anger, and depression. Chronic pain has been one of the most studied challenges that human’s face and yet, finding good ways to manage it has been […]

Having done a decent amount of grief work during my years practicing, I have had the honor of sitting with others experiencing grief due to the loss of a loved one by suicide. Grief work is always difficult, but the suddenness of suicide brings an added layer of challenge to the healing process.

One person dies every 40 seconds by suicide (www.who.int). Suicide is a word we do not often hear or talk about, yet it is happening every day. In recent years the deaths of celebrities like Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain and Robin Williams have brought awareness to this topic. And yet, it remains a subject few […]

During my undergraduate program, in one of my textbooks I read a paragraph that has stuck with me. It talked about self-esteem and how our self-esteem is rooted in our childhood, that if we had a childhood filled with chaos, neglect or abuse that our self-esteem would be low, on the other hand if we […]

The term “trigger’ in psychology has been around for a long time. While there has been a more popular culture explosion of the term, with both positive and negative effects on the original meaning, we still conceptualize triggers as things that can cause intense negative emotions because they remind us of a previous trauma. Post-Traumatic […]

I love to stand up for others, especially when it comes to matters of social justice. It is relatively easy for me to verbalize when I feel someone is being mistreated for the color of their skin, their gender, their sexuality or their social class. But when it comes to myself and those closest to […]

Sometimes when I work with kids (and even adults) who struggle to express their feelings or ask for what they need or want I will say, “You know you best.” Or, “You know yourself better than anyone else.” In other words, “speak up for what you think, feel or need because you know what you […]