The concept of counseling in British English it is spelled counselling has actually been around for ages, and it reflects the need for one person to seek help or advice from another person. Counseling as a profession, therefore, places emphasis on social settings and does not derive from the clinic. It focuses on helping persons…
STRESS is an inevitable part of our life. Yet whether our daily hassles include the incessant gripes of a nasty boss or another hectoring letter from the Internal Revenue Service, we usually find some way of contending with them. In rare instances, though, terrifying events can overwhelm our coping capacities, leaving us psychologically paralyzed. In…
Watching out for elders has always come naturally for me. I grew up close to my grandparents, and during my teenage years, my paternal grandmother lived with us. We even built a new house to accommodate her stay. When my elderly neighbor, Joe, was widowed, I did what most neighbors would do. I didn’t know…
Suffering from PTSD is an uphill battle. It’s a difficult diagnosis to handle and powering through it takes a lot of hard work. Thankfully, due to a better understanding of the condition coupled with innovative therapies used to treat it, PTSD is becoming more and more manageable each day. Perhaps an innovative approach to the…
Despite what we see in the movies, love does not conquer all. Relationships take a lot to work, and, while love plays a big role in them, there are many other factors that need to be considered. When it comes to a healthy relationship, there is so much more involved that the heart-stopping joy of…
Understanding the first step to living a balanced life. The term psychiatric consultation can be a scary one which can conjure up feelings of tension, stress or uncertainty. Despite it being a term that may make you feel uneasy or worried, it’s quite the opposite. A psychiatric consultation (or evaluation) is a term used to…
Can you benefit from this useful service? Do you not feel like your best self? Have trouble managing your food intake or just eat all the wrong things? Feel like you need someone to help you navigate the grocery store, the restaurant menu, or the coffee shop? If you do, maybe using a nutrition coach…
Psychiatric Consultations What can I expect – Psychiatric Consultations? Psychiatric Consultations with a psychiatric clinician lasts 45-60 minutes and focuses on understanding your vision of well-being, the concerns that are interfering with your well-being, the efforts you’ve made in overcoming those concerns, and your interest in pursuing additional resources, such as medication. The psychiatric clinician…
Whether you were denied a promotion at the office or you failed to qualify for a marathon, failing feels bad. Many people will go to great lengths to avoid failing so they don’t have to feel painful emotions. Knowing how to cope with failure in a healthy way takes some of the fear out of…
Loneliness. Anyone can feel lonely. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a relationship or not, a social butterfly or someone who isn’t into crowds. To understand what’s making you feel alone, we’ll focus on your inner and outer experiences and work together to find useful things you can do to feel more connected to the…
The science of intuition and how it keeps you safe and holds you back. Have you ever had a gut feeling that you just can’t shake? A queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach or a nudging from your brain to change course, rethink your next move or proceed with caution? When do you…
Clinical hypnosis has been used since the 1700s as a drug-free way to help patients with dealing with pain, phobias and numerous other ailments. According to the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis “Clinical hypnosis is an altered state of awareness, perception or consciousness that is used, by licensed and trained doctors or masters prepared individuals,…
Psychological projection is nothing new. In fact, it was originally developed by Sigmund Freud, the ‘father of psychoanalysis.’ Yet, despite how long the idea has been around, many people still aren’t fully aware of what psychological projection really is, and what warning signs to look for. Simply put, it’s a subconscious defense mechanism. People use…
Psychodynamic therapy works for at least 80 percent of individuals, including the very young and the very old. How young, and how old? One very successful psychotherapist in California, when asked, said that his youngest patient was 9 and his oldest patient 82. In fact, psychodynamic therapy delivers a number of psychological benefits, all of…
Dissociative Disorders are conditions that involve breakdowns of memory, awareness, identity or perception. Dissociative Disorders can be triggered by stress, substance abuse, psychological trauma or may have no identifiable trigger at all. Some of these disorders can run in families, and most are diagnosed in adulthood but typically stem from childhood trauma. These disorders are…
Bipolar disorder is one of the most highly researched neurological disorders in the United States. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that bipolar disorder affects approximately 2% of the population in the United States. However, due to social stigma, a difficulty in diagnosing the condition and inadequate health care, only 40% of those…
You’ve probably read The Serenity Prayer dozens of times before. It’s a beautiful verse that provides you the peace to accept the world around you and the drive to become your best self within it. Even if you aren’t immediately familiar with it, its first verse will definitely ring a bell. God grant me the…
In life, there are many events (big and small) that are out of our control. It could be a family get-together, or a big corporate function for work. Events happen all the time, and we tend to deal with anticipation of these events differently. Getting anxious and excited for a ‘stressful’ event isn’t necessarily a…
5 critical communication skills that everyone needs to know. One of the primary reasons that couples enter counselling or therapy is because they don’t properly communicate with each other. Strong communication is the cornerstone of any relationship and can have wonderfully positive effects on all parts of your professional and personal life. If you don’t have…
In America, a divorce occurs every 36 seconds. That’s over 2,400 divorces each day. A common statistic that you hear is that 50% of marriages end in divorce. Luckily, this information slightly off: the divorce rate peaked in the 1980s at 40% and has been decreasing slowly for most age groups ever since. This number…
What does the term self-esteem mean to you? How important is it to develop one’s self-worth and attitude towards themselves? Merging various definitions, self-esteem is defined as ‘how we value ourselves; it is how we perceive our value to the world and how important we think we are to others, it reflects a person’s overall…
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), or Cognitive emotional behavioral therapy (CEBT) is a form of therapy that was originally developed to treat those with eating disorders. More recently, CBT is being used to help individuals suffering from anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It has also found extensive use in anger management…
Since the beginning of the internet, several creative people perceived the potential of the internet for online counseling the therapeutic communication. At the time the internet went public, this launch went hand in hand with the development of the first self-help groups on the internet who were, in that time, very popular. In 1995, Martha…
Attention defecit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is something we often associate with children. It’s true, that about 5% of children do have the disorder. However, we don’t often consider that the signs and symptoms of ADHD sometimes get carried over into adulthood. According to the American Psychiatric Association, about half of children who are diagnosed with…
We’ve all seen the face of depression on others and perhaps on ourselves. We’ve seen it on a troubled teenager or a mother immediately after the birth of her child. We’ve seen it on every race, profession, religion and socioeconomic group. We’ve seen it on senior citizens and people with critical illness. We’ve seen it…