Mental Health

Navigating Gender & Identity with your Kids

by Allison Dickens, LPC Happy Pride Month!  I hope all reading this have a joyful month full of celebration and self-exploration. As we come to the close of this important month, it’s important to remember that the conversation about gender and identity continues throughout the year.  As a parent, it is common to feel confused…
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SPACE Treatment: Helping your Child Overcome Anxious Emotions

By Allison Dickens, LPC Parenting, at the best of times, is hard work.  Parenting a child who struggles with anxious emotions can feel confusing, scary, and frustrating for all involved.  Further, as parents it is easy to feel that you are failing your anxious child by not responding appropriately to their emotional distress.  Traditionally, therapy…
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Understanding Neurodiversity and Neurodivergence: ADHD, Autism & Learning Differences

by Danielle Taylor, PsyD In the 1990’s, Judy Singer, an Australian sociologist, created the term neurodiversity to capture the notion that all brains are different, these differences make the human species more versatile and flexible, and these differences should be celebrated rather than labeled as deficits. Having people with different operating systems that guide how…
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10 Green Flags in a Healthy Relationship: Signs of Emotional Safety & Compatibility

by Jennifer Pitman, LCSW In today’s world of “red flags” and dating advice on social media, many people are asking: what actually makes a relationship healthy? While it’s important to recognize warning signs, it’s just as important to identify the green flags, the positive signs of emotional safety, respect, and connection in a relationship. As…
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Toxic Positivity: What It Is & What to Say Instead

by Danielle Taylor, PsyD We’ve all had our loved ones share their stressful experiences with us. For many of us those moments can feel uncomfortable and challenging because we want to help them feel better. Maybe we aren’t sure what to say or to do so we might throw something rote out there like-”focus on…
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How to Identify & Cope with Negative, Intrusive Thoughts

By Liza Ibrahim, LPC Our thoughts are not always within our control, and it’s natural for our brains to skew negative from time to time. However, for some individuals, negative and intrusive thoughts can become challenging over time. If you experience intrusive thoughts, it is important to remember that a thought has no significance in…
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What Is Gaslighting? Signs of Emotional Abuse

Is it Gaslighting or Another Form of Communication?

By Jennifer Pitman, LCSW The use of the term gaslighting has exploded in pop culture. At its core, gaslighting is a form of emotional and psychological abuse. It is a pattern of behavior in which the gaslighter has the intent to cause confusion, to force a person to question their own reality and ultimately to…
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Surviving Perfectionism

By Jennifer Pitman, LCSW Marcus is an incredibly intelligent 16 year old who attends a highly competitive school. He has always loved playing basketball, but now wants to quit despite his talent and love for the game. Always a very smart child, Marcus frequently delves into topics of interest to him, but when it comes…
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What Is Your Love Language?

By Liza Ibrahim, LPC Communication is a huge component of any relationship and there are so many ways in which we express ourselves, including emotionally, physically and so many others. The concept of “love languages,” as described by Gary Chapman in his book, “The Five Love Languages,” focuses on how we all have a personalized…
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The Parenting Shift: Adjusting to the Covid-19 Pandemic

by Gina McShreffrey Emmons, PhD Parenting on a normal day is difficult, but parenting during a quarantine is on a whole other level. Many of us have been thrown into really challenging situations during this time. We are trying to work remotely and maintain our professional roles from home while simultaneously homeschooling our children, or…
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