Electronics and Mental Health: Are they an Addiction or Addition in our lives?
Something about winter darkness and the distance of spring has us looking to take inventory and make a change. From clearing out a cluttered closet to a new workout routine, this is the season for leveling up. Or at least considering it. As you consider lowering the sugar or number of toxic people in […]
How Play Therapy Works
What exactly is play therapy? Play therapy is a coherent approach to therapy by a Masters level therapist with specific training and supervision to develop their skills. Play therapy capitalizes on using play as a natural method for children to communicate, problem solve and learn new and more productive ways of managing their world. Play […]
Perfectionism and Depression: A Toxic Internal Relationship
It’s interesting how we can sniff out someone’s perfectionism and miss our own. We see someone putting in excessive effort in an area where we wouldn’t or see them pushing for an ideal to their own detriment. For individuals struggling with long-term depression, it might be important to turn that awareness inward and check […]
How is your Mental Wellness? Answer these questions.
Sometimes mental health seems like a far-off idea. Maybe you notice having more bad days than good days, but if you had to nail down a starting point for the discomfort—well, that’s often much harder. Just like an honest friend who requires us to take inventory, sitting down and asking a few questions can be […]
How your Attachment Style may add to Holiday Loneliness
The simple fact that holidays celebrate a time for joy and connection creates an opportunity for noticing our loneliness. Right now loneliness is an epidemic, strangely something we all share. One important factor in how we feel connected in our world is our primary attachment style. The way that we build connections with others does […]
Understanding Co-Dependence: Building Healthy Relationships
One of the hot psychology buzzwords, “codependence” gets thrown around a lot but isn’t always fully understood. Co-dependence refers to a pattern of behavior where we put someone else’s needs above our own in a way that is unhealthy. Even if it is often misused or misunderstood, co-dependence is an idea worth understanding. Ultimately recognizing […]
Anxiety Symptoms and How they Change our Thoughts
Most of us know when we are worried about something. It might be that we can’t stop thinking about it or it’s keeping us awake. So what is the difference between something stressing us out and anxiety? Does stress just become anxiety if we have it long enough? While chronic stress can definitely create anxiety […]
Dealing with Depression
Winter holidays and depression unfortunately go together a little like Christmas parties and ugly sweaters. Feeling down after an argument with a friend or nostalgia over holiday memories past should not last for more than a few weeks or you may be struggling with something more. If you know that holidays bring up extra emotions […]
The Therapeutic Brushstroke: How Art Boosts Mental Health
We all know there is art and then there is art. The great news is no matter your taste or opinions, or even if you have little experience or artistic talent—art at the level of human expression can be healing for all of us. Even witnessing art, the easiest level of participation, can have profound […]
Understanding Self-harm and Cutting
Upwards of 13-17% of teenagers and young adults engage in self-harming behaviors each year in the United States alone (Cornell 2023). This means that urges to self-harm are more common than we realize. Self-harm refers to intentional actions and behaviors that injure or harm the body. Self-harm can range from cutting, pricking, burning the skin, […]