Blogs & Articles
What Makes Marriage Work?
As a marriage counselor I am often asked my thoughts on what makes marriage work or to offer my best marital advice. When asked - I think about all the collective wisdom and theoretical approaches to healthy relationships ...
8 Ways to Find Motivation When You are Depressed
Everyone knows what it is like to feel depressed. There will be times where your inner fires are burning lower than usual and the motivation you once had is not as strong as it was before. When you are depressed it is like there is a cloud hanging over you keeping you from achieving anything.
5 Ways Parents Can Help Daughters Overcome Stress in High School
When girls enter high school they face more pressure than just the weight of their backpacks. They face hours of demanding homework- higher expectations at home and school - as well as a more complicated social schedule.
Hope in the Dark: How to Hold On When Youre Fighting Depression
Depression is like a storm. It comes in without warning and can knock you down before you know what hit you. For many people depression feels like theres no end in sight. The darkness seems to engulf everything and its hard to hold on to hope. The rain starts to fall with no end in sight.
Interacting With Your Teen Constructively
It can be difficult to avoid escalation when enforcing rules or parenting teens. Not only are teens at times defensive when having behaviors corrected - but many parents experience an emotional response that can make it difficult to maintain a neutral demeanor.
5 Ways to Help Your Teen Create a Support System
A strong peer support system is a valuable resource that can provide a variety of benefits to adolescents. In today’s social climate - mental health symptoms such as anxiety and depression have become increasingly prevalent
Post-Pandemic Social Interactions
COVID-19 impacted pretty much every aspect of life as we knew it. Masks became commonplace. Schools went virtual. Businesses adapted. Sports were postponed. The list goes on and onbut one area that may have the longest lasting impact is how the pandemic has affected our society socially...
Can People Really Change?
If feelings are so painful and get in the way of having a happy and fulfilling life then why have them at all? The answer is is that emotions are functional. We live in a society that applauds the intellectual over the emotional but the reality is that we can’t think without feeling. Even if we are unaware of our feelings - they are driving our thinking and our decision making.
5 Ways to Show Empathy
Empathy is the ability to get behind another's eyeballs and see and feel the world as they see and feel the world. It is the ability to experience someone else's feelings without becoming so emotionally involved in the other's feelings that you lose your judgment. Empathy plays a crucial role in all relationships ...
4 Strategies For Teenagers To Get Through This School Year
My how our world has changed in just the past 6 months! At that point the public was under the impression that the COVID-19 virus was something that was not worth worrying about and since then our country has experienced over 200.000 deaths
Four Suggestions for a Good Start to the New School Year
As a country we have been faced with many challenging events and difficult decisions over the past few months. The most recent of those challenging decisions involves school for the up-coming academic year. As a parent of children in elementarymiddleand high schoolI can appreciate all the energy you put into making your decision
4 Signs Your Teenage Son Is Turning Into A Man
As every parent knows the teenage years with their children can be the most stressful and yet most rewarding. This is the period in life where your teen is growing through a great transition from dependency to self-sufficiency as he prepares for the next phase in his life
The New Rules of Marriage
It turns out that much of the conventional marriage wisdom of the past is not based on sound research but more on advice. John and Julie Gottman who researched thousand of couples for over 40 years discovered the truth about many myths that have transcended generations of advice giving for couples about to be hitched.
Coping with COVID 19 - Staying Mentally Healthy
These are very trying times. Everything feels very surreal. People are wondering is it real? Are we part of a horrific movie? Nobody predicted the world will be at a standstill at this time. Not many saw it coming and nobody could have prepared for this. But yet here we are. COVID-19 is here and in full force.
COVID and lessons learned from Road Rage
Why are people ignoring repeated pleas and restrictions to stay home? Why am I restricting myself and being so careful not to spread this virus when others are not doing the same? Why are people hoarding supplies making it difficult for others to get them?
Are You Coping Or Thriving With Your Teenager During The Lockdown?
At the beginning of this year no oneunless perhaps you worked at NIH or in Government Intelligencehad any idea that within 3 months millions of families would be isolated ...
BMI and Children - should we do something?
Recently on a well-child visit for my sonthe pediatrician sat down to talk about his height and growth curve. These are pretty meaningless numbers to a childand he listened half-heartedly as you may expect from a preteen. Then she began to talk about body mass index. This is where I interrupted her and said ...
The effects of social media on youth
...there is also a lot of fear that surrounds the wave of technological advances that has brought the vastness of the World Wide Web to the tips of our fingers - and into the hands of our children
4 Steps to a Great Summer with Your College Students
In a few short weeks college students will be returning home for the summer. We look forward to catching up and spending some quality time and they look forward to some much-needed R and R. Shortly thereafterparents often discover that their son or daughter is not quite the same person they dropped off last fall.
3 Things You Should Consider Before Starting ADHD Meds
Difficulty remembering dates and names? Unfinished projects? Reading a paragraph only to get to the end and realize you have no idea what you just read? Restlessness? Impulsivity? You may have ADHD…butyou may not.
Anxiety Anyone?
Some seasons bring out the best and the worst in people. We enjoy the holidays but we tend to sleep less. make poor food choices. drink more. and spend more money than planned for gifts. Also - social gatherings and meeting family may trigger anxiety. As a result we depart from the holidays feeling tired. worn out and tense.
Stress-free Eating during the Holidays
Food is everywhere during this season and often it is food that we don’t typically eat during other times of the year and we look forward to it. Very oftenfor people who have disordered eatingthe mental and emotional toll navigating food takes makes it nearly impossible to enjoy the celebration.
5 Ways to Help your Child Navigate Stress
Since I specialize in working with adolescents it is common scenario for a parent to drag their reluctant high schooler into my office early on a Saturday morning for an intake. What the parent wants is often to the effect of: "How can you get my kid to care moreabout...
The Power of Positive and Strength Psychology
When I was in graduate school quite some time ago - Positive Psychology was not that well known. But every time I read authors that talked about optimism or vibrant
Homework Strategies
With the new school year starting for most students over the next couple of weeksboth parents and adolescents will undergo predictable stressors that come each fall. Parents begin another school year doing all they can to be preparedyet more often than not they anticipate that by October or November the typical struggle will ensue
How to Avoid the Summer Slump
What is “summer slump” or “summer backslide.” These terms address the regression in skills that students experience when they are enjoying their summer vacations away from their regular course rigor. While regression can be steep (e.g.up to 25% decline in reading skills)there is plenty that can be done.
Helping Children Through Divorce
Divorce causes feelings of profound loss and disruption in many areas of life. Fear of what is to come is normal and may be the only part of divorce that is to be expected. Stressangerand depression can all be part of the process. And this is just for the adults coping with divorce. What about the children?
4 Steps for Overcoming Depression
We all face difficult circumstances at some point in our lives. And sometimesthose circumstances can lead to a sense of despair that feels overwhelming. The good news is you don’t have to go through hard times alone.
4 Steps to Help Couples Manage Conflict
Couples often seek marriage counseling because of unresolved conflict. Every relationship will have conflictbut marital conflict can be especially painful. When there is an argument and there isn’t repair we often feel disconnected and discouraged. Our 4 step process can help you repairrestore and strengthen your relationship.
5 Ways to Manage Anger
All of us can relate to getting mad sometimes. All of us have “lost our cool” at times; have said something more harshly than we meant; or wish we could take back something we said or did while mad. We can’t control how we feelso the goal of anger management is not to stop feeling angry. The goal is to learn how to respond to situations or people more effectively
Winter Sadness and Depression - Seasonal Affective Disorder
SAD is a type of depression that starts in the fall or winter and progressively gets worse. It improves around the spring and summer when the days get longer. SAD can occur also in the summerbut it is less common.
Eating disorders - Freedom from food & body obsession
Eating disorders and issues surrounding food and body image seem to be growing in today’s culture for women and men. Indeedthe “typical” demographic of eating disturbances is that there is no typical demographic anymore
10 Steps to Cultivating Social-Emotional Intelligence In Children
All parents want their child to be socially and emotionally competent. Social-emotional intelligence is a key to success in all areas.
What's the key to a happy relationship and marriage?
Couples often get stuck in negative patterns of interaction. Ignoring basic communication rules and being unaware of communication pitfalls can slowly erode goodwill and positive sentimentleading to contempt and withdrawal.