… and we will be okay! I have been counseling clients lately with increasing anxiety and despair as we head into the winter and also another wave of the pandemic. Fears of a lockdown, dread of isolation, overwhelm about homeschooling while working from home and fewer social supports, and valid health concerns abound. When I say “we will be okay,” I don’t mean ...READ MORE »
Remember back in March and early April when the shut-down still had a slightly exciting and very temporary feel to it? It was stressful, frustrating and sad but it was also strangely exhilarating. That’s because we were all operating (and sometimes thriving) using our emergency stress response that humans turn to during a crisis. It’s a surge of mental and ...READ MORE »
I’m writing this blog tonight in the hopes of helping all of us have more positive productive conversations about COVID with each other. I’m a therapist in Washington DC, and I help families and couples have difficult conversations on a daily basis. I’ve been thinking about the content of this post for the past 6 months. I’m trained to observe, ...READ MORE »
Anxiety. Everyone is feeling it during the pandemic. Anxiety about the virus, anxiety about going places and not knowing how safe it is due to the virus, anxiety about the economy, anxiety about paying rent or medical bills when finances have been impacted by the virus, anxiety about sending kids back to school, anxiety about dating during the pandemic, anxiety ...READ MORE »
After months of virtually seeing couples and families in my psychotherapy practice in Washington, DC and Bethesda, MD during the pandemic, I’m noticing how much relationships are changing due to the impact of COVID-19. Many of us in the DC metro area have been sheltering in place for almost 12 weeks–we’ve home schooled our kids, worked remotely at home, ...READ MORE »
In honor of Mental Health Awareness month in May, I wanted to offer some thoughts on a topic that I’ve been working on personally through this pandemic. As a therapist in Washington DC, I spend my days working with clients and talking about the concept of self care. Yet, I have to admit–As a mom, I secretly hate it ...READ MORE »
In this final blog in a three part series on The Anatomy of Emotions, I’d like to teach you how to meet, greet and move through your emotions so that you can rely on feelings as useful data in your daily interactions and decision-making processes. I’ll take you through the 6 primary emotions–their descriptions and their functions. And, I’ll ...READ MORE »
As families experience difficult changes and experiences, children are also experiencing it in their own way. It is important to know that children can come through difficulties such as the death of a loved one, a significant change event , and even trauma in a healthy way if the adults caring for them guide them effectively. As a therapist in ...READ MORE »
I’m writing this blog as the 2nd in a 3-part series about how to assess, cope with and navigate a relationship where depression is present in you or your spouse. In my last blog, I shared how couples can discern if they are dealing with chronic, bigger issues of clinical depression versus less severe, more temporary periods of feeling ...READ MORE »
Have you ever been in a situation where someone was talking to you and in that process, they were making you feel like you either had to do something to fix the situation for them or that you had done something wrong? Perhaps they were complaining or perhaps they were being downright nasty towards you. Typically, when we find ourselves ...READ MORE »
