I’m not going to silver-line it: a lot of things are awful right now, and a lot of things we might look forward to at this time of year – holiday parties, gathering with family and friends, going out to restaurants for celebrations, taking winter vacations – are all cancelled. This pandemic has given us all sorts of problems and ...READ MORE »
… 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 »
I’m writing this morning on a topic that many of us are facing as we work to transition our children and teens into virtual learning environments during the pandemic. Screen anxiety shows up in children and teens when they resist, avoid, or shut down in the face of demands to participate in asynchronous and especially synchronous instruction during distance ...READ MORE »
I have been hearing certain words quite often recently when I ask people how they are doing: drained, exhausted, worn out. The Covid-19 pandemic is taking a toll on everyone’s mental health each and every day it drags on. This is due to a lot of factors of course, and one of those factors relates to feeling deeply disconnected from ...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 »
A friend of mine posted an article about the newest challenge we are facing as businesses start reopening this summer. The author referred to “decision fatigue,” and as someone who always has had a tough time making decisions to begin with, this really resonated with me. I reflected on my weekend in light of this article; tensions were high in ...READ MORE »
Many of my clients are asking me some version of the same question: Why can’t I get anything done right now? In spite of having more free time at home, they are totally lacking motivation to do work. Others want to get work done, or spend time on hobbies or reading, but are finding they can’t focus at all because ...READ MORE »
Finding motivation, planning steps to complete an assignment, organizing your work, initiating work, sustaining focus, metacognition (awareness of your thoughts), managing your time, shifting between activities, controlling impulses – these are all examples of “Executive Functioning Skills.” These skills are essential skills for anyone to get through school, work, and activities of daily life – personal hygiene, maintaining relationships, regulating ...READ MORE »
