Advent I ventured out to Michael’s yesterday to find a few frames featured on their sale. The parking lot was a puzzle of cars and people, all with little space in between. The speed was like the speed of video-game graphics! It was almost too much for this avoidant, solitude-loving, introvert. Our car inched and [...]

The Importance of PLAYING As Adults Somewhere between childhood to adulthood we stop playing, We get so busy living life or numbing out in front of the television that we forget the benefits of play. Play is not just for kids. Tamis-Lemonda cited by Kesser explains, “play is being joyfully immersed in the moment, and [...]

What is Career Development and Career Counseling? How Career Counseling really can help me! Should I go to college or should I go and learn a trade? I am not really be satisfied with my job anymore, should I find a new career? I need to re-enter the workforce but where do I start? What [...]

Lifestyle Changes to Improve Mental Health The concept of lifestyle change has been somewhat of a buzzword the past few years. People have realized that fad diets and intermittent seasons of exercise do not often lend to long-term results. Often individuals are unable to maintain big changes like extreme diets and long hours at the [...]

If Walt Disney Was A Therapist I just finished watching “Saving Mr. Banks” – a story about the making of Mary Poppins with more depth and context than I ever could have imagined. If you have seen the movie, you’ll know that the writer of Mary Poppins, PL Travers, experienced a great deal of family [...]

Pregnancy and Infant Loss October 15 was National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Around 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage and 1 in 100 pregnancies end in still birth. The likelihood is that someone you know and love, or maybe even you yourself, has been effected by pregnancy or infant loss. Sadly, these [...]

SIGNS IN SENIORS; MENTAL HEALTH CONCERNS According to the CDC, 20% of adults 55 years or older have experienced some type of mental health concern. Sadly, 1 in 3 of those people do not receive treatment or seek help. These statistics are alarming. With awareness and vigilance, caregivers, family, and friends can look out for [...]

The Pursuit of Joy Happiness versus Joy Happiness seems to be something pursued by most everyone in American culture. From the outside, it may seem like a lot of individuals in your community have found “happiness” and it may feel discouraging that you would not define your life as happy. The thing about happiness is [...]

Fostering Healthy Friendships Today more than ever we live in a culture where everyone is SO busy! Many of us think being busy is a virtue, and elevate being busy as “the way” to live or else we must not be measuring up to the culture’s standard for productivity. Unfortunately, with this mindset many of [...]

Immigrant Minorities and Mental Health The United States has long been described as a melting pot of cultures, a country of immigrants. With over 41 million foreign-born U.S. residents 13% of the total population, the relationship between immigration and risk of psychiatric illness has significant public health implications. Historically, observations of socioeconomic disadvantage in immigrant [...]