Ask A Therapist!
Do you have something you have always wanted to ask a real licensed therapist but never had the opportunity? Browse past submissions or send a question at the bottom of this page and I will blog the answer.
Memory and Mood: How it all comes togetherI was asked to write a little bit about memory and how it works and why some people with PTSD end up with memory problems. What we call neurocognitive stuff isn’t my specialty, but I’ll do my best to explain the issue from a clinician’s perspective. Memory is made of multiple parts. To form a memory, we must first perceive…Read More
The D in PTSD and Stigma in acknowledging the problemAround about 20 years ago, President Bush number 2 and some people at the Pentagon who were probably not doctors got together and decided that for military purposes they were going to stop using the D for Disorder of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The thought was that if they called PTSD just Post Traumatic Stress and normalized it by dropping…Read More
Relationships, Mental Health, and Emotional DevelopmentWhen asking friends about blog post suggestions, one suggested that I write about the effects of mental health on bad relationships. This brings us to a bit of a chicken/egg scenario. Mental health and mental illness are at the core about relationships. And relationships significantly impact mental health and mental illness. Early childhood and infant dynamics between child and caregiver…Read More
Why work with a Clinical Psychologist? – VAPsych.orgUnderstanding Psychotherapy What is a clinical psychologist? In Virginia, the title “clinical psychologist” is reserved for those who have met the rigorous requirements set forth and governed by The Virginia Board of Psychology. Those requirements include completing a doctoral degree (PhD, PsyD, or EdD) in psychology, completing a supervised clinical internship in a hospital or other organized health setting, and passing…Read More
When Do I Stay In A Hard Relationship?How do we know when we should stay in a relationship? We get descriptions of bad relationships all the time. Magazines, TV shows, the internet all tell us when we should walk away and how to identify when something is unhealthy. Girl friends have told me a thousand times, “it might be time to walk away.” I usually stay in…Read More
Questions I ask Google When My Heart is BrokenQuestions I Ask Google When My Hart Is Broken. 1. What is that feeling in every cell of your body when someone says they don’t want you? This one google couldn’t answer; google didn’t get it and thought I had cancer. I asked a Facebook friend group, they said orgasm. Nope not it. I’ll describe it for you. It’s like…Read More
How to find motivation when you work in corporate AmericaHow to find motivation when you work in corporate America and they treat you like shit? The human condition seems to require us to strive in order to feel satisfaction with our lives. The striving can happen in our personal or professional lives; this question specifically asks about work so I will focus on that here. Hopefully your home environment…Read More
Emotions and I’m Driving Myself CrazyHere it is: We wander around invalidating our own emotional experiences convincing ourselves that we are wrong for feeling what ever we feel and then essentially putting ourselves into emotional double binds and it’s impossible to feel the right thing and the only solution is to feel nothing and then the feelings start becoming physical health issues and then our…Read More
Am I Crazy?This is a serious and legitimate question. And the answer is no, you are not crazy. And yes, I know this for a fact. When you google “crazy” the definition it shoots back is “mentally deranged, especially as manifested in a wild or aggressive way.” You’re sitting here reading this which means that you aren’t acting wild or aggressive. We…Read More