Understanding Anxiety Anxiety is a sense of apprehension, unease, agitation, or dread that something bad will happen, from rejection by others, failing at life’s tasks, to sickness, or death. We all have anxious thoughts as appropriate responses to stresses in life that are challenging; anxiety is a suffering that is universal. Erik Erikson (1950) said … Read More
Anxiety in Children Anxiety is one of the most common mental health challenges experienced by people of all ages. Recent data indicates that approximately 30 percent of adults and adolescents have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. That means that out of the 10 people sitting around your … Read More
Dangers of Social Media for Youth 8-year-old Lalani “loved dressing up as a princess and playing with makeup.” (NY Times) 9-year-old Arriani liked basketball, kickball, and riding her bike. Neither of these girls is alive to enjoy any of her favorite activities anymore. Lalani and Arriani both died in 2021 after executing the “blackout challenge” … Read More
As one-year closes and another year begins there can be a plethora of emotions. The anticipation of a fresh new year can allow regrets surrounding goals not met in the year just ended to seep in; sadness surrounding failed expectations whether self-imposed or set by others. I have never forgotten a client who saw me … Read More
Moving through different seasons in life, one invariably finds themselves wearing various hats. For me, in addition to being a psychologist, I am in that delicate place of being a caregiver to my parents and my young children. Many who read this will be in the same situation. Having advanced training on brain development and … Read More
Attention span and concentration abilities can vary for a variety of reasons, with some individuals simply having good abilities at baseline. There are also a variety of factors that can make concentration more challenging for some individuals, including both stable and modifiable medical factors (e.g., neurodevelopmental disorders, sleep difficulties, normal mild changes over the lifespan, … Read More
I love working with teenagers; what a privilege and life-enhancing experience! The developmental task in adolescence is that of Identity Conceptualization versus Role Confusion. The earlier 4 psycho-social developmental stages – Trust versus Mistrust, Autonomy versus Shame & Doubt, Initiative versus Guilt, and Industry versus Inferiority – have led up to this opportunity to explore … Read More
Grief is a universal, unavoidable experience. And yet we live in a culture that is so very bad at dealing with grief. I recently went through a season of loss and grief and found some people were incredibly helpful in their responses and others were awkward, insensitive, and unhelpful. And so here is a simple … Read More
Self-esteem can be defined as confidence and satisfaction in oneself. Good self-esteem is the key to success as an adult. It plays a role in overall wellbeing and social happiness. Good self-esteem is not in our genetic makeup. Rather, it is acquired from what a child perceives about herself and from how she thinks others … Read More
When I was working in an outpatient neuropsychology clinic at a hospital, I had completed a neuropsychological evaluation with a middle-aged woman who was concerned about memory problems. Her testing indicated that cognitively she was relatively intact with some mild difficulties likely related to the effect that her depression was having on her sense of … Read More
