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Recognizing Your Triggers Part III

October 13, 2020

By Eric Dean JD, MBA, MA, MA, LPC, CADC This is the third and final installment of this blog series on recognizing your triggers for substance use and/or emotions such as anger. In this post, I will present some more common internal triggers and ways to cope with them. This post’s acronym is FINE. FINE stands for: Fearful: Fear is a powerful and universal human emotion, which is often driven by uncertainty, lack of control, and lack…

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The SWOT Analysis

October 12, 2020

By Eric Dean JD MBA MA MA LPC CADC To create plans for how we are going to achieve our goals, we need to know our starting point. SWOT Analysis, which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, is a tool used by organizations and people to evaluate their current positions. SWOT analysis can help elucidate information that would otherwise be hard to uncover and provide a baseline assessment for evaluating progress. Here are a small sample…

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Simple Stress Guide, Part 1

October 9, 2020

I work with many clients who are under a great deal amount of stress which leads them to either feel anxious and/or depressed. My job as their clinical therapist is to better understand why the client is stressed and then to provide coping strategies to better manage their stress. I recently read an article from The New York Times, that touched on this very topic, “How to Be Better at Stress” by author Tara Parker-Pope. Below are…

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How to Find Joy When Life Gets Tough

October 8, 2020

It is no secret that life is a little strange right now. The world as we know it has been turned upside down and people are running into hardships they may not have encountered otherwise. In an uncertain environment, how do we find joy in our daily lives? It’s helpful to understand what the definition of joy actually is. Joy is a strong, long-term state “… that results in feelings of inner peace and contentment.” Those who…

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Identifying Your Communication Style

October 7, 2020

Hannah Hopper, LPC   One topic that continues to come up in many of my sessions is communication styles. We are constantly communicating with those around us, and our communication style can either serve as a bridge or be a barrier to creating connections. Going to therapy is an incredibly effective tool for working on communication, and this blog will give a brief introduction on three styles of communication.  Passive Communication Passive communication is characterized by expressing…

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Drying Out: Alcohol’s Effects on the Body

October 4, 2020

Bridgette W. Gotwald, LPC, NCC Alcohol. That’s a word that will quickly grab the attention of many members of our society. It’s hard to believe that we’re already half way through 2020, and the year has quickly gotten away from us. In countless of my clients’ first sessions of the new year, numerous people were thrilled to tell me that they are engaging in dry January. A new year starts, people are inspired and ready for new…

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Coping With a World in Crisis

October 2, 2020

Hannah Hopper, LPC Exhausted, frazzled, overwhelmed, and burnt out. If any of these words describe how you’ve been feeling lately, you’re not alone. Many of my clients have used some variation of these words to describe what they’ve been going through over the past several months, and at times it may feel like there is no end in sight. When our world is in a state of crisis, it’s hard to escape feeling overwhelmed. Below are several…

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Managing Anxiety in an Ongoing Global Pandemic

October 1, 2020

As we approach August, it’s becoming clear the COVID-19 pandemic is not ending anytime soon. Adjusting to our new normal can be incredibly difficult leading to increased levels of anxiety and difficulty maintaining focus. For individuals in a position of power or leadership, within their companies or homes, this can cause difficulty dealing with the ongoing changes as a result of COVID-19 and the normal day-to-day changes. The longer we remain in a heightened state of stress/anxiety,…

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Yes, You Can Feel Multiple Feelings at Once

September 30, 2020

Matthew Cuddeback LCSW We often believe our thoughts and feelings need to neatly fit together however; it is usually not so simple. We often try to fight or deny it, but the fact is that we often feel many different things at once, and often these feelings can seemingly conflict as well. It is important to understand this experience and take meaningful action to get more comfortable with it. This struggle often occurs when something happens, and…

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Ways of Dealing with Social Anxiety

September 29, 2020

Kaitlin Broderick LCPC Social Anxiety is one of the most prevalent forms of anxiety affecting people today. So what is the difference between social anxiety and just being shy? With social anxiety, meeting new people or just any situation where there are a lot of people present can give rise to an excessive fear of saying something “awkward or embarrassing”. New situations can be uncomfortable for anyone but with a person who is socially anxious, the feeling…

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