Anxiety
Madissyn Fredericks, Licensed Professional Counselor, Symmetry Counseling We are all guilty of it. Many of us overuse Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to fill most of our free time. If there is some extra down time at the office, on the commute home, or on our days off it feels basically automatic to pull out our phones scroll through social media. According to Social Media Today, the average person is spending approximately 2 hours per day on social…
Matthew Cuddeback, LCSW If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, please reach out for support right now. You can contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline any time by calling or texting 988. You know the feeling before you have a word for it. You are in the room, but you are also somewhere behind yourself, watching it happen from a step away. Time skips. You lose a few minutes and cannot account for them. Someone…
Steven Losardo, LMFT It was November 28th, 2014, or Black Friday 2014, and somehow, I got an internal nudge to begin my 2015 New Year’s Resolution (NYR). Looking for any excuse to avoid shopping, I decided to stay home to review what drives me to sign up for NYRs each year, NYR planning, and benefits to even having resolutions. First, I reviewed my 2014 “highlights.” ⦁ Despite my good intentions to make the change life-sustaining, my NYR lasted…
Amanda Gregory, LCPC, EMDR You’re entering into a new romantic relationship and you want to do everything you can to start on the right foot. You want to promote a relationship that is healthy, supportive, and thriving. How do you accomplish this? Here are four guidelines to consider in order to support a new relationship: Be authentic. When you first meet someone, you naturally want to put your best foot forward. Dating can sometimes feel like a…
Amanda Gregory, LCPC, EMDR In my blog An Inside Look: Symmetry Counseling’s Therapists Reveal Their Self-Care Practices, I spoke with five therapists who practice at Symmetry Counseling, Chicago’s mental health and relationship specialists, to discover how they practice self-care. This time we’ll hear from a few more Symmetry therapists to discover more of their personal self-care methods. Podcasts Matthew Cuddeback, LCSW, listens to podcasts to manage stress. “The most helpful way I have found to practice self-care…
Maggie Reynolds, LCPC, NCC We often talk about our creations, our decisions, our opinions, and our beliefs without looking further into the processes that led us there. Mindfulness has become a big part of mental health treatment and life for many people. An important component of mindfulness can be identifying and understanding the way your mind works and not just what thoughts or emotions you may be experiencing. What follows are some common mental processes: Concentration Flow…
Kaitlin Broderick, LCPC You just got back from another amazing date with a new person. You have been texting back and forth, having late night phone calls, and receiving the physical and emotional attention you had been fantasizing about just a few weeks earlier. Feeling giddy and euphoric, you can’t wait to call your friends and tell them the good news — you finally met “the one.” However, even though this exhilarating feeling is fun and new…
Mindfulness has been practiced in Eastern cultures for centuries in religious, non-religious, and traditional ways. Like a tree with strong roots, mindfulness has become rooted in Western society. Mindfulness is quickly being integrated into our culture to help physicians care for their patients, in schools around the country, and by mental health professionals. Mental health providers use mindfulness as a tool to treat anxiety, depression, to reduce rumination, or for emotional and attention regulation. There are numerous…
Effective communication is not as simple as it might seem on the surface. It is a skill that takes time, energy, and practice to develop. Effective communication is more than just talk. It involves active listening and appropriate, honest expression. Following are some helpful tips for the two elements of communication: expressing and listening. Expressing Effective expression will not put others on the defensive or escalate conflict. Try some of the recommendations below: Use “I” messages instead…
Kaitlin Broderick M.Ed, LCPC The holidays are also known as the happiest time of the year. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for a large majority of people. Many find the holidays to be the most stressful time of the year for a myriad of reasons. The holidays can be a source of financial stress for many people ranging from reasons of having to travel to see family, buying gifts for extended amounts of people, decorating the house…