Trauma and Mental Health, Helene's Posts
Becky White George
Identifying Trauma

When we talk about “trauma,” we’re talking about an emotional or psychological response to a distressing event or experience. It’s not necessarily the event itself that’s traumatic but rather the way it impacts a person’s sense of safety, stability, or identity. Trauma often leaves people feeling overwhelmed, helpless, or disconnected from themselves or others.

Identifying Trauma
Relationships & Communication, Kalie's posts
Becky White George
Nurturing Friendships

I often use Gottman’s Sound Marital House as a framework to help couples build strong, healthy relationships. This theory breaks down into several key components that can enhance connection and resilience. One skill that stands out to me is Shared Fondness and Admiration, which involves openly expressing appreciation and respect for your partner (or friend).

Nurturing Friendships
Relationships & Communication, Sophia's Posts
Becky White George
Validation in Romantic Relationships

The importance of validation is something I emphasize with couples as it creates a dynamic based on understanding rather than score-keeping or proving right and wrong. In an emotionally charged conversation, it's common for individuals to focus primarily on their own emotional experience instead of their partner’s. Rather than listening to what the other person is saying, we may be thinking about our own response.

Validation in Romantic Relationships
Atalie's Posts, Relationships & Communication
Becky White George
Flexibility In Friendships

A common struggle for many of my clients in their 20s is navigating friendships. This includes friendship conflicts, growing apart, reassessing the closeness of the friendship, and defining what types of friendships feel fulfilling in which ones feel draining. In these conversations, we explore the importance of flexibility in friendships and why it becomes so much more pertinent during this life stage.

Flexibility In Friendships
Jessica's Posts, Trauma and Mental Health
Becky White George
Intellectualizing Feelings

I have thought through every situation from every possible angle my brain can come up with and analyzed so much of my life and experience that it often feels exhausting. This “self-awareness” can start to feel incredibly frustrating when I have some understanding, yet I still find myself in familiar patterns or generally not feeling better. If this description sounds familiar to you, you might be intellectualizing your feelings vs. actually feeling them.

Intellectualizing Feelings

CBT

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I'm FINE

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I'm FINE

It’s 7 PM on a Tuesday and your partner asks, “How are you? How was your day?” You stop to consider how to answer the question. You do a quick scan of your body and try to remember the day. Your neck is hurting from sitting at the computer, thoughts swirling in your head about that salty interaction you and your partner had that morning that went unaddressed, you just got a panicked text from your mother who needs you to call her immediately, you are annoyed with yourself for eating the peanut m & m’s when you said you wouldn’t, and to boot, you were up half the night stressing about a work project, so you were completely exhausted the entire day.

So, when your partner asks “How are you?” all you are able to muster up is the answer “I’m fine. It was fine.”

I’ve heard a few acronyms to describe the word FINE. F=Fucked Up, I= Insecure, N=Neurotic, and E=Emotional.

I also heard that FINE stands for Feelings Inside Not Expressed- a slightly more compassionate description. In my example above, from the neck pain to the disappointment in myself for eating the M & Ms, to the salty interaction from the morning, there were many feelings happening that were not being said.

Anxiety Reduction

Anxiety Reduction

Uh oh. You’ve found yourself in an anxiety-producing situation. Your heart begins to race, you begin to sweat, your breathing starts to quicken and your first thought is “I have to get out of this!.” Or maybe you’re not even in this situation yet; you’re just anticipating the anxiety to come. So what is this pesky feeling we call anxiety and how can we help ease it? Let’s first establish that feeling anxious is completely normal! If you think about the purpose of anxiety, it is to help you defend yourself. For example, if you see a bear in the woods, your anxiety would kick into gear and trigger your fight-or-flight response, to tell you that you need to get out of there! In that case, the anxiety is helpful in defending yourself; but what about in a job interview, or an exam? Do you need to be in an elevated fight-or-flight state for that type of situation? No, and your body knows that too. It is incredibly exhausting for the body and mind to maintain such high levels of arousal, and they will naturally try to bring themselves back to a normal state.

Relaxation skills and exercises are some of the most helpful techniques we can use to calm our stress response. What I love about these exercises is that most of them can be used discreetly in public, and they immediately help you regain control of your body. Here are my top 4 tools for managing anxiety in the moment, so that you can self-soothe, get yourself out of that fight or flight mode, and bring yourself back to calm.

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Getting the Most out of Therapy

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Getting the Most out of Therapy

How to Make the Most Out of Your Time in Therapy

So you’ve finally taken the leap and decided to commit to therapy. Congratulations! You’ve had your consultation calls, made your choice of therapist, and filled out your intake paperwork. You sit across from the therapist on the couch, or open up your computer screen and hope the camera is angled in a way where your sweatpants are hidden. Given the investment of time and money, and your high hopes for a successful therapy experience, you may want to know, “How can I get the absolute most out of my therapy session?”


Here are 5 tips to make the most out of your time in therapy:

Associate Therapist

Associate Therapist

In your search for the right therapist, you may have come across the term Associate Marriage & Family Therapist, the acronym AMFT, or the term Pre-Licensed Therapist. Perhaps you wondered what that means. You may have wondered if they are qualified or experienced enough to help you with your concerns. Maybe you’re just not sure if they can handle the complexities of your situation, but you don’t want to offend anyone by asking.

It is totally reasonable for you to wonder about these things, and any therapist’s office should welcome your questions. We’re happy to share with you that not only can associate therapists be a good fit for your needs, there are some distinct benefits to working with an associate therapist. We’ve broken them down for you here.

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Mental Health Support

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Mental Health Support

As someone with limited athletic ability and no cable subscription, sports, in particular tennis and gymnastics, have never been a big part of my life. This year, however, Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles changed that. Their bravery in bringing mental health into the dialogue highlighted the incongruence between how we may assume someone is feeling and their internal world. This year, I cared about sports.

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Therapy: What to Expect

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Therapy: What to Expect

Are you considering starting therapy but you feel intimidated or unclear on what actually happens in the first session? Do you wonder if there is some way to prepare? Starting therapy can be daunting and lots of people aren’t totally sure what even happens in therapy. In this post we will give you the inside scoop on what your first therapy session will be like.

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How to Find a Therapist

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How to Find a Therapist

Finding the right therapist can feel daunting and overwhelming, but it is an important step in starting therapy. Therapy is a powerful tool for gaining awareness into why we are the way we are, and why we do the things we do. Through gaining insight, we are then able to change certain behaviors or thinking patterns that do not serve us, as well as learn to accept the things that we cannot change. In order to do this work, we need to be willing to step into more vulnerable spaces and get in touch with emotions that might feel uncomfortable. So finding someone that you feel comfortable with is of the utmost importance-you need to feel safe to explore more vulnerable or triggering topics.

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Starting Therapy

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Starting Therapy

11 signs it’s time to start therapy

Claudia* was 23 and had her first post-college boyfriend. She felt the pressures of that bizarre, early 20-something time, when she no longer had the structure and clear purpose of college guiding her actions. She had her first full-time job and first full-time live-in boyfriend. And she found herself getting upset about, well, everything. Everything he did made her mad. It was like they were in a constant fight. She felt sad and angry all the time and could not figure out where this was coming from. She always had positive, close relationships with her girlfriends and from what she could tell, a happy healthy upbringing and family. So why did she feel like such a mess in her relationship?

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What are you noticing now?

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What are you noticing now?

For any client or practitioner of EMDR, you are no stranger to this question. The question “What are you noticing now?” is at the fulcrum of EMDR therapy. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) is a therapy treatment which reprocesses memories that became stuck in our brains and bodies during the trauma. The present-moment focus of EMDR couples beautifully with Mindfulness: a continual refocusing of your attention on the present moment. In Mindfulness, we recognize that we have stories about our past that loop, narratives in our mind that play like a tape over and over again. We worry about the future. And this is all leads to dukkha, or suffering, the First Noble Truth of Buddhism.

 

Start With You. Today.