Atalie's Posts, Relationships & Communication
Becky White George
The Importance of Social Connection

In our fast-paced, technology-driven world, it can become easy to lose sight of one of the most fundamental aspects of our human nature—social connection. As social creatures, we are biologically wired to connect with one another, create strong bonds, and form lasting relationships.

The Importance of Social Connection
Jessica's Posts, Trauma and Mental Health
Becky White George
Sense Memories

Our senses play a pivotal role in how we form, store, and retrieve memories. This is because the brain areas responsible for processing sensory input are closely linked to the regions that store and retrieve memories. The hippocampus, which organizes and recalls memories, works together with the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain. They ensure that emotionally charged events are more vividly stored in memory. This link exists for both extraordinarily painful and joyful memories alike.

Sense Memories
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

Jessica's Posts

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Licensed Therapist

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Licensed Therapist

Before beginning the process of applying to grad school, I couldn’t have confidently told you the difference between a therapist, a counselor, a psychologist, and a social worker. The deeper I dove, the more titles were introduced: AMFT, LMFT, APCC, LPCC, LCSW, PhD, PsyD… Needless to say, I was confused. Now, after graduate school, practicums, internships, and a lot of studying in between, I can proudly say that I am a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT) at Root to Rise Therapy, which employs both Associate Marriage & Family Therapists (AMFTs, who are pre-licensed) and LMFTs. There are benefits to working with both, and I can wholeheartedly recommend every therapist at our practice. For more information about our amazing AMFTs you can read their bios and check out this past blog post about the benefits of working with an AMFT.

For this post, I will focus on 5 key benefits of working with an LMFT:

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Tiktok Therapy

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Tiktok Therapy

The other day in a session, as I was trying to recall where I had recently heard about a specific symptom a client of mine was describing, I awkwardly realized I had just watched a video about it on Tiktok. Luckily, this happened with a Gen Z client who had taken to sending me relevant Tiktok videos in between sessions and we had a laugh together about my realization. A year ago, I could have never imagined saying “I saw it on Tiktok” in relation to mental health. Now, I find that more and more therapists are on Tiktok, and more and more clients come to session referencing videos they’ve seen. This realization got me wondering about the benefits and drawbacks of #tiktoktherapy, a hashtag that has 761 Million views. Here are some benefits and some drawbacks and cautions about Tiktok Therapy.

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Conflict in Friendships

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Conflict in Friendships

The first big heartbreak of my life was a friend breakup when I was 16. The story is about as classic as it gets: childhood friends, awkward middle school years, different high school friend groups, and a crippling fear of confrontation coupled with a need for acceptance. You can imagine the betrayal I felt when I soon learned she had a birthday party the previous week and told people not to mention it to me. However, instead of expressing my hurt and embarrassment, my 16 year old self simply stopped being friends with her and never told her why. I think back to this friendship often and wish I had the tools to share my feelings and gain some sense of closure and understanding. In reality, however, I’m not sure if many of us have tools that are much more effective in handling friendship conflicts in adulthood!

Here are 5 tips for working through conflicts in adult friendships that we may have never learned:

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Adult Friendships

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Adult Friendships

When we’re younger, we have the built-in structure of school to introduce us to other children and adolescents our age. And let’s face it, adults can be more judgmental and closed-off than most children. The fear of judgment or rejection stops so many of us from putting ourselves out there, thus watching friendships dwindle in adulthood is incredibly common. However, we still need friendships now as much as we did as children.

When I googled “adult friendships”, the three most searched questions that came up were “Is it normal to not have friends in adulthood?” “Is it harder to make friends as you age?” and “How do 25-year-olds make friends?” These questions are so frequently Googled and so infrequently asked IRL. So why are so many of us experiencing this trend, and what can we do?

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Estranged Parents

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Estranged Parents

If a friend came to you for advice about how to move forward in a relationship that was causing them continual distress and pain, what advice would you give them? If you’ve been in therapy before, you’d probably encourage them to start by communicating their feelings. If that doesn’t work, setting boundaries would most likely be the next course of action. If the boundaries were not respected and your friend continued to be hurt, you would start to hint at ending the relationship. This advice feels relatively straightforward in a romantic or companion relationship. But what happens if the relationship that is causing continual distress and pain is with a parent? Does the course of action change? This very question comes up in therapy sessions with adult children regularly, yet rarely without some sense of guilt or shame. In reality, around 27% of adults experience family estrangement that either they or another family member initiates (Karl Pillemer, Fault Lines). So much of the stigma surrounding family estrangement is based upon the assumption that our parents being in our lives is always the best option for our mental health. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. If you are an adult child struggling with having an estranged relationship with a parent, here are some important things to remember:

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Split Ambivalence

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Split Ambivalence

“Splitting the ambivalence” describes the phenomenon that occurs when two people become so polarized in their stances that they are unable to step out of their positions. This occurs in relationships of all forms, but for this conversation I’m going to focus on romantic relationships. As Esther Perel describes it, “people come in with a story that is either/or” and the story becomes ‘I want one thing and my partner wants the opposite’. When one person adamantly says they want one thing, and the other passionately says no, it feels like one partner has 0% doubt and the other is 100% doubtful. Rather than meeting in the middle, one partner takes on one half of the perspective, which polarizes and puts the other half on their partner. I know this can all be a bit confusing in generalities, so here’s an example of how it can play out in couples therapy.

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The Post-Holiday Blues

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The Post-Holiday Blues

January is the Monday of the year. The holidays are over, it feels like there’s nothing to look forward to, you’ve returned from your travels (or moved from the couch to your desk), your kids are back at school, and you’ve started back up at work. The weather is bleak and there is less daylight (though I can hear everyone outside of Los Angeles rolling their eyes at me); life returns to normal, yet for many of us we don’t feel normal at all. We expect to start the new year feeling well rested, calmer and more grounded, and ready to make all of the changes in our lives that will make us a new and improved person. This all sounds wonderful, albeit unrealistic. If you’re struggling with adjusting to 2022, here are some ways to combat the post-holiday blues

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Coping with Grief

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Coping with Grief

“And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.”- Maya Angelou


These lines from the poem “When Great Trees Fall” by Maya Angelou were read to me in session by a client as she prepared for her first Thanksgiving without her husband. Though this client has been feeling the immense weight of her grief daily and even hourly, the thought of the imminent holiday season has been bringing up new and intense emotions. The experience of managing grief comes up every year in therapy sessions, but this year the grieving feels even more pervasive as so many of us have lost family members throughout the pandemic. In some way, we are all grieving the loss of unmet expectations and hopes from the past 21 months.

For many, the end of the year holidays signifies a time of togetherness, happiness, and celebration. For those of us that are grieving, these feelings are muddled together with pain, loneliness, longing, resentment, and a myriad of other emotions. Creating space for all of these jumbled emotions can feel overwhelming. Here are some coping skills to keep in mind this holiday season for anyone experiencing grief in any form.

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ADHD Symptoms in Women

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ADHD Symptoms in Women

Women with ADHD are often overlooked, misdiagnosed, or undiagnosed all together. After working with Kaitlin* over the past year, I have been able to witness the long-term effects of this oversight and the journey it can take to receive an accurate diagnosis. Kaitlin has lived the majority of her life with various mental health symptoms that never quite fit into any one diagnosis. She has spent years testing out various medications and treatment methods with only limited success. This year, at age 34, she received an ADHD diagnosis and finally felt everything click into place. As I celebrated this feeling of relief and progress with Kaitlin, I started thinking more seriously about why and how this diagnosis took so long to figure out. Looking at my own caseload, I realized that almost all of my female clients with ADHD or ADD were diagnosed later in life. This pattern within my client base is representative of the current statistics regarding ADHD: 50-75% of women with ADHD go completely undiagnosed. Using Kaitlin as my inspiration, I started learning more about what has been missing in ADHD research and diagnosis and what is finally improving now. Here’s what I’ve been learning:

 

Start With You. Today.