Articles
Writing from our clinicians on anxiety, parenting, relationships, and the everyday work of looking after your mental health.
2025
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Navigating Autumn’s Impact on Mental Health
As the vibrant greens of summer give way to the fiery reds, oranges, and golds of autumn, there's a certain magic in the air. Crisp mornings, cozy
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Improving Communication Skills in Your Relationships
Effective communication is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship, whether it's with a partner, family member, friend, or colleague. When
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Finding Your Footing: Navigating Social Anxiety in Social Situations
Social situations, from casual gatherings to professional networking events, are a fundamental part of life. Yet, for many, the thought of them can
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Building and Maintaining Meaningful Friendships
In our increasingly interconnected yet sometimes isolating world, the importance of genuine friendships cannot be overstated. Meaningful friendships
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How Journaling for Emotional Processing and Self-Reflection Enhances Counseling
In the journey of self-discovery and healing, finding effective tools for emotional processing and self-reflection is key. While therapy provides a vital
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How Counseling Can Help You Navigate Summer Stress
We all know summer is supposed to be fun, but that fun never comes without some level of stress. Let's take a look at some common stressors that can
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Understanding Attachment Styles and Their Impact on Relationships
Have you ever wondered why you gravitate towards certain types of people in relationships, or why you react to intimacy and closeness in particular ways?
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How Your Values Work with Counseling Hand in Hand
What does it mean to live an authentic life? It's a question many of us ponder, often feeling a disconnect between who we are and who we feel we should
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The Gentle Revolution: Why Self-Compassion is Key to Well-being
In a world that often emphasizes achievement, productivity, and relentless self-improvement, it's easy to become our own harshest critic. We hold
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Developing a Stronger Sense of Self-Esteem: Practical Strategies for Building Confidence
What is self-esteem? Self-esteem is how much you value, respect, and feel confident about yourself. It's about how you view your worth as a person. When
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Taking the First Step: What to Expect in Your First Therapy Session
Deciding to start therapy is a courageous and significant step towards prioritizing your well-being. However, the unknown can sometimes feel daunting. If
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When is the Right Time to Seek Counseling?
Sometimes life can become overwhelming, the path ahead feels complicated, and navigating it alone can feel impossible. If you're reading this, you might
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Just Venting or Real Progress? Understanding the Difference Between Talking to a Friend and a Therapist
We all need someone to talk to. When life throws curveballs, or even when we just need to process our day, reaching out to a friend can feel like a
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Understanding the Different Types of Therapy
Therapy or Counseling is a powerful tool that can help people of all ages and backgrounds address a wide range of mental health concerns. There are many
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Breaking Down the Stigma of Mental Health and Seeking Therapy
Mental health is just as important as physical health, yet there is still a stigma surrounding seeking help for mental health concerns. This stigma can
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The Power of Mindfulness: Bringing Awareness to the Present Moment
It can be easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily life. We may find ourselves constantly thinking about the past or worrying about the
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Finding Meaning and Purpose in Your Life
In today's society, it can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, political stress and conflict, and lose sight of the bigger picture. We may find
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The Power of Setting Healthy Boundaries
In today's fast-paced world, it can be difficult to set and maintain healthy boundaries in our relationships. We may feel pressured to say yes to
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Breaking the Cycle of Negative Self-Talk
Negative self-talk is a common experience that can have a significant impact on our mental and emotional well-being. It is a pattern of self-criticism and
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Acceptance as a Tool for Managing Depression
Depression is a serious mental health condition that can affect people of all ages. It is characterized by feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and loss of
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Navigating the Political Storm: Strategies for Managing Political Stress
In today's world, it's hard to escape the constant barrage of political news and opinions. From social media feeds to dinner table conversations, politics
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Why Choose Counseling?
Counseling, also known as therapy or psychotherapy, is a process of working with a mental health professional to improve your emotional, mental, and
2020
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Assertive Vs Aggressive
Communication difficulties are probably the number one cause of conflict, breakdown of relationships, and resulting stress. Unfortunately, communication
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Beating the Holiday Blues
Thanksgiving is the start of Holiday season. A period in time filled with family, food, gifts, fun, and much much chaos. While it is a joyous time, many
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Mental Health vs Behavioral Health
When are the terms “Mental Health” and “Behavioral Health” used, and what specifically do they refer to? The field of mental health has been undergoing
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What is Motivational Interviewing?
Motivational interviewing (MI) is a therapy approach that works on facilitating and engaging intrinsic motivation within a client in order to change
2019
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Avoiding the End of School Slump
As kids approach the end it can be difficult to keep them motivated. This lack of motivation often results in difficulties completing work, power
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What is Co-Dependence?
Co-dependency is an emotional condition that affects someone's behavior and ability to have healthy and mutually satisfying relationships. People who
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Prepping For a Mentally Healthy Summer
There are two type of people when it comes to the anticipation of summer, those who rejoice and those who dread. As a child, summer holds everything that
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Challenging Cognitive Distortions
Cognitive distortions come in many forms; however, they consistently result in excessive worry. Basically, cognitive distortions are exaggerated and
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Coping With Political Stress and Conflict
It's politics season. Some people love it, some people loathe it and chances are those people often collide. For those who love it the constant media
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The Different Types of Self-Care
Self-care is simply that, the act of caring for yourself. During the times we need it the most, or high stress times in our life, is when we do it the
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The Monday Morning Routine
Mondays. People don't like them and in general dread them. They are the end of the weekend and the start of the work week. It is the day that is usually
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What is Social Thinking?
Social thinking, or social cognition, refers to what we do any time we are interacting with someone, sharing space with someone, or basically engaging in
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Why Rapport Matters in Therapy
When it comes to therapy, rapport refers to the relationship between the client and therapist. In many psychological theories rapport is the foundation
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Highly Sensitive Children
The term highly sensitive child has been used more frequently recently and has helped many care givers to understand a group of children that were often
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What is Gender Dysphoria?
Gender dysphoria is the diagnosis given when the gender at birth is different than the gender they identify with later in life. Often times, significant
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What is Sibling Rivalry? Why Does it Happen?
Sibling rivalry is often time the source of conflict between two or more siblings, but it is not always a bad thing. It is by nature the competition
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Pick Your Battles
Either in parenting or working with children, one of the most common pieces of advice that you will receive is to pick your battles, but what does this
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Stop Letting Setbacks Stop You
Almost everyone at some point in their life has set a huge goal for their self, and most everyone has had numerous failed attempts at reaching that goal.
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Keeping Your Mental Health a Priority
Mental Health is the state of your psychological well being. The goal is for this to be a positive state without the presence of any mental disorders
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Lying to Yourself and Cognitive Distortions
A cognitive distortion is the mind's way of convincing us of things that are not true. A cognition is a thought and a distortion is a variation from the
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How to Help a Child Understand Their Feelings
Emotions are hard enough to understand for us as adults, but for children, it can be nearly impossible. They can appear or change suddenly and for no
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Lunch Breaks and Leaving Work On Time
These days, people often feel pressure to do more, work more, and struggle to disconnect from their work. It has become rare or a privilege to leave work
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Becoming an Optimist
It is easy to say there are two types of people out there, pessimists and optimists. The reality is there is so much gray area in between. It is almost
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Motivating the Unmotivated Child
One of the most frustrating things parents, teachers, or other adults deal with is helping an unmotivated child; seeing the potential or ability of a
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Shy Verses Introvert
The terms introvert and extrovert are commonly used and its safe to say that most people know what they mean. There are never ending discussions about
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Stopping the “What Ifs?”
Everyone has moments where they worry about the what ifs. They are actually a necessary part of life and assist in the decision making process or
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What to Say and Not Say to an Anxious Child
Children with anxiety love there parents just the same as other children. They look up to them, they listen to them, and they want to be able to trust
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Why You Should Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
As much as we all try to deny it, comparing ourselves to others is part of our daily life. Whether its comparing how we look, where we work, how much
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The Importance of Forgiveness
What is forgiveness? Forgiveness is the cognitive decision to let go of resentment and release any thought of revenge. It does not mean that we forget the
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How To Create Motivation
Finding motivation is probably one of the most difficult things to do once it is lost. Generally a loss of motivation is a symptom of a more systemic
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The Social Media Shield and Cyber Bullying
Social Media has quickly become one of the top forms of socialization and communication. This development has allowed for a number of positive changes,
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When Does Teasing Become Bullying?
While nobody would argue that any type of teasing is acceptable, the ideas of teasing and bullying are often confused and there is a significant
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Balancing Rewards and Consequences in Parenting
Discipline is a common point of contention and confusion in the parenting community. Everyone has an opinion on what works and what hurts. The problem is,
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Parenting and Respect
In clinical practice we often have parents come into session expressing concern over their children disrespecting them and acting out. They often make
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What is Separation Anxiety?
Separation Anxiety is defined by the DSM as developmentally inappropriate and excessive anxiety concerning separation from home or from those to whom the
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What is a Phobia?
A phobia is an overwhelming and unreasonable fear of an object or situation that poses little real danger but provokes anxiety and avoidance. Phobias are
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What is ODD?
In children and adolescents, ODD is a pattern of angry and irritable mood, argumentative and defiant behavior, and possibly vindictiveness beyond what is
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National Eating Disorder Awareness Week: 2019
This week marks the beginning of the National Eating Disorder Awareness Week for 2019. The theme chosen for this year is COME AS YOU ARE. This year’s
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What is Depression?
Depression is a general term that refers to a symptom pattern common to a grouping of mental health disorders. Depression can refer to the symptom itself,
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Your Mental Energy Bucket
What is your "Mental Energy Bucket"? I am a firm believer that we, as humans, hold within us a bank of mental energy. I refer to this as the “mental
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What is Client Centered Therapy?
Client Centered Therapy, also known as Person Centered Therapy, is centered around the belief that the client more often then not is capable of healing
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Why Use A Cloud Based Intake System?
How do you manage intakes? There are very few intake management systems out there specifically for mental health, and even fewer that are cloud based and
2017
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Exploring the Self Leads to Peace
When we think of being mentally healthy, we tend to think of a state of being that is devoid of negative thinking, lacking sadness or pain, and virtually
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Self-Injury Awareness Month
March is Self-Injury Awareness month and the perfect opportunity to discuss what self-injury is and how to support someone who struggles with injuring.
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Making the Most of Mondays
Monday, or in other words, the most dreaded day of the week. It signifies the end of the weekend and the start of the work week and usually starts off
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What is an Eating Disorder?
Eating disorders do not discriminate. They can impact children, young adults, the elderly, and any gender.
2016
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The Art of Positive Thinking
So often in the psychology and mental health world you hear people focusing on negative thinking patterns, cognitive distortions, and how to confront
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Making Your Mental Health a Priority
Mental Health is the state of your psychological well being. While the goal is for this to be a positive state without the presence of any mental
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Mini Mindfulness Exercises
Jumping right into a mindful way of life or even practicing mindfulness can seem a little overwhelming at first. There is an abundance of information out
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The Facts About Juicing
With the summer upon us and an abundance of produce at local farmers markets and grocery stores, lots of people ask dietitians and nutritionists about
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LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER HEALTH
As a clinic, The LodeStone Center endorses and follows the guidelines set forth by the American Psychological Association to expand psychology's role in
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Tips To Improve Communication
Poor communication skills can be a major contributor to a multitude of problems including frustration, poor relationships, difficulties keeping jobs,
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Warning Signs of an Abusive Relationship
Abusive relationships are all too common these days and unfortunately, it is so expected in some cases that even the people involved in the situation
2013
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The Power of Validation in Marriage
Validation remains one of the most powerful tools in a marriage. When used in conjunction with other tools learned in couples therapy, it can work wonders!
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Silver Linings Playbook: A Therapist’s Review
Silver Linings Playbook; an example of how when life can’t seemingly get any worse, it really can get better. The two main characters of this movie face a
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Hope and Kindness
I wish that I could say that I had been perfectly kind in high school. I wasn’t. I wish I could say that what other’s thought of me didn’t matter. It
2012
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Book Review: Talking to Eating Disorders: Simple Ways to Support Someone with Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating, or Body Image Issues
As a psychologist, I get asked all the time for book recommendations. Eating disorders (Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating Disorder) can be particularly
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Book Review: ADHD and Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table
ADHD and Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table by Blake E. S. Taylor ADHD and Me is enlightening for any person who is
2011
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Attendance at the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals (IAEDP) Heartland Chapter Event
The Saturday before last (December 3rd), I traveled downtown with Dr. Michelle Bidwell to attend the inaugural meeting for the Heartland Chapter of the
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Playful Parenting, by Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D.
The book Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen, PhD opens the door to the wonderful world of your child’s play by exploring the importance of different types of play. This book shows parents (and other adults) how to join in with your children, on their level, in order to communicate with them in a way they can understand.
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The Mindful Way through Depression
The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zin - Reviewed
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The Top 5 Tips for Changing Child and Teen Behavior
From the The LodeStone Center Staff 1. Pick Your Battles Many times that we have parents seeking advice on changing behaviors in their children or teens,
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Loving Your Teenager through Push and Pull
I’m sure we all remember our own teenage years or perhaps some of us would rather forget them. The teenage years are a difficult time in virtually
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Book Review:The Five Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman
Sometimes couples that are seeking help find that they have lost their focus on the natural ways that they tend to show affection to their spouse, and the