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By: Danielle Bertini, LPC Breakups can be incredibly painful. Although it can seem impossible in the moment, there are some strategies that can help make the process a little easier, and potentially help you to be better prepared to make good, healthy choices when you’re ready to date again. Carmichael (2020) offers some tips to help cope. Don’t grieve alone. Losing a relationship can almost feel like a death of the relationship. If you view it through…
Read MoreBy: Danielle Bertini, LPC Let’s be honest, being a parent is scary. From abduction and abuse, their child’s friendships, school performance, online threats like bullying, instilling healthy habits, the list goes on and on. It’s natural for parents to worry! However, how much worry is too much worry? In many cases, anxiety paralyzes not just the parent, but also the child, making children fearful and repressing their development. Parental worry can limit children’s opportunities to engage in…
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Zoe Mittman, LSW The question, how do I prioritize myself, may have popped into your mind before. If so, you have to come to the right place. Putting yourself first is difficult. You might be struggling to take the first step, or the fear of being perceived as selfish may be consuming you. However, you are not alone and you are in control of prioritizing yourself. You have the potential to take the first step towards improving…
Read MoreJessica Pontis, LCSW While the holidays are typically portrayed as something uplifting and joyous for many people this may not be the case. For some the holidays may be a time of stress and heightened perfectionist tendencies, for others a time of grief over a family member who passed away, a few may feel the financial weight that comes with the pressure to give gifts and buy food. Many may feel saddened by the lack of connection…
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Danielle Farmer, LPC When the weather shifts, the holiday season looms, and the end of the year approaches it can be easy to look at all the things you weren’t able to accomplish or focus on the relationships that do not exist in your life. There are several tips and tricks on how you can take back control of how you are feeling, and it all starts with your perspective. Tip one: Focus on the Positives It’s…
Read MoreBy: Zana Van Der Smissen, LPC (TW: Eating Disorders. This article does contain content that might be triggering for some. If you find yourself feeling uncomfortable, please step away from the article and take time for yourself or reach out for help at Symmetry Counseling) Hello again and welcome back to the second part of this blog, how to prepare for the holidays with an eating disorder. In the first part, I talked all about tips on…
Read MoreBy: Bridgette W. Gottwald, LPC, NCC If you read my previous blog posts, this is the final part to the three-part blog series about human growth and development. It discusses the progression from what you need to know about growth and development, the evolution of children’s growth, and the final years of childhood as one slowly approaches adolescence where much of their personality and traits have already developed and are set in stone. Amidst middle childhood, which…
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By: Bridgette W. Gottwald, LPC, NCC You might find yourself asking why is all of this information important? Well, in learning more about the developmental phase from infancy to toddlerhood, you will start to see and understand how things that took place within your earliest developmental phase and how they have affected your personality and ways of looking at life. The evolution of growth is fascinating and it happens quickly with children. Amidst the developmental stage of…
Read MoreBy: Bridgette W. Gottwald, LPC, NCC The developmental phase from infancy to toddlerhood is described as a pivotal growth period of drastic change in the beginning of a human’s life. This phase, like all other developmental stages, has many milestones involving developmental, physical, emotional, spiritual and cognitive components. Infancy to toddlerhood is one of the most remarkable and fast paced times of development where extreme changes in the body and brain occur that support motor skills and…
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Written by Kara Thompson, Licensed Social Worker In Part I of this series, we talked about the reality of childhood friendships being founded on similarities, companionship, and chance. These relationships are often heavily impacted by the adults in our lives, with more minimal emphasis on choice. In Part II of this series, we are going to dive into the ways in which friendships transition throughout the lifespan. But first, let’s go back to the basics. As defined…
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