A simple blog post about mental health counseling, therapy, and the therapeutic healing process.
Olivia Dalke, Professional Counselor Associate, MA Burnout is something most people experience at some point in their lives. The most common type of burnout that I hear about is job/career burnout. Since we spend so much of our time at work, job burnout can begin to look and feel a lot like depression. You might … Read more
Developing our language for trauma, safety, abuse, integration, and other emotion / relational concepts can help us develop and understand our own experience – here I talk briefly about the way these realities of safety, connection, trauma, can be understood on a “spectrum.” A few examples to supplement what I share in this video: Some … Read more
Chances are, that ex or the in-laws you’re dealing with aren’t diagnosable with narcissistic personality disorder. This is in reference to the many, many posts, articles, social media articles diagnosing and assessing whether someone has NPD traits, or otherwise. Similarly, many self-diagnose themselves with some severe clusters of symptoms (bipolar, OCD, etc) when they may … Read more
The clinicians at Progress Counseling work with a wide variety of clients — in reference to the point of this post, “acceptance” is interchangeable with the feeling of connection, being wanted, belonging. For the clients who have decided to share their healing journey with us, the flavor or form of the healing can mean resolving … Read more
In this video, I talk about the “gap,” “safety” as an internal experience of the “real,” labeling, and how we can more effectively notice and verbalize in ourselves our experience, needs, and internal sensations as it relates to safety. The Irish, instead of saying “I’m sad” will say “I have a sadness.” Similarly, we can … Read more
Somatic awareness refers to the practice of cultivating a deeper understanding and connection with your body, sensations, and physical experiences. As a therapist, I believe that developing somatic awareness can be a powerful tool for self-exploration, healing, and personal growth. Throughout this post, we will delve into the significance of somatic awareness, its benefits, and … Read more
The difference between a person who suffers from some kind of anxiety disorder (or who may present with some of the symptoms of GAD) a “typical” / “Neurotypical” person’s thinking can be significant and often involves the intensity, frequency, and content of their thoughts. Everyone experiences anxiety to some degree at various points in their … Read more
One of my main interests in therapy is helping clients to reckon with the identity shattering trauma of religious wounding and spiritual abuse. So many people traverse life with open sores even decades after exiting a Christian community. I came across a poem originating in my own healing journey from my journal this morning: The … Read more
Whatever may be “helpful” for you is subject to whatever is happening for you right now. For some, their day-to-day life role has a lot of intensity, connectedness, demands, responsibility. For folks in that situation, getting away from everything is going to be the thing that body, mind, soul needs. Then, there’s the other case … Read more
Turn on grayscale! Here’s how: If you’re using an iPhone as your daily handset of choice, open up the Settings app, then choose Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters. Turn the Color Filters toggle switch on, and Grayscale appears as the top option. Presto! All color has drained from your iPhone’s screen, … Read more