General

Meet Our Newest Team Member, Jessica Calhoon! Why I Do What I Do Growing up, my father was what I consider a ‘functional alcoholic”.  He provided for our family and from the outside looking in you probably would have never known the hardship it caused my family. I grew up in central Pennsylvania with my…

Taking a Step Back: The Unlikely Way to Actually Increase Compassion Satisfaction Feeling burnout and apathetic in your work? Struggling with Compassion Fatigue? We’ve all been there. We begin to feel like the compassion satisfaction when we first started the job is lost and unlikely to come back. Well, perhaps less is more… According to…

Motivation is a Myth Personally, I believe motivation is a myth. The myth is that we must be motivated to act. The trouble with this “motivation first” attitude is that it backfires. We think motivation is like a bubble. The longer we wait, the bigger it gets, the more likely we are to burst into…

Developmental Milestones: Helpful or Harmful? As a parent with a child about to turn one, it’s hard not to look at all the arbitrary check lists out there to make sure one’s child is “on track.”   As nice as it is to have Google at our fingertips with all of its normative statistics to…

Evan’s Story From addicted musician to professional therapist: Though the drugs have gone, the music goes on strong In the end, the light at the end of the tunnel had shrunk down to a tiny pinhole and all around me was a roiling universe of self-hatred, hopelessness, and fear. That’s where addiction took me.  What…

Why I’ve Never Charged a No-Show Fee… And I Never Will There’s some debate in the therapy world about the value and necessity of no-show fees. On the one hand, time is money and someone who cancels at the last minute is bad for business. On the other hand, no one’s perfect. Life happens. To…

There are certain companies I hate dealing with: AT&T, Direct TV, shady home warranty people, etc… Vista Print, however, is not one of them. For anyone looking to create their own brand for a business, event, or personalized gift, Vista Print is truly the way to go. Case in point, I recently ordered two branded…

What JFK and Joy Mangano Can Teach Us About Dealing With Stress Stress is a natural reaction to threatening situations in life. Often, it kicks in our primitive “fight-or-flight” reflex leading us to believe we have only those two options. This common misconception is not only not true, it can be downright dangerous. Taken at…

The Answer Isn’t Always More Therapy In my field, I see a lot of families who do a lot of therapy. Granted, this is a great problem to have as it shows the family is motivated, engaged, and invested. Still, when problems arise, more often than not my suggestion is NOT for more therapy. In…

The Symptoms of Stress According to the website, http://www.healthline.com/health/stress/effects-on-body,  “untamed” (my term, not theirs) chronic stress can have numerous negative effects on various components of our health.  The following is a brief synopsis on how each body system is affected by stress. Mentally, Emotionally and Socially             Symptoms of chronic stress include irritability, anxiety, and…