By Tammy Blackard Cook, LCSW, CDWF Y’all, this is hard. None of us have been through anything like this before. For me, Brené Brown’s words and wisdom have always been a balm, so I was grateful to hear her new podcast “Unlocking Us.” Full disclosure: This post distills the first episode of “Unlocking Us” and [...]
By Hailey Shafir, LPCS, LCAS, CCS-I As a counselor, I often find myself helping clients reframe, or think differently, about their emotions. Many people come to counseling because they are struggling with difficult emotions like sadness, anxiety, or anger and often describe these emotions as “problems” they are hoping to get rid of. The thing [...]
The time between the ages of 8 and 14 can be a difficult period for any child. Puberty is a chaotic experience for both boys and girls. Tween and teen girls are forced to cope with the added challenge of their confidence taking a plunge during these years. Girls this age experience an extremely significant [...]
By Crystal Yarborough After experiencing a traumatic event, many people are aware of the possibility of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). People may not consider that growth can also happen after a traumatic experience. The notion that good things can happen from bad events is not a novel idea, but post-traumatic growth is becoming a [...]
As part of Aspire’s move toward being a resiliency-focused counseling group, we are helping to train professionals in the Wake County Public School System in the Community Resiliency Model (CRM). CRM is a skills-based model that helps people bring their nervous system back into balance after periods of chronic stress or a traumatic event. What’s [...]
Time magazine recently ran a cover story titled “Anxiety, Depression and the American Adolescent: Why the Kids Are Not Alright,” which indicated 30% of girls and 20% of boys have had an anxiety disorder — that’s 6.3 million kids. Another three million have had a major depressive episode in the past year. The article asserts “adolescents [...]
My therapist probably (definitely) wouldn’t appreciate me saying this but, I suck at MANY things. From waking up on time to backflips to that stupid statistics class my junior year of college…there is a significantly long list of things I am inherently bad at. Recently, and probably more detrimental than my lack of backflipping skill, [...]
In college, one of my favorite songs was the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine.” The lyrics felt like freedom to me and still do: I’m trying to tell you somethin’ about my life Maybe give me insight between black and white And the best thing you’ve ever done for me Is to help me take [...]
