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Interesting Articles

• Self-Silencing Is Making Women Sick - A Times article written by a psychology who examines the increasing amount of research that is connecting self-silencing behaviors to autoimmune disorders in women.

• 10 Breathing Exercises to Try When You’re Feeling Stressed

• 21 Mindfulness Exercises & Activities for Adults

• Why ADHD Masking Is a Form of Self-Sabotage

How to Know When It Might Be Time to Start Therapy

You don’t need to be in crisis to benefit from therapy. Sometimes, it’s simply about having a supportive space to grow, heal, and better understand yourself. You might consider starting therapy if:

Emotional & Mental Health

☐ You feel overwhelmed, anxious, or stuck more often than not

☐ Your inner critic feels loud or hard to escape

☐ You’re struggling with low mood, motivation, or burnout

☐ You feel disconnected from yourself or your emotions

Daily Life & Stress

☐ Stress is interfering with your sleep, work, school, or relationships

☐ You’re having trouble managing responsibilities or transitions

☐ Small things feel like they take a lot of energy

Relationships & Identity

☐ You’re navigating relationship challenges or recurring conflict

☐ You’re exploring your identity, values, or sense of self

☐ You want to feel more confident setting boundaries

Personal Growth

☐ You want to better understand patterns in your thoughts or behaviors

☐ You’re ready to heal from past experiences, even if they feel “small”

☐ You want support becoming the version of yourself that feels most authentic

Gentle Reminder:

If you checked even one of these, therapy could be a supportive next step. You deserve care, understanding, and a space just for you. Therapy isn’t a last resort. It’s a space for understanding yourself, learning new tools, and creating a life that feels more grounded, aligned, and sustainable. You don’t need to have the right words. You don’t need a diagnosis.

You just need a desire for something to feel different.

Perfectionism vs Health Striving

Many people assume perfectionism is just “caring a lot” or “having high standards.” In reality, perfectionism and healthy striving may look similar on the surface, but they feel very different on the inside.

Understanding the difference can be a powerful step toward more sustainable motivation, self-compassion, and emotional well-being.

What Perfectionism Often Looks Like

Perfectionism is driven by fear: fear of failure, judgment, disappointment, or not being “enough.” Perfectionism often promises success or safety, but instead leads to burnout, anxiety, shame, and disconnection from yourself.

You might notice perfectionism when:

☐ Your self-worth feels tied to achievement, productivity, or appearance

☐ Mistakes feel intolerable or deeply personal

☐ You procrastinate because starting feels overwhelming

☐ You struggle to feel proud of your efforts, even when things go well

☐ Rest feels earned, not necessary

☐ You constantly move the goalpost for what’s “good enough”

☐ You’re motivated more by avoiding failure than pursuing growth

What Healthy Striving Looks Like

Healthy striving is driven by values, curiosity, and self-respect; not fear. Healthy striving allows room for ambition and humanity.

You may be engaging in healthy striving when:

☐ You set goals that are flexible and realistic

☐ Mistakes are uncomfortable but seen as part of learning

☐ Your worth feels separate from outcomes

☐ You can pause, adjust, or rest without guilt

☐ Effort matters more than flawless results

☐ You can celebrate progress, not just achievements

☐ Motivation comes from growth, meaning, or alignment

Why does this matter?

When motivation is rooted in fear, the nervous system stays in a constant state of pressure. Over time, this can affect mental health, relationships, creativity, and physical well-being. Learning to shift from perfectionism to healthy striving isn’t about lowering standards; it’s about changing the cost of meeting them.

The Power of Private-Pay

Private health insurance may be the default in the United States, but does it work? Does it help you? Does it have your needs in mind?  The short answer is kind-of, and sometimes not at all. Ultimately, insurance companies exist to make a profit, and they make money by charging you more than you get, on average.

Here's a quick list of the most useful benefits of private pay mental healthcare instead of health insurance:

• Privacy: Insurance requires a diagnosis on day 1. That means that we are required to provide them with your personal and private information, personal health information (PHI), and a mental disorder which fits your symptoms based on very little conversation. A one hour session really flies by during counseling -- often for our client's, too! I generally advise against needless diagnosis for multiple reasons, which I will get into in more detail below, but the biggest reason is that this becomes part of your permanent health record and can limit you from certain careers and can be used against you in court.

• Freedom: Choose who you want to see, and how long or often you want to see them. No visitation limits or referral requirements.

• Better Care: Insurance companies require that providers use 'cost-efficient' treatment plans and techniques. This means that many individuals with their own unique issues get funneled into the same treatment style. This goes completely against contemporary therapy philosophy. To quote Irvin Yalom, "The therapist must strive to create a new therapy for each client."

• Stability: With private pay, your insurance company will never send you a retroactive bill. You won't have to worry about copys vs coinsurance, or maximum out of pocket vs deductible. In short, way less crazy-making. 

Diagnoses: The pros and cons of labeling unique experiences

Many people come in wanting a diagnosis. This is understandable. It's what I wanted when I first came to therapy as well. I think I wanted to know that my situation was not normal. I also wanted to know which kind of not-normal it was. Like many others, I thought a label would help me fix my problems. Looking back, I was lucky enough to go to a good therapist who danced around the question artfully when I asked, "Do I fall into anything diagnosable?" She responded by telling me that what I was dealing with could be overcome with the right tools and the right way of thinking. The way out was through.

This is not to say that diagnoses aren't useful. The DSM is built upon categorizing people's symptoms into labels and categories based on similar experiences, and it is -- sometimes -- a profoundly useful instrument of the trade. It is also constantly being worked on and compared to the ICD, which offers a slightly different view on many symptoms. The DSM has yet to include C-PTSD and is currently undergoing a revision to its section on personality disorders, which will likely have huge implications for American psychotherapy and mental health care. 

A diagnosis can help understand what else a clinician should examine, and how to treat particular issues. Scientific research would not be possible without the concept of diagnosis. At the same time, a diagnosis doesn't mean that you have every symptom. It doesn't connote a life-long affliction. It really doesn't mean that anything about your life is different than before you were diagnosed.

Language is imperfect. This is one of my favorite -isms. I use idioms and metaphor often, partly because they help simplify complex ideas and partly because they can mean many different things. In this case, what I mean is that we think more creatively about something before we have a word for it. The word itself constrains our thought process, which can make it more efficient, but also can lead us astray from the reality of the situation. Sometimes this can lead to us moving faster in an incorrect direction.

Disclaimer:

This blog is for informational and educational purposes and is not a substitute for mental health therapy services. Reading this blog does not establish a therapist-client relationship. If you're in need of mental health services, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.  If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or an emergency please call 911.