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I have a friend. Her name is Worry. Her job is to protect me.  When I have something important to do, she will push me to do it.  She will make sure I do a great job. If I need to study, then she will make sure I do.  If I need to practice before a game, she will make me.  She ensures that I am kind to friends and respectful to authority figures.  However, sometimes she gets scared.  She thinks others will hurt me.  She wants to protect me.  In order to ke […]

A Demon Named PTSDBy Ingrid Higgins, MFTI have a demon; her name is PTSD.   She is very strong and has the power to make me remember all of the things people have done to hurt me in the past.  PTSD can create, in an instant, the same feelings of those past hurts and the same physical sensations.  When she comes, it is very hard to be close to others. PTSD reminds me of how bad people have been in the past and why I should not trust anyone. She keeps m […]

My body is a vessel. It will carry me through this life. I will take care of it to the best of my ability. I will respect it. I will…

A client of mine sent me a link to the YouTube video titled, I Had a Black Dog, His Name Was Depression. I encourage you to watch the video, which…

As a therapist who specializes in treating adolescents, I have experience working with Eating Disorders (ED). Eating disorders are hard to recognize because they usually affect perfectionist, OCD-type teens. So…

I recently attended training by Stephan Hinshaw, a professor at UC Berkeley, on the Stigma of Mental Illness. It is somewhat surprising to learn just how prevalent negative judgments about…

Raising children can be one the most rewarding jobs in life. It can also be one of the hardest. You start out sleep-deprived and feeling completely incompetent. There are moments…

A few weeks ago, I received a phone call from a colleague who told me that there had been a suicide of a student who attended Saratoga High School. I…

One of the best-researched current therapeutic techniques, which I have found to be exceptionally useful with teens, is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). This technique is often used to…

Teenagers in Silicon Valley are under tremendous pressure. Often very bright, with successful parents, they feel a lot of pressure to get into the “right” college. That pressure includes thinking…