Your oncologist manages your cancer. Your surgeon manages the procedure. Your primary care physician manages the referrals. But who manages you? Not your disease. You. The person who cannot sleep…
What will my teenager tell the therapist that they will not tell me? And if they tell the therapist something important, will I find out? These two questions sit beneath…
Fitting in and belonging are not the same thing, and the difference matters more during adolescence than at any other point in development. Fitting in requires changing who you are…
Your sixteen-year-old used to tell you about her day. Now the car ride home from North Atlanta High School is silent except for the playlist she controls. Your questions get…
A 2024 meta-analysis of 83 studies with 55,440 participants found a weighted average correlation of r = .454 between online social comparison and body image concerns, and r = .36…
The student with the 4.3 GPA, three AP courses, varsity lacrosse, and a curated extracurricular portfolio is not the student most parents worry about. That student looks like success. What…
Can you process trauma through a screen? If you have read about EMDR and understand that it involves following a therapist’s hand movements while holding a disturbing memory in mind,…
Your doctor says your labs are normal. The MRI is clean. The GI specialist found nothing structural. And yet your stomach has been in revolt for six months, your shoulders…
You have never experienced the event that shaped your family. You were not there for the displacement, the violence, the loss, the betrayal that your parents or grandparents survived. And…
You were discharged three weeks ago. The surgical site is healing. Your follow-up labs look good. Your medical team is satisfied. And every time you close your eyes, you are…
More than 30 randomized controlled trials have established EMDR as a first-line treatment for PTSD. The World Health Organization, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the National Institute for…
Up to 50% of postpartum depression cases go undiagnosed. Not because the symptoms are invisible, but because the culture around new motherhood has built a permission structure for suffering: you…
What happens to your mind when your body is told to stop? Not slow down. Stop. Stay in bed. Do not lift. Do not drive. Do not walk beyond the…
Approximately 4% of women develop full-criteria PTSD following childbirth in community samples, according to meta-analytic data from Ayers et al. In high-risk groups (emergency cesarean, preterm birth, NICU admission), the…
You are sitting in a waiting room on Peachtree Street. The chair is the same one you sat in last month. The receptionist knows your name now. Your phone has…
Sixty percent of women report cognitive difficulties during the menopausal transition, according to a 2022 International Menopause Society White Paper on cognition. The symptoms most frequently described are not hot…
It is 3:14 AM. You know this because you have been watching the numbers change since 2:47. Your medication is doing something to your stomach. The incision site throbs when…
Pain changes your brain. Not metaphorically. Structurally. A 2024 review in Experimental and Molecular Medicine documented that chronic pain reduces gray matter volume in the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex,…
You look fine. Everyone says so. Your bloodwork came back normal, again, and the specialist shrugged and suggested it might be stress. Meanwhile, your joints ache so badly by 2…
The surgery is scheduled. Your surgeon explained the procedure, the risks, the recovery timeline. What nobody mentioned is that your psychological state before you enter the operating room will influence…
You are alive. Everyone around you is grateful for that, and they remind you often. They bring meals and send cards and say things like “at least you’re still here,”…
You finished treatment. The scans came back clear. Your oncologist used the word “remission.” And instead of relief flooding in, something else settled: a vigilance that does not turn off….
Your four-year-old asks why you are sleeping so much. Your ten-year-old has stopped asking questions altogether, which worries you more than the questions would. Your teenager overheard a phone conversation…
The diagnosis changes your cells. But it also changes the sentence you use to introduce yourself at a dinner party, the confidence with which you volunteer for a project at…
Thirty-two percent of advanced cancer patients report trouble sleeping in the days before a scan. Twenty-nine percent describe a feeling of dread that settles over them like weather they cannot…