Mental Health
Depression, Anxiety, Phobias, Bipolar Disorder, Anger, Trauma, PTSD, Codependency and Control, Relational Issues, Intimacy and Sexual Struggle, SUD, OCD, Parent Child Relational Issues, Grief & Loss and Transition in life, Anger management, Eating Disorders and more
Treating the Whole Individual
You can’t be truly healthy unless you’re healthy physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally.
Depression
It is defined as a mood disorder that so many people experience nowadays. Often expressed as persistent unhappiness, hopelessness, a loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities, difficulty concentrating, insomnia or oversleeping, fatigue, and anxiety, depression can seriously impact a person’s quality of life. A number of factors, including trauma or hormonal shifts, can cause the condition and severe depression can be debilitating if not treated by an experienced professional.
Depression and the usual mood swings are different and short-lived emotional responses to the difficulties of everyday life. Particularly recurring and moderate or severe depression can become a serious health problem. It can cause severe suffering to the affected person and poor performance at work, school, and family. At worst, depression can lead to suicide.
Depression is a common serious illness worldwide that negatively affects how people feel, the way they think and how they act. Fortunately, it is also treatable. It can be induced for many reasons such as grief/loss or even be environmentally based. Depression is when an individual feel persistent bouts of sadness and hopelessness. They will often lose interest in activities that they once enjoyed, have a loss of appetite, feel fatigue and withdraw socially. Things that once seemed easy may feel difficult to do now.
At HERE, they will regain their emotional and physical strength by exploring and becoming knowledgeable about the triggers that cause their depression. Together, we refocus and define their goals to becoming emotionally and physically well again. They will identify and implement coping mechanisms and self-care techniques to manage a healthy and happy lifestyle.
Anxiety
When an individual faces potentially harmful or worrying triggers, feelings of anxiety are not only normal but necessary for survival. Likewise, we all feel anxious from time to time, those with an anxiety disorder experience intense, sustained anxiety and nervousness. They may struggle to keep jobs and maintain relationships, withdrawing from social connections and places that trigger their disorder. Common symptoms include excited, intense, and enduring fear or concern in circumstances where a person typically wouldn’t feel scared or worried.
The causes of anxiety disorders are currently unknown but likely involve a combination of factors including genetic, environmental, psychological and developmental. Anxiety disorders can run in families, suggesting that a combination of genes and environmental stresses can produce the disorders.
Anxiety is a feeling that everyone experiences now and then in their life. It’s that feeling of intense nervousness and fear that translate into various physical symptoms. For some, the experience occurs more frequently with more severity and can go from occurring periodically to an everyday feeling. For a person with an anxiety disorder, the anxiety does not go away and can get worse over time. Anxiety can take a toll on their daily life ranging from their health, outlook on life to how they function socially.
At HERE, individual will learn where their feelings of anxiety are stemming from and why they are so persistent. They will also become aware of how their physical and emotional symptoms not only connect, but how they trigger one another.
A specific strategy is used in this parallel method where they will understand the history of their own anxiety and learn how to manage, and in many situations prevent it from occurring in the future.
Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental illness manifests in periods of mania (euphoria and hyperactivity) followed by periods of deep depression. That means it brings severe high and low moods and changes in sleep, attitude, mood, energy, thinking, and behavior. Sufferers find their manic highs and depressive lows can last for prolonged periods of time, impacting them personally and professionally. In between those periods, they usually feel normal. You can think of the highs and the lows as two “poles” of mood, which is why it’s called “bipolar” disorder.
The word “manic” describes the times when someone with bipolar disorder feels overly excited and confident. These feelings can also involve irritability and impulsive or reckless decision-making. About half of people during mania can also have delusions (believing things that aren’t true and that they can’t be talked out of) or hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren’t there).
“Hypomania” describes milder symptoms of mania, in which someone does not have delusions or hallucinations, and their high symptoms do not interfere with their everyday life.
The word “depressive” describes the times when the person feels very sad or depressed. Those symptoms are the same as those described in major depressive disorder or “clinical depression,” a condition in which someone never has manic or hypomanic episodes.
Most people with bipolar disorder spend more time with depressive symptoms than manic or hypomanic symptoms.
Anger
We all know what anger is, and we’ve all felt it: whether as a fleeting annoyance or as full-fledged rage. Anger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion. Experiencing anger is a normal feeling whether it’s described as frustration or fury. But when it gets out of control and turns destructive, it can lead to problems at work, in your personal relationships, and in the overall quality of your life; and it can make you feel as though you’re at the mercy of an unpredictable and powerful emotion. It will begin to affect your social relationships and how you communicate with people. Your behaviors can become an unpredictable powerful emotion and you’ll have limited tolerance of frustration.
While everyone likely feels angry from time to time, some people have anger issues that can disrupt their day to day and jeopardize important relationships and friendships. Turns out, not all anger is the same, so anger issues can manifest in different ways. People experiencing passive anger may not even realize they are angry. When you experience passive anger, your emotions may be displayed as sarcasm, apathy or meanness. You might participate in self-defeating behaviors such as skipping school or work, alienating friends and family, or performing poorly in professional or social situations. To outsiders, it will look like you are intentionally sabotaging yourself, although you may not realize it or be able to explain your actions. Because passive anger may be repressed, it can be hard to recognize; counseling can help you identify the emotions behind your actions, bringing the object of your anger to light so you can deal with it.
The goal of anger management is to control the anger before it controls you by reducing your emotional and physical responses to situations that trigger outbursts. At HERE, you’ll learn to manage the intensity of your thoughts, behaviors and actions since that is all that you have control over. You can’t change the people or environments that cause you to feel enraged, but you can change yourself and identify when to remove yourself from the situations that are triggers.
If you feel you’re becoming angry more easily and having low frustration tolerance, you can benefit from anger management. The first step is understanding that there is help available and reaching out for the support in order to make the change.
Trauma
Not everyone who experiences a stressful event will develop trauma. Trauma can be the result of a single event or a series of traumatic events repeated over time causing an individual to become overwhelmed with painful, frightening, or loathing emotions. It can be triggered by physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional abuse. When unaddressed, it can have lasting adverse effects on the sufferer’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.
Longer term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea. While these feelings are normal, some people have difficulty moving on with their lives. Professionals at HERE can help these individuals find constructive ways of managing their emotions.
If an individual experienced a distressing event that has interrupted their emotional or physical well-being, there’s a chance they have experienced a form of trauma. Trauma is assessed subjectively as the response to events differ in the way they’re processed individually. People often aren’t able to recognize they’re experiencing trauma and can go through day to day with deteriorating changes in behaviors and feelings.
Trauma can leave a person with unresolved disputes and feelings. Some symptoms an individual may feel are anger, flashbacks, isolations, hopelessness, shamefulness, guilt, fear or vulnerability.
Healing from emotional and psychological trauma is possible. In order to begin road to recovery individual have to be willing to reach out for support and getting help is the first step they will take. In processing and working through their trauma they will process what they have experienced, recognize where they stand and learn to distinguish their past from their present. As they begin the healing process, they will create closure from the traumatic experience and begin to moving forward. Once they start working on their goals, they’ll find themselves creating new ones and stepping outside their comfort zone.
PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that stems from a life-threatening event or psychological trauma including combat, violent crime, or natural disasters. PTSD can manifest as nightmares, intense remembrances of the event, challenges in falling or staying asleep, feelings of unreasonable anger, and constant edginess, so sufferers often avoid situations that may remind them of the traumatic event.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), once called shell shock or battle fatigue syndrome, is a serious condition that can develop after a person has experienced or witnessed a traumatic or terrifying event. Most people who have a traumatic event will have reactions that may include shock, anger, nervousness, fear, and even guilt. These reactions are common, and for most people, they go away over time. For a person with PTSD, however, these feelings continue and even increase, becoming so strong that they keep the person from going about their life as expected. People with PTSD have symptoms for longer than one month and can’t function as well as before the event that triggered it happened.
PTSD symptoms are generally grouped into four types: intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in thinking and mood, and changes in physical and emotional reactions. Symptoms can vary over time or vary from person to person.
Codependency & Control Issues
Power exists in all relationships. Having power means to have a sense of control, to have choices and the ability to influence the environment and others. It’s a natural and healthy instinct to exert one’s power to get their wants and needs met. However, codependency is an emotional disorder that causes sufferers to ignore their own needs while constantly fulfilling the needs of others. A sufferer may forfeit his or her own well-being and values in the pursuit of assisting someone else, result in feeling out of control. This is a learned behavior that comes as a result of dysfunctional relationship patterns and can often be passed down in families for generations.
Codependents generally grow up in families where power was exercised over them in a dominant-submissive pattern. Their needs and feelings were ignored or criticized. When personal power and self-worth isn’t encouraged, we come to believe that power and love can’t coexist. Power gets a bad rep. We’re afraid of our own power and to feel safe and loved learn to accommodate and please others.
While being controlling may not be the first characteristic you think of when you think of codependent individuals, the need to change, fix, or control other people is one of the primary symptoms of codependency. For girls, this can be reinforced in families where women and girls are viewed as second-class or not encouraged to be assertive, autonomous, educated, and self-supporting.
Relational Issues
Relationships are not easy. They can often be messy and hurtful, and at the same time fulfilling, deep, and meaningful. Human beings are complex creatures, so the dynamics between two or more of them can get much more complicated. Because of this, there is no one single way to do relationships “right.” This is true for all our relationships – with our parents, siblings, relatives, friends, spouses, lovers, roommates, classmates, coworkers, bosses, and strangers.
We all have trouble getting along with certain people or have disagreements with friends and loved ones. But a pattern of maladaptive coping behaviors that makes it difficult to connect with others on a regular basis romantically, on the job, or in social settings can be a sign of ongoing relational issues. “Relationship issues” are usually understood as problems in a couple or another romantic configuration. “Relational challenges” refer to difficulties, issues, or problems that are present in the way we relate to others, taking “relationships” in a broad sense.
Interconnectedness is a very human trait. People are relational beings who tend to thrive in environments where they feel a sense of purpose and connection to others. One of the most important jobs our parents have during our childhood, is helping us make sense of our internal and external world. No human being is born knowing what is anger, sadness, pain, love, or joy. It is through the reactions from our parents and other caregivers that we start understanding our own thoughts and emotions and, in doing that, we start developing a sense of who we are. t is in these earlier relationships that we first learn about ourselves, about others, and about what it means to be in relationship.
Therapy is an essential component in getting a bird’s eye view of how various relationships (e.g. friends, co-workers, classmates, family members, romantic partners, etc.) affect your life.
Intimacy & Sexual Struggles
These disorders impair a person’s ability to create healthy attachments. Whether they manifest as the obsessive need for a relationship or the compulsive desire to engage in sexual activity, these struggles often cause significant life disruption and result in an individual acting out and harming others. Intimacy and sex are not necessarily the same thing. “A person can have friendships or relationships that are intimate but not sexual”. Many intimacy and sexual disorders stem from attachment issues, abuse, and trauma from childhood.
In general, the aversion toward sex is a defense mechanism. When thinking of intimacy or engaging in sex, the person with intimacy issues feels emotional distress and physical symptoms, such as nausea and tensed muscles, or they may have panic attacks. They may also experience humiliation, shame, and low self-esteem for rejecting their partner. Individual who struggles with intimacy shuns intimacy and the enjoyment that comes with having a sincere connection to a loving partner.
Additionally, while sexual and intimacy struggles can be troubling on its own, they’re also often a side effect of having an anxiety disorder. Things like performance fears, being distressed and upset, and low libido can make people even more anxious and can lead to the fear of intimacy.
Substance Use Disorder
Substance use disorder (SUD) is complex a condition in which there is uncontrolled use of a substance despite harmful consequence. People with SUD have an intense focus on using a certain substance(s) such as alcohol, marijuana, hash, ice, tobacco, or illicit drugs, to the point where the person’s ability to function in day-to-day life becomes impaired. People keep using the substance even when they know it is causing or will cause problems. The most severe SUDs are sometimes called addictions.
People with a substance use disorder may have distorted thinking and behaviors. Changes in the brain’s structure and function are what cause people to have intense cravings, changes in personality, abnormal movements, and other behaviors. Brain imaging studies show changes in the areas of the brain that relate to judgment, decision making, learning, memory, and behavioral control.
Repeated substance use can cause changes in how the brain functions. These changes can last long after the immediate effects of the substance wears off, or in other words, after the period of intoxication. Intoxication is the intense pleasure, euphoria, calm, increased perception and sense, and other feelings that are caused by the substance. Intoxication symptoms are different for each substance.
When someone has a substance use disorder, they usually build up a tolerance to the substance, meaning they need larger amounts to feel the effects.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
People who experience obsessive compulsive behaviors and thoughts know that there is a sense of feeling things are beyond and out of their control. Often referred to as OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, this is a disorder that instills fear and anxiety in people if they don’t comply and carry out the routine. It can create misbeliefs, over awareness, suspicions and repetition throughout the day.
When an individual is ready to address and make changes, they’re able to understand that their actions don’t serve a purpose and instead are interrupting their daily life, but they still are unable to refrain from engaging in it. When an individual picks up on OCD behaviors, it’s usually triggered by some type of chaos that ensued around them or even trauma that they’ve experienced.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disorder in which people have recurring, unwanted thoughts, ideas or sensations (obsessions) that make them feel driven to do something repetitively (compulsions). The repetitive behaviors, such as hand washing, checking on things or cleaning, can significantly interfere with a person’s daily activities and social interactions.
Many people without OCD have distressing thoughts or repetitive behaviors. However, these thoughts and behaviors do not typically disrupt daily life. For people with OCD, thoughts are persistent, and behaviors are rigid. Not performing the behaviors commonly causes great distress. Many people with OCD know or suspect their obsessions are not realistic; others may think they could be true (known as limited insight). Even if they know their obsessions are not realistic, people with OCD have difficulty disengaging from the obsessive thoughts or stopping the compulsive actions.
Clients at HERE will begin to identify and gain the ability to talk about when these symptoms first arose and what it fulfilled for them. They will be able to reflect on how it provided them with instant relief and simultaneously restricted them in various domains of their life.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve been experiencing OCD symptoms for a few months or years, if you’re recognizing that you need to and want to make a change, you’re already taking the first step towards moving forward.
Parent / Child Relational Issues
One of the most critical and fragile relationships we encounter in our lives is between the parent and child. Caregiving relationships are significant factors in the development, mediation, or moderation of childhood mental health problems. Children are sensitive at various stages in their development and parents have the balancing act going on. These days, time management doesn’t come easy to many families between career, housework, kids activities and keeping up with social engagements. Quality, family time has decreased and along with that so has communication.
The Parent-Child Relationship is one that nurtures the physical, emotional and social development of the child. It is a unique bond that every child and parent will can enjoy and nurture. It can affect the strength of their social, physical, mental and emotional health. That’s because positive relationships with parents and carers help children learn about the world, whether the world is safe and secure, whether they’re loved, who loves them, what happens when they cry, laugh or make a face, and much more.
Having a healthy relationship between the parent and child is imperative and emphasized because it lays the foundation for the child’s personality, life choices and overall behavior; and is a part of child’s shaping as they get older. Children nowadays are easily influenced between peer pressure, social media and video gaming. They can quickly fall into negative patterns of behavior triggered by their moods based on what can be happening around them. This can include anger, depression, anxiety, stress, addictive behaviors and extend as far as suicidal thoughts.
Grief, Loss and Transition in Life
Grief is the simple shorthand we use for what is actually a highly complex mixture of thoughts and feelings. Grief is everything we think and feel inside after someone we love dies or leaves or something we are attached to goes away. In other words, grief is the instinctive human response to loss. Divorce, death, moving, medical illnesses and loss of a job are a few transitional stages people will experience in their lifetime. For some, it will seem painless, but for others, it can be strenuous and uncomfortable. Many of these changes are already predictable, but you may not be prepared to deal with them at the time they occur.
Endings, losses, and life transitions are normal and unavoidable. We encounter them at all stages of our life and yet many of us struggle with how to make sense of the thoughts, emotions, and feelings which arise when we’re faced with change. We don’t “recover from” or “get over” grief. Instead, we become reconciled to it. We learn to live with it and integrate it into our continued living. We come to reconciliation in our grief journeys when the full reality of the loss becomes a part of us. Healing is not returning to an old normal but rather creating a new normal.
Our grief does soften, however, if we explore, embrace, and express it along the way, it eventually becomes less painful. The more actively we grieve the more likely we are to live the rest of our days with meaning, love, and joy.
When clients come to HERE facing a life transition and feeling distressed, we work together to navigate through and take it on as a challenge, not a threat. You will learn to reflect, focus, realize and truly understand that changes are inherent in life. Treatment approach often begins with individual therapy but is not unusual to bring in other family members who are going through the changes with you. This develops your support network through the transition.
Eating Disorders
Although the term eating is in the name, eating disorders are about more than food. They’re complex mental health conditions that often require the intervention of medical and psychological experts to alter their course.
There is a common misconception that eating disorders are a lifestyle choice. The disorder usually begins with an obsession with food, body image and weight, but can quickly turn into a more serious illness that can lead to long term emotional, mental and physical health issues. Three types of eating disorders are binge eating, bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa.
Eating disorders are a range of psychological conditions that cause unhealthy eating habits to develop. They might start with an obsession with food, body weight, or body shape.
In severe cases, eating disorders can cause serious health consequences and may even result in death if left untreated. Those with eating disorders can have a variety of symptoms. However, most include the severe restriction of food, food binges, or purging behaviors like vomiting or over-exercising.
Although eating disorders can affect people of any gender at any life stage, they’re most often reported in adolescents and young women. In fact, up to 13% of youth may experience at least one eating disorder by the age of 20.
At Here, we not only look at your status with the eating disorder, but determine the cause
of where it initially stemmed from and what steps you need to take to change not only the
addictive habits and thoughts. You’ll learn to redefine your relationship with yourself and how it connects to the foods you choose to nourish and put in your body. You’ll be able to see how you evolve and your self-esteem increases.
It’s not an easy process, but if you’re at a crossroad and feel that you need a better understanding of why and how this has become an uncontrollable behavior when you’re ultimately seeking control, this is a good place for you to start. Gaining understanding and exploring is the first step.
Self- Esteem
Confidence in one’s value as a human being is a precious psychological resource and generally a highly positive factor in life; it is correlated with achievement, good relationships, and satisfaction. Possessing little self-regard can lead people to become depressed, to fall short of their potential, or to tolerate abusive relationships and situations.
Too much self-love, on the other hand, results in an off-putting sense of entitlement and an inability to learn from failures. It can also be a sign of clinical narcissism, in which individuals may behave in a self-centered, arrogant, and manipulative manner.
People who experience a steady diet of disapproval from important others family, supervisors, friends, teachers might have feelings of low self-esteem. Yet the healthy individual is able to weather off-putting evaluations.
Each person’s experience is different, but over the course of the lifespan, self-esteem seems to rise and fall in predictable, systematic ways. Research suggests that self-esteem grows, by varying degrees, until age 60, when it remains steady before beginning to decline in old age.
Self-esteem can influence life in myriad ways, from academic and professional success to relationships and mental health. Self-esteem, however, is not an immutable characteristic; successes or setbacks, both personal and professional, can fuel fluctuations in feelings of self-worth.
LGBTQ
There is still much stigma attached to the LGBTQ community which can make it difficult for you to feel socially accepted and face discrimination. It could wear on your mental health and well-being, which can lead to other serious conditions.
At HERE, you work on self-acceptance and awareness of who you are and where you’re at, not about trying to conform to what’s around you. You learn to validate yourself and find your voice to advocate for your needs. You’re provided with a safe and comfortable environment to be able to talk about topics and areas in your life related to your orientation that you need to affirm yourself on.
Co-occurring Disorders/ Dual Diagnosis
Addiction and mental health issues often go hand-in-hand. Undiagnosed mental health disorders can lead someone to “self-medicate” as a way to manage symptoms, or someone with an addiction may find mental health conditions are exacerbated by substance use. Personality disorder may also co-exist with psychiatric illness and/or substance misuse. A dual diagnosis happens when two co-occurring disorders are identified. Treating both together offers the best possibility of true, lasting recovery.
Individuals said to have co-occurring disorders have one or more substance-related disorders as well as one or more mental disorders. Individuals diagnosed with co-occurring disorders often need more intense treatment due to the complexity of their case emphasizing the importance for clinicians to provide effective and efficient treatment to these patients. People with dual diagnosis have complex needs relating to health, social, economic and emotional stressors or circumstances which can often be exacerbated by their substance misuse. Efforts to provide support for individuals with a dual diagnosis presents a major challenge. Moreover, Individuals diagnosed with co-occurring disorders face greater consequences from substance abuse compared to those individuals diagnosed with only a mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
