ashburn psychiatrist

As a young adult… Do you struggle with motivation to pursue school, personal goals or career aspirations? Are you socially awkward and do you withdraw or isolate from family or friends? Do you still live at home? Is your sleep routine reversed or off? Do you rely on your parents for financial support, decision-making and daily tasks? Are you unhappy with how you’re living your life but lack realistic ideas or a plan to improve things? Do you avoid responsibilities such as keeping your room clean, paying bills, scheduling appointments, managing your time or finances, or making long-term [...]

Urge Surfing: A Mindful Approach To Managing Cravings And Impulses Urge surfing is a mindfulness-based technique designed to help individuals navigate the discomfort of cravings or impulses without succumbing to them. This powerful tool, first introduced by Dr. Alan Marlatt, a pioneer in addiction research, provides a practical and effective way to manage urges associated with bad habits or negative behaviors that are difficult to control. Whether you're trying to quit smoking, or you’re struggling to manage your drinking or emotional eating or other impulsive actions, urge surfing offers a pathway to greater self-awareness, emotional balance and long-term positive behavioral [...]

Mental Health Professionals and High Conflict Divorce: 7 Pitfalls for Attorneys to Avoid In the ideal divorce situation, family law attorneys are able to mitigate or circumvent problems for the involved parties without the need for adversarial negotiations and/or aggressive litigation. But when it comes to high-conflict divorces, things like mediation, collaboration, and cooperative negotiations are often not an option, especially when the matter of custody is at hand. Mental-health professionals can be helpful to family law attorneys during high-conflict divorces, but unfortunately, it is not uncommon for some attorneys to attempt to blur a clinician’s boundaries in order to [...]

How To Talk To Your Children About The Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump As a child psychologist, I mainly address the developmental, emotional, social and behavioral struggles of children, but sometimes the realities or events of the world can negatively impact a child’s emotional life – and parenting through things that are outside of a child’s control and are upsetting isn’t always easy. Certainly, the attempted assassination of former US president Donald Trump this past weekend is one of those realities and events.  While Mr. Trump is safe, the impact of what happened will be felt and discussed in [...]

What is Sharenting And Is It Bad? “Sharenting,” which is a portmanteau of the words “parenting” and “sharing,” is a relatively new pop psychology term that involves the act of a parent excessively posting pictures, videos, updates and stories about their child or teen’s life.   And while a lot of pop psychology terms aren’t very helpful, I think this one is.  As a psychologist that works a lot with children and teens, the topic of parents digitally oversharing sensitive information about their children comes up frequently in therapy and with the action at times causing real problems and emotional [...]

Mindfulness for Families: Cultivating Peace and Connection In today's fast-paced world, finding moments of peace and connection as a family can be challenging. The demands of work, school and extracurricular activities for the kids often leave little time for more meaningful personal interactions. However, there can be real benefits to prioritizing and integrating mindfulness into family life; practicing mindfulness as a family can serve to reduce stress, enhance emotional bonding, and create greater peace and harmony. Mindfulness as a term has become quite common in everyday conversations, but what is mindfulness and what exactly does it mean to be more [...]