It is normal to experience a broad range of emotions. In fact, emotions are what make us human! Common emotions include sadness, joy, excitement, fear, guilt, anger, shame, and anxiety, to name a few. Experiencing a broad range of emotions is natural and unproblematic. However, intense emotions or rapid fluctuations between positive and negative emotions……
Everyone has stress. But when is stress a risk to our health and well being? Episodic acute stress might be the most common way that stress gets out of hand and puts our mental and physical health in danger….
Do You Worry Too Much About Your Health? It can sometimes be tricky to determine whether you are focusing enough on your health. Are you obsessing about it? Or are you neglecting an important symptom? What’s the happy medium?…
Last updated: October 21st, 2025 With contributions from Grace Anderson, Ph.D. A crisis situation is short-term but often highly stressful, with the potential for negative outcomes. Crisis survival skills are helpful when your emotions are threatening to get the best of you and you’re tempted to take unhelpful actions. The STOP skill is one of……
“Improving the Moment” refers to a set of strategies recommended in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to help you get through emotionally trying situations. These skills help in situations when our usual self-soothing efforts aren’t getting the job done. The DBT IMPROVE the Moment skills are intended as a menu of options you can use to……
Has sleep become a source of frustration and dread? Try these four sleep hacks to maximize your chances of sleeping well. Sleep Hack #1: Keep a Regular Wake Time If you suffer from insomnia, you may be making a common strategic mistake. It involves your approach to waking up in the morning. If it takes you……
The ABC PLEASE skills are DBT emotional regulation skills designed to reduce emotional vulnerability by improving self-care, coping skills, and positive experiences. The acronym stands for: Below, we’ll explore each skill in more detail and discuss practical ways to apply them in daily life. The ABC PLEASE skills from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) are important……
Last updated: May 9, 2026 Sexual arousal can feel terrifying when it happens in the context of POCD. Learn how to understand this nuanced phenomenon. What is POCD? Pedophilic obsessive-compulsive disorder (POCD) is a term used for obsessive-compulsive disorder when the primary symptom is obsessions around pedophilia. Why Does the Arousal Happen? Attention and Arousal……
When emotions are out of control, you can use TIPP skills to bring down the intensity. There are four TIPP skills described in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). Using them in a crisis can calm things to the point that we can then use other coping skills. They are presented first in summary form, and then……
It’s one thing to be told you have POCD. It’s another to feel comfortable that your fears are “just OCD.” So is it POCD, or could you be a pedophile in denial? What Is POCD? POCD stands for pedophilic obsessive compulsive disorder. It’s not a separate condition from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, the isolating and……
ERP therapy (exposure and response prevention) and ExRP (exposure and ritual prevention) are psychotherapies used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). ERP was pioneered in the 1960s by British psychologist Vic Meyer. Edna Foa and her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania further developed it and gave ERP its name in the 1970s and 1980s….
Last updated: June 14, 2025 OCD and Confessing A rarely discussed symptom of OCD is an overwhelming need to confess “sins,” even when the transgressions are very slight. Typically this will arise in the context of a marriage or romantic relationship. At first, what is confessed may not seem so minor. However, if the problem is not……