Certain patterns of thinking make you more likely to experience anxiety, depression, anger, and other problems. These patterns are called cognitive distortions, and you can learn to counter them.
Cognitive Distortions and What to do About Them
6 Important Reasons Why People Don’t Get Mental Health Treatment
The Scope of the Problem
Barriers to mental health treatment abound in the United States. The nature of these barriers is varied. Some involve people seeking but unable to obtain services. Others involve a failure to seek services. In combination, these obstacles result in a large proportion of those in need of mental healthcare not getting it.
For example, a 2008 study examined mental health problems in a large sample of military members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The study found that only around half of those veterans with depression and PTSD sought help for these problems. Unfortunately, the corresponding statistics for non-veterans are no better. Why is that?
[Read more…]How to Find the Right Psychotherapy for You in NYC
Deciding to seek help is a big first step. From there, it’s important to find the right therapist. But with so many psychotherapy options in New York, how can you know what to look for?
The best therapist for you has the appropriate training and expertise to treat the issues you want to work on.
When to seek therapy: It can be difficult to decide if and when psychotherapy would be helpful. A general guideline that we recommend is called the interference rule: if a problem is significantly interfering in your ability to live your life in the way you’d like, then psychotherapy may be helpful.
[Read more…]Depression After a Painful Breakup and How to Deal
Depression after a breakup can be a profoundly painful experience. Read below for tips from a psychologist on how to navigate this struggle.
When does normal sadness after a breakup turn into clinical depression? It would be easy if there were a set number of weeks after which it was “abnormal” to feel depressed after a breakup. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.
How long you feel depressed after a breakup often depends on the length of the relationship. It depends on other factors like the circumstances under which things ended and the meaning you’ve ascribed to a relationship.
[Read more…]Why Do I Hate My Job?
There a lot of reasons why people don’t like their jobs. Some of those reasons are solely about the job. Let’s be honest, some jobs are terrible. But some reasons are about the person, and some are about the fit between person and job. But how can you tell which is the problem?
Example: Amy
Amy is a 42 year-old schoolteacher who finds herself struggling to get work every morning. When she comes to meet with me for career counseling, she says she is wondering if she should change jobs. Her serious work-related unhappiness consumes most of her waking hours. She thinks she is a horrible teacher and that her students do not learn anything in her class. Last week she came home in tears one day. When her roommate asked her what’s wrong, she was actually surprised when the words escaped her mouth: “I hate my job!”
[Read more…]