Our culture glorifies high achievements. Many people see perfectionists as hard workers with enviable traits. But perfectionism can lead to impossible-to-achieve standards, which take a toll on the perfectionist’s mental and physical health. Here’s why perfectionism is damaging to your mental health and how understanding and addressing it is a crucial step towards healing your inner voice.

Substance abuse is an all too prevalent issue that affects millions of people worldwide. People struggling with substance abuse often experience devastating consequences, losing everything from friendships to jobs to their lives.

For years, therapists have been calling substance abuse a “family disease.” While it seems obvious to focus on the person struggling with substance abuse, everyone is harmed by addiction. Family dynamics and traumas associated with substance abuse are varied and complex. Understanding how substance abuse hurts families is an important step in recovery.

We tend to think of anxiety as being high-energy: nervous, on edge, irritable. Depression, on the other hand, is low-energy: down, sluggish, fatigued. But even though anxiety and depression seem different on paper, they’re actually intertwined.

If you’ve been living with unprocessed trauma, you might not know how to get started healing. After all, there are so many approaches to therapy that it’s hard to know which to choose from.

Eating disorders in teens are far too common. Studies show that up to 10% of people will develop an eating disorder at any point in their life, and the rates of eating disorders in adolescents doubled after the onset of the pandemic.

Puberty is a tough time. Your teenager’s brain and body are changing rapidly, and they’re trying to adjust to fluctuating hormones, new responsibilities, and big emotions. It’s no wonder that anxiety among teens is very common. If your teen has been struggling with excessive worrying, feeling overwhelmed, or having trouble sleeping, you should learn the best ways to support them. Here are several tips for parenting your anxious teen.

Depression isn’t adults-only. As a parent, worrying about your kid’s mental health is normal since they’re vulnerable to depressive episodes, too. If you’re wondering whether your child is depressed, you’re not alone. Signs of depression in children can be harder to spot than in adults, especially since they can have difficulty discussing their feelings.

You’ve seen it in movies: the girl gets dumped and eats a tub of ice cream while crying. Someone accuses the overweight character of “eating their feelings.” But emotional eating isn’t just a plot point in Hollywood. Emotional eating is using food to calm or distract from emotions like stress, sadness, and pain.

Eating disorders have devastating consequences. They can permanently damage the brain and body. In fact, they’re one of the deadliest mental illnesses—getting help is the most important thing you can do. While it’s a long journey, healing is possible.

In a world where a wide range of substances are easily accessible, including alcohol, prescription, and recreational drugs, the line between responsible usage and abusive behavior can get blurry. Many people indulge in these substances occasionally for relaxation, socializing, or pain management.

The pandemic affected pretty much every aspect of our lives, and researchers are still studying the extent of its damage. In addition to the effects on the body such as heart issues and chronic conditions, COVID severely impacted people’s mental health. Studies are beginning to show just how harmful COVID has been for those suffering with eating disorders.

Using food to celebrate or cheer yourself isn’t always a bad thing. After all, we have cake on our birthdays, eat ice cream during breakups, or cook our mom’s famous dish when we’re lonely. But if you’re turning to food any time you feel an uncomfortable emotion, that behavior can become compulsive and could lead to disordered eating. Thankfully, there are ways you can learn to be more intentional about eating to avoid feeling out of control.

Eating disorders do more than just damage the body. More research is showing the extent to which they harm the brain. They’re also not just about restricting or choosing not to eat food—they’re deeply rooted in psychological and emotional struggles. Eating disorders can damage many bodily processes and reinforce brain changes.

Eating disorders are all too common, affecting millions of people every day. But despite how common they are, they’re still hard to talk about. There’s shame and stigma attached to eating disorders, and if you’ve been struggling with one you’ve most likely been hiding it from others. But sharing your struggles with someone you trust is an essential step towards recovery.

If you or your child have been struggling with past trauma, you may be wondering how to approach it. In therapy, there are dozens of methods that may or may not work. Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (or TF-CBT) is particularly useful in treating trauma-related disorders in children and teenagers.

Everywhere we look, thinness is promoted as the beauty standard. For teenagers, this bombardment of thin social media influencers, pop stars, and actors is happening at crucial time in their brain development. As a parent or someone who works with teens, it’s important to be able to recognize the signs of an eating disorder.

Understanding your sexual orientation is a deeply personal and transformative journey. It’s a process of self-discovery that involves deeply exploring aspects of your identity, emotions, and desires.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic mental health condition characterized by intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions).

Going through a divorce is an emotionally challenging time for both parents and children alike. As parents, it’s essential that you support your child through this difficult transition in a gentle and understanding way.