Struggling With Anxiety
Do you find yourself experiencing racing thoughts of worry and fear for the future or the unknown that feel out of your control? Have you caught yourself in a social setting feel overcome with terror or felt on edge? Is it hard for you to sit still and relax? Do...
6 Ways to Live a Healthy Life with PTSD
Text reads… 6 Ways to Live a Healthy Life with PTSD… explore what’s next, Dr. Kendal Vaarwerk with a teal ribbon which is a symbol of awareness and support for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Sand Tray Therapy
Have you ever had one of those days where you don’t want to talk about that thing that is eating you up but want to get it off your chest differently? Have you ever come to talk therapy and realized you aren’t sure where to start that day? Sand tray intervention or...
5 Essential Tips For Overcoming Life’s Challenges
How To Handle Things When Everything Is Hard On the edge of Bryant Park on 42nd Street, behind the Fifth Avenue New York City Library with the resting lions in front, there’s a restaurant. An assistant editor from Glamour and I walked over from her office in the...
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
When we think about trauma and traumatic experiences, we often think about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Now, it is important to state that not everyone who has experienced trauma experiences PTSD as a result. One’s response to trauma may be present only...
How to tell someone to go to therapy
The decade of my twenties was a shit show. When I heard the term “quarter-life crisis” I thought, yeah, I had that and then some. Sudden serious illness had me in and out of the hospital. That, plus a genetic predisposition for mood disorder (think depression,...
Trauma and Memory
Trauma is like a tattoo that never fades. Imprinted into our very bodies. Trauma leaves a lasting impact on our immune system, autonomic nervous system, and our memory. This impact on memory can truly propel the sufferer back to the very moment of trauma. ...
Doing the Unthinkable – Going Offline
"The biggest source of stress inmy life is the screen, the blogging." ~Jessica Valenti, founder and editor ofFeministing.com Editor's Note: While the website being quoted in this blog post (Feministing.com) may have ceased publishing, it is essential to...
8 Ways to Combat Anxious Thoughts
Anxiety, Worry and fear are emotions that everybody feels. Whether that is worrying about your family, finances, or health concerns. Everybody worries, but when this worry becomes consuming, consistent, and persistent it may impact your daily life. These feelings of...
Finding The Right Therapy for You Even if it’s Not CBT
Okay, okay, I know that everyone is pushing or hearing about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and why you should engage with a CBT-trained therapist. So why the hype? Well, as a CBT-trained therapist, I can tell you that a ton of research supports this treatment, and at...
5 Ways to Play With Your Kid
Play provides enjoyment, curiosity, excitement, diversion, and allows us to be fun and silly. Beyond the fun and games, play is important! Play allows children to learn about themselves and others, explore their own interests, be creative, and try on different roles,...
The Importance of Unstructured Play in Childhood Development
Once upon a time, in a small suburban neighborhood, there lived a young girl named Lily. She resided in a quaint house on Elm Street, where her life was consumed by a whirlwind of structured activities and endless lessons. From the moment she woke up until the late...
Community Health and Advocacy Conference
Explore What's Next is a psychotherapy practice located in Western New York that stands out from other regional practices due to our support on trauma prevention and community intervention. As a forward-looking and proactive organization, we believe in looking towards...
Nine Essestials Of True Love
Nine Essentials of True Love How do I know this is True Love? We come to this question from a million different directions. Maybe we think we’re in love for the first time and we have nothing to compare it to. Maybe we had no role models growing up. Maybe we...
Word of the Year: Part Two Gaslighting Relationships
Editor's Note: If you arrived here without reading Word Of The Year, Gaslighting part one, that's fine; however, you may want to check it out for some of the back stories on Gaslighting Relationships and why it's such an important issue for you to know. Still with me?...
Word of The Year: Gaslighting
I just learned that Merriam-Webster chose “gaslighting” to be their Word of the Year. Interesting choice. It certainly does seem as if gaslighting is everywhere. From dating to the workplace to politics you're either gaslighting or being gaslighted. Gaslit? Anyway, I...
4 Things I Learned and Relearned about owning a puppy
I thought my life was going pretty well. My business was growing and evolving, I felt like I was really making positive progress with my clients, my adult kids have their life on track and I’ve been enjoying spending time with my husband. The last thing I thought I...
BuffaloStrong
“What I am hopeful for is that this incident will bring us together, because… this could have been any one of us or any one of our loved ones… this should bring us together and not tear us apart.” ~Trini Ross, U.S. Attorney. Western District of New York I hope,...
What to Expect in Counseling
Most people who begin counseling are not sure what to expect. There are so many myths about what happens in counseling that can be misleading or contradictory. For instance, in the movies or on TV shows we see the main character lying down on a couch and talking about...
Life Candy, Marking Happiness
In my dream, I was with my daughter and someone else, my husband maybe, looking out at the Pacific Ocean from a space that could have been a park or a run-down but still beautiful office building. Someone was talking, I think my husband. Looking out at the ocean, the...
Struggling With Anxiety
Do you find yourself experiencing racing thoughts of worry and fear for the future or the unknown that feel out of your control? Have you caught yourself in a social setting feel overcome with terror or felt on edge? Is it hard for you to sit still and relax? Do...
6 Ways to Live a Healthy Life with PTSD
Text reads… 6 Ways to Live a Healthy Life with PTSD… explore what’s next, Dr. Kendal Vaarwerk with a teal ribbon which is a symbol of awareness and support for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Sand Tray Therapy
Have you ever had one of those days where you don’t want to talk about that thing that is eating you up but want to get it off your chest differently? Have you ever come to talk therapy and realized you aren’t sure where to start that day? Sand tray intervention or...
5 Essential Tips For Overcoming Life’s Challenges
How To Handle Things When Everything Is Hard On the edge of Bryant Park on 42nd Street, behind the Fifth Avenue New York City Library with the resting lions in front, there’s a restaurant. An assistant editor from Glamour and I walked over from her office in the...
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
When we think about trauma and traumatic experiences, we often think about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Now, it is important to state that not everyone who has experienced trauma experiences PTSD as a result. One’s response to trauma may be present only...
How to tell someone to go to therapy
The decade of my twenties was a shit show. When I heard the term “quarter-life crisis” I thought, yeah, I had that and then some. Sudden serious illness had me in and out of the hospital. That, plus a genetic predisposition for mood disorder (think depression,...
Trauma and Memory
Trauma is like a tattoo that never fades. Imprinted into our very bodies. Trauma leaves a lasting impact on our immune system, autonomic nervous system, and our memory. This impact on memory can truly propel the sufferer back to the very moment of trauma. ...
Doing the Unthinkable – Going Offline
"The biggest source of stress inmy life is the screen, the blogging." ~Jessica Valenti, founder and editor ofFeministing.com Editor's Note: While the website being quoted in this blog post (Feministing.com) may have ceased publishing, it is essential to...
8 Ways to Combat Anxious Thoughts
Anxiety, Worry and fear are emotions that everybody feels. Whether that is worrying about your family, finances, or health concerns. Everybody worries, but when this worry becomes consuming, consistent, and persistent it may impact your daily life. These feelings of...
Finding The Right Therapy for You Even if it’s Not CBT
Okay, okay, I know that everyone is pushing or hearing about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and why you should engage with a CBT-trained therapist. So why the hype? Well, as a CBT-trained therapist, I can tell you that a ton of research supports this treatment, and at...