9 Steps to Getting Organized for a New Semester of College: Part 2

9 Steps to Getting Organized for a New Semester of College: Part 2

If you have not done so already, check out my blog post here on Part 1, Steps 1 – 5. Okay, you got your folders and notebooks (digital or hardcopy). Maybe you even organized your email and desktop.  You also got your calendar/ planner and a to-do list ready to go!...

9 Steps to Getting Organized for a New Semester of College

9 Steps to Getting Organized for a New Semester of College

New Year! New Semester! Let’s Do This! The start of each semester is an opportunity to collect and reset ourselves on a path towards success. College is tough especially with all the rapid changes in course delivery. Now more so than ever, ORGANIZATION is critical to...

Thriving in Winter with Body-focused Repetitive Behaviors

Thriving in Winter with Body-focused Repetitive Behaviors

It's back, winter in Western New York, which means bitter cold winds, dry heat, and hot showers; all a recipe for dry uncomfortable skin, hair, and nails. Body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) such as nail biting, skin picking, and hair pulling can be hard to...

Three Ways to Navigate the Holidays: Pandemic Style

Three Ways to Navigate the Holidays: Pandemic Style

As 2020 comes to a close, it’s okay to let out a long, deep sigh. For most people, this year has been tumultuous, difficult, and exhausting. And as the holidays arrive, we might need to find creative ways to navigate this season as well. While this time of year is...

Tips to Have a Happy Pandemic Thanksgiving

Tips to Have a Happy Pandemic Thanksgiving

Who doesn’t love Thanksgiving? No worrying about gifts! We get to focus on food, (one our favorite things!) and people, relationships, family, friends (more favorites! And, of course, gratitude.  This year it feels all turned upside down. The focus has shifted...

5 Tips to Help Parents Survive Distance Learning

5 Tips to Help Parents Survive Distance Learning

Can Parents Survive Distance Learning? The answer is highlighted in 7 Tips! Kids with Attention Challenges & Remote Learning, your child is the main focus of distance learning, but don’t forget a KEY ingredient to your child’s success: YOU.  It might be easy...

Why am I damaging my hair, skin, & nails when I am stressed?

Why am I damaging my hair, skin, & nails when I am stressed?

Why am I damaging my hair, skin, and nails when I am stressed?! Do you bite your nails or cuticles until they hurt?Do you pull your hair until you have bald spots?Do you pick at your skin until you have multiple bloody spots on your face? You are not alone! You are...

7 Tips! Kids with Attention Challenges & Remote Learning

7 Tips! Kids with Attention Challenges & Remote Learning

Parent's all over the Western New York Region are experiencing the difficulty of connecting children with Attention Challenges to Remote Learning. Having the kids home 24/7 AND for many, also working from home, AND helping them each step of the way with their school...

Near Me: 5 Parks to Visit After a Therapy Session

Near Me: 5 Parks to Visit After a Therapy Session

Therapy is great, but homework isn’t.  At the end of my last therapy session, my therapist asked “So have you made any more headway in that workbook I recommended?” The smile on my face fell slightly. ‘Shit.’ I, in fact, had not opened that work book in over a...

Depression or Grief: Five ways to give ourselves a break

Depression or Grief: Five ways to give ourselves a break

Here are some things I’ve learned from my experience of crashing and burning and getting back on track again.  Five ways we can give ourselves a break You are not crazy. Stop gaslighting yourself. It’s not mental illness if you are reacting to an event in your...

EMDR Helps To Heal A Painful Past

EMDR Helps To Heal A Painful Past

When healing a painful past event requires more than talking it out, EMDR is there to help Intrusive memories: they can happen to all of us.  You think that you’re over your parents’ divorce from over 20 years ago, but every now and then, and completely out of...

Daughter is a VSCO Girl, What Does That Mean?

Daughter is a VSCO Girl, What Does That Mean?

First of all, don’t panic. It is perfectly normal to be a VSCO girl.  Second of all, I am 26 years old and I just found out about VSCO girls in October. I went into work and one of my colleagues was playfully teasing the other. He turned to me and laughed “Isn’t...

Chronic Illness in the Time of COVID

Chronic Illness in the Time of COVID

In the old movie Broadcast News, the Holly Hunter character, I forget her name, would take time for herself every morning to cry. She just cried. There was no apparent trigger, no reason or justification ever given for why this intelligent, intense, professional woman...

reopening

RE-OPENING!

AN OPEN LETTER TO OUR EXPLORE WHAT'S NEXT CLIENTS REGARDING RE-OPENING OFFICES! All of us at Explore What’s Next sincerely hope this finds you well. Thank you so much for your patience, flexibility, and resilience during this time of great change. The transition to...

Will Tele-Therapy Work For Me?

Will Tele-Therapy Work For Me?

Throughout the United States and around the world, people are connecting with Explore What’s Next for therapy sessions through tele-sessions. Geography is no longer an obstacle to getting the help you need! Tele-sessions are more like office visits than you think....

DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) Group Info

DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) Group Info

Explore What’s Next is now recruiting new participants for virtual Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Skills Groups! In the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic, a lot of people are struggling with increased isolation from their loved ones and friends.  Depression,...

COVID-19 Stuck at home? 10 Tips For Parents

COVID-19 Stuck at home? 10 Tips For Parents

Stuck at home?Here are (hopefully) 10 helpful Tips For Parents for you and your family during this time: A snow day (or two) is fun…but more than a few days stuck at home can quickly become overwhelming. Given the current health crisis and closure of schools, many...

Explore What’s Next Speaker Series-Mindy Scime

Explore What’s Next Speaker Series-Mindy Scime

People pleaser is a label I hate. That it is accurate when used to describe me just makes me hate it more. My ability to be a people pleaser was off to an early start when I first impressed my dad with my reading skills. The book was Little Bear by Elsa Holmelund...

Explore What’s Next offers psychotherapy, counseling, personal & executive coaching. We provide services for adults, couples, children, adolescents & families in a style that is compassionate, direct, and non-judgmental. Our approach is collaborative to maximize your counseling experience.

Archives

Sweet Stuff To Go From Week To Weekend

Sweet Stuff To Go From Week To Weekend

Cheap & Quick lift! New nail color! Pick one up at Wegman’s along with some prepared  pulled pork, green beans and mashed potato comfort food on your way home.Elvira G. Aletta, PhD, & CEO Founder, Explore What's NextA Happy surprise Tweet!A shout out from...

4 Ways To Survive Being A Buffalo Bills Fan

4 Ways To Survive Being A Buffalo Bills Fan

Our community is hurting right now. The Buffalo Bills lost an epic, heroic game with the Kansas City Chiefs last night. Anyone who has a pulse in this region is aware of the great disturbance in the Force surrounding Western New York. Yes, it’s just a football game...

Explore Therapy: A New Explore What’s Next Venture

Explore Therapy: A New Explore What’s Next Venture

I am so happy to announce the launch of Explore Therapy, a new integrated mental health service with Buffalo Pediatric Associates! Kate Maleski, LCSW-R, a senior associate at Explore What’s Next and I have partnered to create and manage this new venture. Explore...

The Only New Year’s Resolution I Need

The Only New Year’s Resolution I Need

My friend asked me if I made any New Year's resolutions. "I made only one resolution: to be nicer... to myself." She laughed. It was almost a spit-take! "I thought you were going to say 'be nicer to other people'," she said. "Nope," I said, "I'm good there. The...

Interview with Chris Sova Ph.D.

Interview with Chris Sova Ph.D.

An Introduction by Elvira G. Aletta, PhD founder of Explore What's NextI am very excited to introduce Dr. Christopher Sova to you. Dr. Sova is a local son, born and bred in Western New York and proud of it! Not only does he have the education, skills and knowledge of...

The Shame of Seeking Counseling as a Man

The Shame of Seeking Counseling as a Man

There has ever been a voice in my head that whispers to me that I cannot share my pain, my sadness, my mistakes, or my fears. This same voice shouts at me that I must never show weakness. For I have learned that once people get a glimpse behind my armor of masculine...

10 Gifts to Give Yourself When Stress Is Making You Lose Your Shit

10 Gifts to Give Yourself When Stress Is Making You Lose Your Shit

Stress can tip from bearable to overbearing in a split second. When you’re buckling under the stress, and who isn’t these days, give yourself these gifts. You have to give them to yourself because the reality is no one else will.  Stress can be a gift. Stay with...

Naomi Osaka and Lessons from the Universe

Naomi Osaka and Lessons from the Universe

When I heard about Naomi Osaka bravely saying no to the French Open, I was standing on my patio holding a cup of coffee close under my nose, working on closing my own stress cycle. The story wafted out of an open window from the radio in the kitchen. Ms Osaka, all of...

Explore What’s Next offers psychotherapy, counseling, personal & executive coaching. We provide services for adults, couples, children, adolescents & families in a style that is compassionate, direct, and non-judgmental. Our approach is collaborative to maximize your counseling experience.

Archives