Significant behavioral issues occur between two or more individuals can cause distress, disability, increased risk of pain, loss of freedom and/or even death.
Test Your Own Marriage Satisfaction
Marital relationships are complex institutions! In order to improve the quality of a marriage, it helps to take a systematic look at how it is functioning. This page contains a questionnaire you can use as a general guide for evaluating your marital satisfaction. Learn more...
Tips for Dealing with Difficult People
Society has some unwritten "rules" about appropriate behavior. Rules include, Be fair; wait your turn; say "please" and "thank you"; talk in conversational tones and volume. Difficult people tend to ignore these rules. They are often loud, intrusive, impolite, thoughtless, and selfish. This article includes a summary of guidelines and procedures which can help when you are confronted with a difficult person or situation. Learn more...
Toxic Relationships
Some relationships are definitely toxic. Regardless of attempts to work through problems, the friction and conflict are so severe that one or more people in the relationship continue to be hurt. Some toxic interactions have nothing to do with the desire to cause pain. The troubles may be largely due to a person's own emotional woundedness, stressful lifestyle, mental illness or addiction to alcohol. Learn more...
Answers to Common Questions about Counseling
Throughout life, there are times when help is needed to address problems and issues that cause emotional distress or make us feel overwhelmed. When experiencing these types of difficulties, individuals may benefit from the assistance of an experienced, trained professional. Learn more...
Conflict Resolution
Broadly speaking, conflicts occur when our needs and expectations for others are not being met, or our limits are being pushed too far. When you do decide to clearly communicate what you want from someone, it is very important that you do so kindly, directly, factually, and non-aggressively. Saying something nice, or complimentary, is generally a good way to begin this process. Learn more...
Conflict Management
This article provides a brief overview of conflict and strategies for preventing conflict, assessing and resolving conflict, and negotiating a win-win solution. Learn more...
Four Ways to Keep Family Harmony
EDIT Learn more...
Key to Successful Therapy
A key component to successful therapy is the relationship between the therapist and client. The therapist and client must develop trust and a strong bond, and the therapist must communicate caring and empathy for the client. Learn more...
Anger Cues and Control Strategies
In addition to becoming aware of anger, individuals need to develop strategies to effectively manage it. These strategies can be used to stop the escalation of anger before loss of control results in negative consequences. An effective set of strategies for controlling anger should include both immediate and preventive strategies. Learn more...
Understanding Anger
People often confuse anger with aggression. Aggression is behavior that is intended to cause harm to another person or damage property. Anger, on the other hand, is an emotion and does not necessarily lead to aggression. Therefore, a person can become angry without acting aggressively. Learn more...
Assertiveness
Assertiveness is a manner of behaving that communicates respect for others as well as commands respect for yourself. Learn more...
Listening Well
One of the most important steps to having good relationships at work, at home, and with friends is to listen well. It might be surprising that for most people, listening well is very difficult. Misunderstandings are very common in interactions between people as a result of poor listening. Learn more...
Are You an Enabler?
If you are involved with an addicted individual, become as independent of the individual as you can, develop new support systems for yourself, and to the extent feasible let the costs of addiction fall on the individual, not yourself. Learn more...
Divorce and Children
Although not all children who experience divorce have problems, children of divorce are twice as likely as children living in nondivorced families to have emotional and behavioral difficulties. Learn more...
Don’t Get Even-Get Equal
When problems come up in social situations, many people assume their only choices are to be pushy or be pushed. Manipulating others is not the answer to personal powerlessness. Learn more...
Ten Ways to Be a Better Dad
Too many fathers think teaching is something others do, but a father who teaches his children about right and wrong, and encourages them to do their best, will see his children make good choices. Involved fathers use everyday examples to help their children learn the basic lessons of life. Learn more...
Children of Alcoholics
More than 6 million children live with at least one parent who abuses or is dependent on alcohol or an illicit drug. Learn more...
Recovering from Rejection
We are usually not taught by our parents or society at large how to effectively deal with rejection. First of all, we need to be aware that rejection is an essential facet of life. If we take chances and risks like trying out for a play, writing a book, applying to college or asking out the attractive man, there is the distinct possibility that none of these pursuits will work out. Learn more...
The Death Of A Child
When a parent dies, you lose your past; when a child dies, you lose your future. - Anonymous Learn more...
Alcohol and the Family
About 8% of American adults abuse alcohol or are alcohol dependent. This is a primary health concern and it has significant implications for families and child well-being and development. Approximately one out of every four U.S. children under the age of 18 years is exposed to the effects of alcohol abuse or dependence in a family member. Learn more...
Why Step Relationships Aren’t Easy
When two people remarry and one or both have children, they do not have the luxury of simply marrying as partners. They must commit to the complexity of learning to marry as parents, too. This parental dimension to their union requires additional communication as they not only work out how to function as a couple, but as a family, as well. Learn more...
Optimism and Health
Some studies have revealed that individuals with an optimistic perspective on life generally have a more positive sense of their own well being, are less likely to experience anxiety, are less prone to depression, and live longer and healthier lives. Learn more...
Attachment: A New Way of Understanding the Problems of Parents and Kids
Attachment is the emotional connection between any two people. However, life's first attachments are by far the most important, as they set a template for all later relationships. Learn more...
Sibling Conflict
Fighting is not a sign of children not getting along. It is how they get along - using conflict to test their power, establish differences, and ventilate emotion with a familiar family adversary. Conflict from sibling rivalry is built into family life as children compete for dominance, parental attention, parental support, and household resources. Learn more...
Disruptive Behavior Disorders
EDIT: http://www.athealth.com/Consumer/newsletter/FPN_3_7.html Learn more...
Self-esteem and Anxiety in Teens: 5 Ways to Start Real Conversations with Your Teen
The parent's job is to be a coach and not to step on the court - it's to coach from the sidelines. Parents should remove themselves from the court. They are not doing their child a favor by playing the game for them. Parents sometimes get in there because they want to help, but if they are doing that, ultimately they are handicapping their child. Learn more...
Peer Relationships and ADHD
Parents of children with ADHD may be more than twice as likely than other parents to report that their child is picked on at school or has trouble getting along with other children. Learn more...
Dating Violence
In a study, Molidor, Tolman, and Kober looked at the rates of dating violence for high school boys and girls, as well as the circumstances leading to and the outcomes of dating violence. The researchers discovered that 36.4% of the girls and 37.1% of the boys reported that they had experienced some physical violence in the dating relationship. Learn more...
Intimate Partner Violence
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is abuse that occurs between two people in a close relationship. The term "intimate partner" includes current and former spouses and dating partners. IPV exists along a continuum from a single episode of violence to ongoing battering. Learn more...
Domestic Violence Fact Sheet
Domestic violence, also called intimate partner violence (IVP), partner abuse, and spousal abuse, is a serious, preventable public health problem that affects millions of Americans. Learn more...
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month
In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, look to an important database of health statistics to find research, facts and figures on domestic violence nationally and locally. Learn more...
Sexual Disorders
Sexual dysfunctions are disorders related to a particular phase of the sexual response cycle. If a person has difficulty with some phase of the sexual response cycle or a person experiences pain with sexual intercourse, he/she may have a sexual dysfunction. Learn more...
Sexual Addiction
(Needs Editing) http://www.athealth.com/Consumer/newsletter/FPN_2_23.html Learn more...
Sexual Dysfunction
EDIT: http://www.athealth.com/consumer/newsletter/FPN_4_27.html Learn more...
Infidelity
Affairs can be devastating to a marriage and can cause tremendous emotional distress to the offended spouse and children in the marriage. Learn more...
The “Healing Separation”
A Healing Separation is a structured time apart which can help a couple heal a relationship that isn't working. It can also help revitalize and renew a relationship that is working. A successful Healing Separation requires that both partners be committed to personal growth, and to creating healthier relationships with themselves and each other. Learn more...
Expressing Your Feelings in Relationships
If you want to share your feelings about a behavior that you find bothersome, it is important to know what not to do. Some ways of expressing feelings are not helpful because they tend to threaten others. One of the most common of these ineffective approaches is called the "you-message." Learn more...
Easing Transitions: Balancing Work and Family
To balance family and work, organize your time, develop a budget, and schedule family time. Learn more...
The Magic of Dialogue
Apart from its obvious practical value for problem-solving, dialogue expresses an essential aspect of the human spirit. Learn more...
Emotional Fitness for Intimacy
Focusing on integrating continuous positive behaviors into your overall lifestyle is paramount to maintaining a good, loving and intimate connection. Learn more...
Planning for Long Term Care
Although most older people are independent, some need help with everyday activities. For many people, regular or "long-term" care may mean a little help from family and friends or regular visits by a home health aide. For others who are frail or suffering from dementia, long-term care may involve moving to a place where professional care is available 24 hours a day. Learn more...