Embolden Psychology

11/18/2025

We are proud to now offer individual and couples therapy to the  Virginia Tech and Blacksburg community and surrounds.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/profile/441061

11/10/2025

On Complicated Grief.

But what is grief, if not love persevering?
-WandaVision

Grief that is prolonged creates relentless allostatic load- a state of high stress, mentally and physically.

How to recognize it and treat it:
https://embolden.world/prolonged-grief-when-the-hurt-goes-on/

Also from

https://embolden.world/on-grief-and-grieving/

10/16/2025

Woman’s Best Friend: On PTSD and Pups
From

A longitudinal study focused on female veterans in the US who worked with service dogs found significant positive health effects at the cellular level.  The Florida Atlantic University neuroscience research found that spending an hour per week in sessions with dogs promoted both physical and psychological well-being.

Female veterans face unique reintegration challenges that are often overlooked, and past studies have found that traditional PTSD treatments don’t always meet their needs.

Non-traditional approaches like connecting with animals can offer meaningful support.
These relationships provide emotional safety and stability, which can be especially powerful for women with PTSD.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/dogs-women-ageing-health-b2846330.html?utm_campaign=picturepost

09/23/2025

On Labeling Emotions

Research suggests that the simple act of putting your feelings into words lowers your psychological distress. So practice using as many descriptive words as you can to identify how you’re feeling. If you’re stressed, try to tease out what additional feelings that brings up. Are you overwhelmed? Anxious? Fearful? What else?

This labeling can take any form. It can be talking to someone, writing it down, working with your therapist, or self-talk about how you’re feeling.

To help you build emotional self-awareness,  psychologists at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence have developed a free app called ‘How We Feel’, which has 144 different words to describe your feelings (such as “excluded,” “lonely,” “engaged” and “glum”) as well as their definitions.

Try:
https://howwefeel.org/?campaign_

Read:
https://embolden.world/doors-behind-doors-secondary-emotions/

09/16/2025

As the saying goes, “friends are the family you choose”.  Research increasingly shows that friendships are an integral part of mental health.  Friendships also change across the lifespan, but remain significant and cherished.

Read:
https://embolden.world/the-ingredients-of-friendship/?

Strong friendships are a critical aspect of most people's emotional well-being. Psychology research indicates that close friendships are associated with greater happiness, self-esteem, goal orientation, and sense of purpose. These bonds are even associated with physical outcomes, such as lower bl...

09/15/2025

Social effectiveness requires practice.

Pitfalls include over apologizing, over -personalizing, poor eye contact, not asking for help, second-guessing, and inattention to self-care.

Read,  on interpersonal habits that  sabotage effective communication with friends, colleagues, supervisors, and partners:

https://embolden.world/11-habits-that-hijack-social-effectiveness/

09/09/2025

Can Therapy Make You Feel Worse?
Yes…at times.

1. You're Uncovering Trauma
Therapy is a healing process. And often to heal your mind, you’ve got to go backwards and deal with some traumatic stuff that happened in your past. No matter how deep your trauma, dealing with negative events is never easy. Feeling negative emotions is difficult and yes, painful.
But ultimately dealing with these emotions will help you move forward.

2. You're Not Used To Feeling Your Feelings
Lots of people repress their emotions. It’s actually extremely common, and one of the reasons people seek out therapy. Through therapy, you learn to feel, understand, and work through negative emotions. But if you’re not used to feeling those hard feelings, if you’ve been holding back negative emotions for years, when you first start to let yourself FEEL those feelings, it's uncomfortable and often painful.

3. You're Changing
Change is hard work. And part of therapy is making positive changes in your life. But just because a change is for the best doesn’t mean it’s EASY. For example, maybe you’ve realized the relationship you’re in isn’t healthy and you need to break it off. Or maybe you’ve realized you need to set boundaries with a certain friend of family member. You find that you haven’t been expressing yourself with your partner. All of these are not easy.


4. People In Your Life Aren't Always Supportive
As you heal, some people in your life may not like you r growth and change. They’ll say they miss the old you.

While part of the therapeutic process is learning to choose yourself and make lasting, positive changes in your life, that doesn’t mean everyone around you is going to be excited for you. So, if you’ve got people in your life who see your new changes as a “betrayal” or a “negative change,” that is extremely painful and difficult. Especially when these people are who you are very close with.

5. You're Not Seeing Progress
This could happen for 2 reasons:

-Therapy Is A Process
Despite people’s desires, therapy isn’t a magic wand. Because of our complex emotions and lives, therapy takes time. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association, many people don’t see any results for at least 6-12 sessions.

So if you’re still in your therapy adjustment period and you’re questioning “is it normal to feel worse at the beginning of therapy?” take into account that therapy takes time. It’s only a few hours per month, and a lot of living happens in between.

-On top of that, therapy ebbs like waves. You may have a few months of extreme healing and progress. Then, things may plateau. But this isn’t a bad thing. Instead of rushing to see results, try to enjoy the small wins.

-You Aren't Being As Open And Honest As You Think
You only get out of therapy what you put in. If you’ve been going to therapy for months and aren’t seeing results, it may be time to reevaluate how honest you’re being in your sessions. It can be tempting to paint yourself in the best light. People are fearful of being judged, even by their therapist.

6. Therapy stirs up things that you don’t think about on a daily basis. It forces you to take a look at sadness, grief, anger, which we do not do on a daily basis in general. This can feel discomfiting.  Sometimes I hear clients say that they avoided Therapy for years because it hurts too much.

7. Fear of loss of confidentiality. It’s natural to fear imparting information that could potentially be shared with a family member, colleague, or someone that you prefer not to share personal matters with. Although mental health professionals are bound by confidentiality and privacy ethics, it’s natural to fear being vulnerable.

09/04/2025

https://embolden.world/seven-days-a-mental-health-challenge/

The Real Luxuries (art, courtesy of ).

08/09/2025

What is hyperarousal?

From the mental health archives

When your nervous system is over- activated, reactive, or has difficulty soothing itself, symptoms can manifest in daily lives.  Both PTSD and C-PTSD include forms of hyperarousal.

In hyperarousal, you may have physical or emotional symptoms, including:

Wanting to stay in the house or a safe place.

 Feeling easily disrupted by changes in routine or last minute transitions.

A dislike of loud or hectic situations or settings.

Also:

• Being constantly on the lookout for potential danger or threats.
• Thinking or worrying about things a lot, even after situations have been resolved.
• Feeling jumpy or easily startled.
• Feeling that your heart is racing, pounding, or flip-flopping (heart palpitations.
• Vivid memories or flashbacks of traumatic situations from your past.
• Extreme sensitivity to sounds, smells, textures, or sights (sensory reactivity).
• Having a hard time falling asleep, staying asleep (insomnia) or restless sleep even when you’re tired,  interspersed with periods of exhaustion after becoming overwhelmed.
• Outbursts of anger or rage.
• Trembling or shaking.
• Breathing fast or feeling dizzy or lightheaded.
• Sweating or feeling hot or flushed.

08/03/2025

Cool down by eating hot. Food is mood.

Read: https://embolden.world/hurts-so-good-neuropsychology-and-chili-peppers/

07/26/2025

Now offering bereavement and grief therapy for loss of a furry companion.

https://embolden.world/mental-health-benefits-of-having-a-companion-animal/

07/22/2025

Stress is multifaceted. When we are stressed, it can affect our body, mind, thoughts, and focus.

Read:
https://embolden.world/how-to-reduce-anxiety-on-the-go-strategies-that-work/