University Park Counseling & Testing Center, PLLC

12/29/2025

As this year comes to an end, we want to pause and express our gratitude. Thank you for choosing us to be part of your journey. We are honored to support you and walk alongside you.

12/25/2025

Wishing a joyful Christmas to all who are celebrating!
However you are spending today, we hope it brings moments of warmth, connection, and peace.

Happy holidays from all of us at UPC!

12/15/2025

Sharing a blog from last year that is so helpful as we navigate the holiday season!

We can easily get lost in the chaos of the holidays! Here are some ideas to help us all find a calmer and more joyful holiday season.

12/12/2025

Loved celebrating Christmas with our wonderful UPC team this week!

11/27/2025

Happy Thanksgiving! Today, we are especially grateful for the trust our clients place in us every day. Thank you for allowing us to walk alongside you, support your growth, and share in your journey.
Wishing you and your loved ones a peaceful, warm, and restorative holiday.

11/21/2025

The holidays don’t always match the joy we hope for. Many people feel grief around unmet expectations, changing traditions, or shifting relationships.

Our latest post breaks down expectation grief and offers simple, compassionate ways to care for yourself this season.
Read the full post here and find gentle strategies to support yourself through the weeks ahead.

Your feelings are valid. Your experience matters. And support is here if you need it.

In this blog, I will share what expectation grief is, how it shows up, practical coping strategies, and real-life examples to help you recognize and respond with kindness - for yourself and others.

11/13/2025

11/11/2025

Today, we pause to honor and thank all who have served our country with courage and dedication.

We are especially proud of our own team member, Ayla Jenson Naughton, who serves as a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner in the U.S. Navy Reserves. Your commitment to caring for others, both in uniform and in our community, is deeply inspiring.

To all veterans: thank you for your service, your sacrifice, and your strength.

11/04/2025

We are excited to share that our own Dr. Balch recently authored a chapter in another book! This updated resource was written to help therapists better understand and work with children. We are so proud of Dr. Balch for contributing to a book that reflects the care and dedication she brings to her work every day!

10/29/2025

Most of us have our go-to coffee order… but have you ever wondered what it says about how you handle stress, recharge, or face the day? Our latest blog takes a lighthearted (but insightful!) look at how your cup of coffee connects to your coping style.

Coffee is more than just a caffeine fix. It is a ritual, a comfort, and, believe it or not, a small reflection of your personality. Whether you’re a latte lover or an espresso enthusiast, your go-to coffee might reveal something about how you cope with life’s challenges.

10/28/2025

It’s that time of year again, Halloween. The holiday season brings fun parties, yummy candy, cool costumes, creative home decorations, […]

10/27/2025

We can learn how to do this at any time in our lives. Lisa defines it as emotional intelligence! ✨ or the capacity to BE with.

But be with what?…

The capacity to be with our sensations, our feelings, and our thoughts that arise in any given moment. What we're describing is our capacity to regulate. Our ability to connect or to regulate in the midst of whatever experience we’re having.

It’s not about being calm. It’s not about having a particular experience in our feelings, thoughts, or body.

It is about being able to be with any and all experiences that arise in any given moment.

It’s our capacity to stay connected to ourselves in frustration, joy, sorrow, anxiety, confusion, overwhelm, anger….the list goes on.

And it’s one of the most important and hardest things to develop in ourselves.

Take a moment and think about an emotion that is typically challenging for you to experience. When this emotion arises in you- are you able to connect to yourself in the midst of it? Or do you want to run away from it, ignore it, push the feeling down, or pretend you aren’t having the feeling? What do you do?…

Whatever you do is not right or wrong; it’s simply information to help you get curious about your areas for growth as you’re developing your own capacity, expanding your windows of tolerance, and developing greater and greater levels for your own emotional intelligence.

Because when we learn how to connect to ourselves rather than expecting ourselves to calm down (which is a hard thing in and of itself), we learn some key things…

…We learn that we’re okay in the midst of our experiences. We don’t have to run away. Or that even when things feel challenging, we can still move toward that intensity. It allows us to expand our window of tolerance and engage in life at a deeper level because we get to experience a wider range of the fullness of emotional activity – to feel more alive, more connected with life itself, more connected with our own body, and our own being.

This is also what we’re up to with kids – it’s not about calming them or ourselves. Instead we’re supporting children in learning how to be with any and all experiences that arise. And it’s this ability to connect to themselves that is the ultimate gift we give to the children we work with.