So, how can students determine which graduate program is right for them? What career options might be best? Because of the huge range of degree options and specialty areas, picking the one that is right for you can feel overwhelming. Spending some time researching different career paths can help you decide which career path is suited to your needs, interests, and educational background. The first step is to begin by asking yourself some important questions....

Overview Argument, inconsistency, unreliability, and chaos tend to run rampant. Children of alcoholics don’t get many of their emotional needs met due to these challenges, often leading to skewed behaviors and difficulties in properly caring for themselves and their feelings later in life. If you were never given the attention and emotional support you needed during a key developmental time in your youth and instead were preoccupied with the dysfunctional behavior of a parent, it may certainly be hard (or perhaps impossible) to know how to get your needs met as an adult....

The therapy has five main components: Techniques of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i) The goal of CBT-i is to help you make positive lifestyle changes and to change your mindset about falling asleep. To that end, CBT-i focuses on five main components. Your therapist will walk you through these and help you implement them. Let’s take a deeper look at the five techniques used to CBT-i: Consolidation of Sleep (Sleep Restriction) If you’ve ever experienced insomnia, you know that a lot of your night is spent in bed, not sleeping....

Your spouse will have expectations on the continued involvement of each family member which can add pressure to your relationship. This alone can trigger uncomfortable feelings for anyone, but if you have borderline personality disorder, you may have the added difficulty of struggling to relate to these new people. It can be frustrating for you when her partner wants to have close relationships with his family members, especially if you find out your spouse was mistreated by them in the past....

Even for those who have not contracted the coronavirus, the stress of isolation and broader health threats has had a major impact. When the weight of so many concerns becomes too much to bear, many people reach for the bottle as a way to cope. But alcohol consumption is no treatment for mental health problems. Overall, alcohol consumption has increased 14% in adults during the pandemic. A recent study in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse showed that binge drinking has been an ongoing issue, with 34% of the sample reporting binge drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic, including weekly increases as lockdown protocols persist....

What Causes People to Cry in Their Sleep? Getting a baby to sleep through the night is probably the number one thing most new parents hope for. Babies tend to cry in their sleep because they are not used to transitioning from one stage of sleep to the next. However, as babies grow and develop, they wake up less often, which allows their parents to get some decent shut-eye. Adults who are emotionally drained, suffer from mental health conditions, or have been through a recent traumatic experience can shed tears while sleeping and upon waking....

People with OCD need to know about legal protections under the law, what and when to tell their employer about their condition, what accommodations may be requested, and how to protect their rights. The following information is offered as guidance, not legal advice. The Americans With Disabilities Act The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal law that was designed to protect those with disabilities from discrimination. The ADA covers employees with physical or mental disabilities who are able to perform their job with reasonable accommodations....

Delusions are common symptoms of some psychotic disorders. They may occur along with hallucinations, which involve perceiving something that isn’t really there, like hearing voices or feeling bugs crawling on your skin. Signs of Delusional Thinking How do you tell if you or someone you love may be experiencing delusional thoughts? Delusions are characterized by an unshakable belief in things that are not true and, in many cases, there is a continued belief in the delusion despite evidence to the contrary....

When it was first introduced, the diagnosis of major depressive disorder with mixed features (MDD-MX) was met with skepticism and remains controversial among some researchers and clinicians. However, in 2013, MDD-MX was included in the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and has begun to gain acceptance. Symptoms of MDD-MX Researchers have come to believe that mood disorders exist on a continuum from depression to mania; pure depression is thought to be much less common and some researchers consider it rare....

The effect of Lamictal on weight has been studied quite a bit and various clinical trials have found a minimal impact gain. In fact, some researchers even have looked at the drug as a possible treatment for obesity and as a treatment for binge-eating disorder. This should be reassuring to people with bipolar disorder since so many medications used to treat the condition can cause weight gain. Lamictal and Weight Gain or Loss Lamictal is an anticonvulsant medication that can be used to treat seizure disorders, such as epilepsy....

Research on the incidence of eating disorders during pregnancy (and in general) is limited. In addition to a relative lack of studies, the results of the studies we do have may be skewed by the reluctance of many women who are pregnant to admit they have an eating disorder. Some estimates indicate that—if subthreshold disorders are included—eating disorders may affect between 5 to 8 percent of women during pregnancy. One study conducted in Norway found that one out of 21 women had an eating disorder while pregnant, with binge eating disorder being the most prevalent....

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is highly personalized, meaning that it can vary from person to person. Some people have a phobia of long words that are multisyllabic, for instance, while others have a fear of long words that are obscure. Some even fear common words that are more moderate in length. Specific phobias such as the fear of long words affect somewhere between 3% and 15% of the population. But their relative rarity does not change how devastating they can be for those who have them....

Because experts recommend that all women and girls over aged 13 should be screened for anxiety disorders as part of routine health care, the FNE is one type of screening that you might encounter during a visit to your doctor. Such screenings can be helpful for detecting and treating anxiety early, which is important since anxiety can become worse over time if left untreated. How the FNE Is Administered Each item on the FNE is a statement about some aspect of social anxiety....

As you may remember, operant conditioning relies on either reinforcement or punishment to strengthen or weaken a response. This process of learning involves forming an association with behavior and the consequences of that behavior. It was noted psychologist B.F. Skinner who first described this operant conditioning process. By reinforcing actions, he observed, those actions became stronger. By punishing behaviors, however, those actions become weakened. In addition to this basic process, he also noted that the rate at which behaviors were either reinforced or punished also played a role in how quickly a response was received and the strength of that response....

For more mental health resources, see our National Helpline Database. Prevalence of Self-Harming in People With PTSD Self-harm is usually a reaction to a traumatic experience or set of experiences, with sexual abuse being the most common trigger. One review study, for example, found that many people who self-harm on a regular basis had experienced child maltreatment, particularly sexual abuse. According to the National Center for PTSD at the Department of Veterans Affairs, self-harm is unusual but not extremely so: It is estimated that in the general public, 2% to 6% engage in self-harm at some point in their lives....

A new study published in the journal Tourism Analysis has found that frequent travelers tend to have feel more satisfied with their lives than those who don’t take vacations often. The findings come from a study on 500 people from Taiwan. The research offers some insight into the role that travel can play in some people’s emotional wellbeing. But since taking a vacation can be expensive, does that mean people who can’t afford to travel might have lower life satisfaction?...

Friday Fix: Episode 208 There’s more than one way to tackle the same problem–especially when it comes to mental health problems. Some therapists focus on problems and all the things that contribute to emotional pain and suffering. The goal is to help people gain insight into their problems so they can create positive changes. That’s why a lot of them ask the miracle question. It’s a question that helps people start imagining a more positive future....

Strong family relationships also provide comfort, guidance, and strength that you can draw on in times of stress. Likewise, they provide a sense of belonging and unconditional love you are not likely to find anywhere else. But when these relationships are unhealthy or stress-filled, they can feel exhausting and emotionally draining. A highly-conflicted or toxic family relationship can cause a lot of damage. Not only do these unhealthy relationships deprive you of support, but they also can create additional stress, conflict, and even health issues....

In this article, we dive into what blood pressure is, the causes and risks of high blood pressure, the relationship between stress and blood pressure and some stress-reducing activities to help manage high blood pressure. What Is Blood Pressure? Blood pressure is the amount of pressure or force the blood exerts against the walls of your blood vessels when the heart beats. Blood pressure is measured with two numbers. Systolic blood pressure measures the amount of pressure in your arteries when your heart contracts and pumps blood out....

What Is ODD? ODD is a mental health disorder in which a child demonstrates aggression and purposeful misbehavior. Thought to affect roughly 10 to 20% of school-age children, this behavior disorder is more common in boys than in girls. When thinking about these behaviors, it’s important to realize that many children without ODD exhibit some of these behaviors from time to time. So what are normal behavior problems and what are not?...