Archive for category: Personal development

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Personal Development
Everyone faces struggles in life, whether it’s dealing with grief, job loss, frustrating circumstances, financial stress, or just the everyday challenges of living. These issues may not meet the criteria for a clinical diagnosis of depression or anxiety, but they can still cause significant distress and impact your quality of life.

Counseling can help you learn how to manage these challenges effectively and develop skills to prevent them from turning into more serious mental health issues. Our articles offer practical tips and insights to help you navigate life’s ups and downs and build resilience in the face of adversity. Learn more about how counseling can help you manage life’s challenges and achieve greater well-being.

an isolated girl being mocked by others. Social anxiety counseling austin tx

Extracting Rejection

Extracted Rejection is a phenomenon where one perceives rejection after an event has taken place, even though the facts suggest otherwise. It is different from Anticipatory Rejection, which occurs before a situation even happens. Mindfulness-based…
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Updated: July 24, 2024
lonely guy looks out window

Anticipatory Rejection

Anticipatory rejection is a pattern of behavior where you reject yourself before others have the chance to accept or reject you. This self-defeating habit can prevent you from forming lasting connections with others. In contrast to extracting…
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Updated: July 24, 2024
An image of a brain with the right hemisphere blue and the left hemisphere red. There are energy bolts feeding into each side.

Basics of the Mind

The mind is a complex process involving urges, thoughts, and drives that lead to behaviors that are either encouraged or discouraged though either pleasant experience or unpleasant experience. To understand how this vastly oversimplified explanation…
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Updated: March 19, 2025
Image of brain

Brain Science

Brain science (neuroscience) involves the physical structure of the brain, its biochemistry, and experiences that help shape it. A brain repeatedly subjected to trauma (physical or emotional/chemical) is more likely to suffer some difficulty.…
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Updated: July 24, 2024
A silhouette of a man and woman arguing

Anticipatory Defensiveness

First, we should differentiate between plain old defensiveness and anticipatory defensiveness. They share a certain vibe of irritability and protectiveness, but they are certainly different, and seem to come from different places: One defending…
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Updated: July 24, 2024
grieving statue at cemetery

Grieving an unfair loss

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Balancing the anger and sadness of an unfair loss can feel impossible, especially in the beginning. First, breathe and understand that this will pass even though it does not feel like it. Before going any further, if you are unsure, please get…
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Updated: March 19, 2025
Sad woman looking down

Emotional Confirmation Bias

When we think of "confirmation bias" we typically think of politics. As voters, confirmation bias is when we hold a particular belief, then selectively look for evidence to support it; this is typically an unconscious process (i.e. we are not…
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Updated: July 24, 2024
Overlapping circles of thinking and feeling minds creating hybrid wise mind.

Mindfulness and the Wise Mind

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In dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), there is a wonderful explanation of how the best of our thinking and feeling minds can be accessed. This "Wise Mind" is based on the idea that the thinking brain and feeling brain both have validity and…
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Updated: July 24, 2024
A man at his desk procrastinating by listening to music in headphones

Procrastination

When it comes to not getting things done, we can be extremely creative about feeling good about it. Does this sound familiar, "To be at my most productive, I need some down time." Or, "Sleep is really important, so I'll just sleep in today .…
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Updated: July 24, 2024
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