The Courage to Ask for Help You have been struggling for a while now. Maybe it is the constant worry that keeps you up at night. Maybe it is the heaviness that makes every small task feel impossible. Maybe it is the anger that bubbles up for no reason, or the numbness that makes you … Read more
Priya was a software engineer in Austin, Texas, with an Aetna PPO through her employer. After eight months of waitlists and rejected directory listings, she finally booked a therapist through Headway who said she took Aetna. The first session went well. The second session went well. Three weeks later, Priya got an Explanation of Benefits … Read more
Elena got COVID for the third time in February 2023. The acute illness was mild — a sore throat, three days on the couch, back to work the following week. By April she could not finish a sentence without losing the thread. By June she was crying every morning, sleeping eleven hours and waking exhausted, … Read more
The Mental Health Infrastructure That Costs Nothing and Predicts the Most The longest-running study of human flourishing in history, the Harvard Study of Adult Development, has tracked hundreds of men over more than eight decades. The single most consistent finding from the study is that the quality of close relationships, more than wealth, fame, intelligence, … Read more
The intake counselor in Boca Raton sounded confident on the phone. “Cigna is one of our best payers,” she told the family of a 34-year-old software engineer in Charlotte who needed residential treatment for alcohol use disorder. The family handed over the insurance card, signed the admission packet, and watched their son walk into a … Read more
Maya and David sat in their parked Subaru outside a strip-mall office in Bellevue, Washington, arguing about whether to actually go in. They had been married eleven years and had spent the last four sleeping in different rooms. The therapist they were about to meet charged $235 a session, and David had spent the drive … Read more
How to choose a reputable sober living home: NARR levels, costs, MAT acceptance, red flags, and how recovery housing fits into long-term sobriety.
The car accident happened on a Tuesday afternoon in suburban Sacramento. By Thursday, Marcus couldn’t sleep more than two hours at a stretch. Every time he closed his eyes, he heard the screech and felt the airbag punch his chest. His wife found him standing in the kitchen at 3 a.m., staring at nothing. He … Read more
Priya’s first panic attack hit on a Wednesday morning before a sales call she’d given a hundred times before. Heart hammering, hands shaking, sure she was about to die. The second one came that Friday in a Trader Joe’s parking lot. By the third, she’d canceled three meetings, called her primary care doctor, and gotten … Read more
Comparison of EMDR, somatic experiencing, and internal family systems for trauma therapy – what each does, who it fits, credentials to look for, and insurance coverage.