Whether you are out with friends, celebrating a holiday or milestone, or at a party, there will likely be alcohol. It can be easy to get carried away, especially when you are more focused on the people you are with and not what you are consuming. This can be dangerous, as drinking too much alcohol…
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The substance use treatment field is the only one I know of in which if you show signs of a problem, they kick you out. Someone goes into a treatment center, is found to be using substances, and then is discharged. Let’s step back and considered the logic of this… Someone goes into treatment for…
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When working with clients on their substance use, there’s one tool I always use. Though it seems simple, it can be powerful and lead to insights. It’s a Cost/Benefit Analysis. Cost/Benefit Analysis: Clients are surprised when I tell them to put a big “X” in quadrants 2 and 3. I don’t care about these…
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Whether you are celebrating, socializing, or just relaxing, there is a good chance that alcohol is involved. It can make you feel happy and more relaxed to have an alcoholic drink, especially when joined with others. However, the effects of too much alcohol consumption can be harmful to your physical health and your mental health.…
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This March, Craig James took part in a panel discussion sponsored by Parents of Addicted Loved Ones entitled ‘Addiction: The Epidemic Within the Pandemic’ Close
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Insight Into Action Therapy’s owner, Craig James, was recently interviewed by the Loudoun Chamber’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility Committee as part of its Black History Month events. Read the Interview Here
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The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, 5th edition (DSM), is clinicians’ tool to form a diagnosis. I have seen plenty of DSM labels stacked together when encountering new patients. They say: I have ADD, PTSD, MDD, BPD, Bipolar and SAD. This tells me more about our current diagnostic system and how it…
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Between work, relationships, and other daily tasks, there are a lot of stressors that people have to take on each day. It is normal to find ways to decompress and relax. However, not everybody makes the best decisions when it comes to winding down. It may seem harmless to partake in a recreational drug like…
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This is a big question for patients. It speaks to individual and societal expectations that we collectively heap onto medications. We see advertisements with happier faces after taking a specific drug, that we should “Talk to your doctor about.” We know of people who are taking antianxiety and antidepressant medications for mental health symptoms ranging…
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Part 2: Observations from the therapy office In my last video and blog post, I discussed why the pandemic might be affecting teens’ mental health in unique ways. Here, I’d like to share some observations from working with teens’ during the pandemic – from the days of scrubbing groceries with Clorox wipes, to googling: “how…
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