Mental Health Insights | Blog
Welcome to the ARCH Counseling Center blog.
Here, you’ll find articles written by our clinicians on a variety of mental health topics, including anxiety, depression, trauma, relationships, parenting, grief, life transitions, and emotional well-being. Our goal is to provide clear, accurate, and practical information that helps readers better understand common mental health concerns and the therapeutic approaches used to address them.
Borders Live in the Body: Immigration, Identity, and the Psychology of Belonging
Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day. That matters when we talk about immigration, borders, belonging, and who gets to decide where someone is allowed to exist. The borders we recognize today are political constructions layered onto lands, communities, and systems of...
Burned Out or Just Tired? Understanding Burnout in Athletes
You can love your sport and still feel completely exhausted by it. Athletes are used to being tired. Hard practices, early mornings, long competitions, travel, school, and constant training are all part of being an athlete. So how do you know when you are simply tired...
A Body Worth Listening To: Moving from Correction to Connection
We live in a culture obsessed with optimization, renovation, and control. From a young age, we absorb a persistent message: your body is a problem to be solved. We are taught to fix it, shape it, quiet it, make it more productive, or alter its appearance. Even in...
Helping Suicidal Clients
Beginning a healing journey in therapy can feel challenging. It involves opening up about mental health struggles and sharing your internal world with someone who starts off as a stranger. This is a vulnerable task regardless of the reasons someone has for coming to...
Understanding Minority Stress: Why It Matters in Mental Health Counseling
Many people come to therapy feeling anxious, exhausted, disconnected, or constantly on guard. Sometimes those feelings are connected not only to personal stress, but also to the daily experience of moving through a world that may not always feel safe, welcoming, or...
Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month
National Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated each year from September 15 to October 15 in the United States, honoring the histories, cultures, and contributions of Hispanic and Latinx communities. These dates coincide with the independence anniversaries of several...
Horrible Bosses: Navigating Difficult Work Environments
With Labor Day recently behind us, it is a fitting time to reflect on the role work plays in our lives and in our mental health. We spend a significant portion of our time working, and our experiences at work can affect how we feel long after the workday ends. A...
From Plot Twists to Epilogues: A Therapist’s Take on Grief and Growth in Adulthood
Think of life as a book. In childhood, the chapters fly by like page-turners; in young adulthood, the plot thickens with careers, families, and adventures. But by middle and late adulthood, the story shifts. The chapters may be fewer ahead than behind, and the themes...
The Service Industry: A Complex of Neglected Well-Being
To anyone who has worked or is working in the service (or hospitality) industry, including myself, you would know that your personal well-being is one of the last facets of the job to be considered. In the rush to make guests happy and keep some semblance of order in...
Toe-Dipper or Cannonballer? Finding Your Pace This School Year
If you work in education, you are likely already deep into new schedules, new policies, and new students and families, each with different needs, expectations, and demands. Even for the most passionate professionals in education, the shift back to school can feel...
OCD Isn’t Just Being Organized: Understanding What OCD Really Looks Like
When people hear the term OCD, many people think of someone who likes things neat, organized, or arranged in a specific way. While cleanliness and organization can sometimes be part of OCD, the condition is much more complex than simply being “particular” or liking...
Back to School Starts with Connection
As summer comes to an end, families, teachers, and school communities are preparing for another school year. There are supplies to purchase, classrooms to prepare, schedules to organize, and routines to rebuild. While all of these things are important, going back to...
Back to School: A Fresh Start Worth Preparing For
There's something about the week before school starts that feels different from the rest of summer. The backpacks are new, the shoes still smell like the store, and everyone in the house is a little more on edge than they'd admit. That mix of excitement and nerves...
Anxiety, You’re Not the Boss of Me! Helping Kids and Teens Take Charge This School Year
For a lot of young people, the start of a new school year comes with a familiar houseguest: anxiety. For younger kids, it might show up as stomachaches on Sunday nights or tears at drop-off. For teens, it might look more like a racing mind before the first day or a...
You Are More Than Your Performance: Building an Identity Beyond Sports
For many athletes, sports are more than just a game. After years of practices, competitions, training, and sacrifice, sports can become a way of life. They shape not only daily routines but also how athletes see themselves. There is nothing wrong with being passionate...
The Invisible Playbook: Unpacking Coaching, Family Systems, and Team Dynamics in Sports
When we watch athletes perform—or step onto the field ourselves—it’s easy to get caught up in the final outcome: the scoreboard, the stats, or the highlight reel. But behind every triumph or setback, there’s a whole ecosystem at play. An athlete’s mental health and...
Making the Most of Your Senior Year and Preparing for What Comes Next
Senior year is here—and with it comes a year full of change, decisions, excitement, and possibility. For high school seniors, going back to school can feel different than any year before. There are familiar classes, friends, activities, and routines, but there is also...
Returning to School After a Difficult Year or Bullying
Returning to a new school year after a difficult experience can present a significant challenge for families, particularly when navigating the aftermath of bullying, a lack of support, or academic burnout. However, the start of a new academic year also offers a...
On Creating Distance Between You and Your Thoughts
Some researchers estimate we have up to 70,000 thoughts a day, and they say around 90% of these thoughts are repetitive and negative. Thinking is the trademark of our species. Although other animals “think” in the sense that their brains produce electrical signals,...
Friendships in Adulthood: Battling “Mid-Life” Loneliness
“Making friends used to feel so much easier.” Does this thought sound or feel familiar? You are not alone. For those of us who have reached adulthood, many of us find ourselves having a similar quiet realization. In childhood and early adulthood,...
The 5-Minute Journaling Practice That Helped Me Get Out of Autopilot
Have you ever wanted to change a habit, the way you think, or how you respond in certain situations—only to find yourself ending up in the same place? If you’re anything like me, those moments can quickly lead to thoughts that sound something like this: Why can’t I do...
Back to School, Back to a Schedule: Supporting Your Child’s and Your Own Mental Health During the Transition Back
Summer's long, unstructured days are coming to a close, and the school routine is about to begin again. For many families, this transition brings more than just packed lunches, homework, and earlier mornings; it also comes with an emotional adjustment. If you or your...
Understanding the Adolescent Mental Health Hospitalization Process in Illinois
For many families, the possibility of psychiatric hospitalization can feel overwhelming and uncertain. Caregivers often have questions about what the process involves, what their child’s experience will be like, and how hospitalization can support their mental health....
Relationship Diversity, Attachment, and Building Secure Connections
Relationships come in many forms, and there is no single "right" way to build a meaningful connection. While monogamy remains the most familiar relationship structure in our culture, many people choose consensually non-monogamous (CNM) relationships, including...
When Silence Feels Heavy: The Power of Talking and Feeling Heard
Opening the Door to Difficult Conversations Suicide is one of the hardest topics to talk about. Even hearing the word can bring up discomfort, uncertainty, or fear of saying the wrong thing. As a result, many conversations about suicide never happen. While this...
Job Search Burnout: What It Is and How to Cope
A couple of years ago, I started applying for what I assumed would be entry-level positions. After three months of rejections and unanswered applications, I had submitted more than 50 resumes. I felt exhausted, discouraged, confused, frustrated, and sad. Eventually, I...
Juneteenth: Honoring Freedom, Resilience, and the Right to Feel
Juneteenth is often called America’s second Independence Day, but for many African Americans, it is much more than a historical celebration. Observed on June 19th, it commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finally learned they were...
Easing Loneliness
Around 2019, I looked around and noticed that despite our phones, social media, and the internet making us appear more connected than ever, loneliness had become an even bigger public health issue. Researchers have been studying social connection and loneliness for...
Pride Month: Celebration, Resistance, and the Healing Power of Community
A reflection on minority stress, resilience, and support during Pride Pride Month is many things at once. It is celebration, visibility, joy, and hard-won affirmation. It is also resistance: a reminder that LGBTQ+ lives, relationships, and identities have always...
Supporting Children Through Summer Break: A Parent’s Guide to Transitioning Home, Maintaining Routine, and Building Emotional Regulation
As the school year comes to an end, many families look forward to slower mornings, vacations, and more quality time together. While summer can be exciting, it can also be a difficult adjustment for children who are transitioning from the structure of the classroom...
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Individual Adult Therapy
Often, we associate therapy with childhood or times of significant crisis. However, therapy is a valuable tool for adults of all ages, regardless of their circumstances. It’s a proactive approach to mental wellness, empowering individuals to navigate life’s challenges, build resilience, and unlock their full potential.
Couple's Therapy
Couples therapy is a valuable tool for strengthening relationships and overcoming challenges. By seeking professional guidance, couples can improve communication, resolve conflicts, and deepen their emotional connection.
Family Therapy
Family therapy is a powerful tool for addressing a wide range of family challenges, from communication breakdowns to significant life transitions. By involving all family members in the therapeutic process, family therapy can help improve relationships, enhance communication, and promote overall well-being.
Children's Therapy
Just as adults benefit from therapy, children can also gain immense value from seeking professional help. Therapy provides a safe and supportive space for young minds to explore their emotions, develop coping skills, and build resilience.
Adolescents/Teens Therapy
Adolescence is a time of significant physical, emotional, and social change. As teens navigate the complexities of growing up, they may encounter a range of challenges, including anxiety, depression, and relationship difficulties. Therapy offers a safe and supportive space for adolescents to explore their feelings, develop coping skills, and build resilience.
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Getting started at ARCH Counseling Center is simple—reach out, and we’ll guide you through the first steps toward healing and growth. Your journey to well-being begins with a conversation.