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Mental Health Resources

What is EQ, and How Can We Develop It As Adults?

We all define “success” differently, but for most of us, success means finding meaning in our relationships, career, and other aspects of our lives. Learning and developing Emotional Intelligence (EQ) makes that all possible.

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Addiction, Autism and Post-Pandemic Problems

Some studies indicate that autistic adults are less likely to partake in drug use, however, research conducted by the Autism Research Centre indicates that autistics are nearly nine times more likely than non-autistic peers to use drugs to manage undesirable symptoms, including autism-related symptoms.

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How Millennials are Tackling Toxic Relationship Problems

Millennials are the first generation to openly talk the problems that stem from mentally draining relationships, such as manipulative emotional abuse or gaslighting. But, as aware as we are of these issues and what we should do about them, we struggle to put one foot in front of the other and do the right thing.

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Put Down the Phone, Pick Up a Board Game

Besides lightening the mood at home, playtime creates an atmosphere that everyone in the family is free to be who they are, and this inherently encourages confidence and self-love.

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I Don’t Want to Go Home

Many families bicker over trivial things, but when it escalates to constant fighting and finger-pointing, it often feels deeply personal, upsetting, and overwhelming. How do you maintain your sanity when things are bad enough that you don’t want to go home anymore?

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Finding Peace in Myself

Studies indicate that more women than men are engaged in people-pleasing. This results in adverse effects on our mental and physical health. So, how do we stop trying to please everyone and bring peace into our lives?

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Living in Gratitude

Many studies have found that people who practice gratitude tend to be happier and less depressed, but there is much more credit that can be given to the benefits of living a mindful life of gratitude.

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How Do You Cope with Adult Life?

Coping is never easy, but it is easier when we forgive ourselves for mistakes, when we believe that we are living our life at ‘our best,’ and when we develop a mindset that we are always going to be in the process of learning and growing.

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Exploring Ways to Calm

Do you have a child that gets anxious or becomes dysregulated and needs help calming down? This is an activity that we use with our clients that can help children with self-regulation when anxious or upset. 

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Helpful Tips For Your Anxious Teen

Many times teens experience anxiety in ways that we may pass off as “being a teen.” Teens may experience debilitating anxiety and not know that those physiological symptoms are in fact anxiety; so they may not alert you to their symptoms. Anxiety is treatable. We can help.

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Virtual Support Group

Please join Janice March, Parent Educator at The Family Guidance and Therapy Center, Petaluma for a free virtual support group for parents of Neurodiverse (ASD, SPD, and ADHD) Children in Sonoma County.

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Loving Yourself When the World Is Judging You

There is nobody in the world that knows you better than yourself, and this is the foundation for how you can and should love yourself when you are in the middle of a big life change and feeling as if the world is judging you.

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How a Collective Experience Can Strengthen Our Community

The pandemic has led to loneliness and sadness through sickness, loss of life, economic hardship, and social distancing, but it has also produced a positive outcome in its wake, a powerful strengthening experience and opportunity in both our own selves and collectively in our communities. 

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Feeling Guilty: Coronavirus Survivor

Practice self-compassion by acknowledging your guilt and giving it a name. Or call it what the world has tagged it—survivor’s guilt (i.e., pandemic guilt, coronavirus guilt, thriver guilt). This will help you to take the pressure off yourself.

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A New Beginning

To step into any new beginning, we must dump off any ‘heavyweights’ that can prevent us from moving forward. So, prepare to release what you cannot personally change. 

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Coping with Coronavirus Blues

Use preventive measures to ward off the virus, and then file your worries away. The more you worry, the more it can eat away at your mental health and your immune system. Remember, you are okay right now.

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Staying Soft of Heart

What do we do to keep ourselves from wallowing in life’s normal situations, or perhaps circumstances that are not so normal but seem to pile one on top of the other? How do we stay soft of heart despite life’s difficulties, including when others are not in agreement with our personal choices?

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Staff Spotlight: Wendy Leeds

I have an eclectic approach that meets clients where they are and joins clients in a personal journey towards a healthy, productive, satisfying life.

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Staff Spotlight: Yana Bachynsky

I connect with words resiliency, authenticity, vulnerability, and humility. I value relationships above material possessions so I also connect with simplicity and warmth.

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Pandemic Fatigue: The Never Ending 2020

I’m starting to wonder if this pandemic will ever end. Back in March, I, like many others, packed a cardboard box full of files, a couple pens, and a paper legal pad- enough supplies to last me 2-3 weeks.

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How to Survive Your First Year Postpartum

When I was pregnant, I focused a lot of my attention on pregnancy facts and resources, but I now realize that all the facts in the world don’t prepare you for the actual experience of bringing a baby home.

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The Call to Authenticity and Vulnerability

The purpose of this blog is to encourage you to strive towards authenticity in your communication, which in turn will promote greater openness and vulnerability and thus deepen your relationships.

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What do I Believe in and Why Does it Matter?

When life feels out of sorts, especially during times like these with national and global news filled with a pandemic, shaky politics and political scenes, and other unrest and world issues, we can easily slip away from the root of who we are and forget about what we believe in. You may have heard the term “Stay strong in your beliefs.” It is important to weld a sense of surety and direction into your existence by being true to your values—your fundamental beliefs and guiding principles. By living your life based on your beliefs, you are being authentic to yourself.

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Techniques to Help You Stop Worrying About the Future

Has worry about the future ever stopped you from sleeping well? Has worry ever affected productivity in your day? Has worry ever altered your mood? Our human brains are tuned into knowing that life has many unknowns and challenges, and we naturally want to make sure “everything will be okay”. So, ridding ourselves completely of worry may never happen. The good news is there are techniques that you can adopt to help you stop worrying about the future.

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Children and Anxiety

It may be tough for your child to talk about scary events and circumstances that happen in the world, but encourage your child to reach out to individuals that they trust and love, especially you, when they feel upset or fearful. This helps your child release feelings before they expand out of proportion. It also helps to clear any misconceptions your child may have before it becomes full-blown fear.

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10 Ways to Improve and Nourish Your Mental Health During COVID-19

As a therapist, I cannot help but reflect that during a pandemic, people who have already been experiencing mental health issues are more at risk of them becoming worse. This pandemic definitely will have repercussions for some time, so let’s look at some simple ways you can nourish your mental health during this time.

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12 Ways to Maintain a Healthy Relationship With Your Spouse During a Pandemic

At Family Guidance and Therapy Center, we are here to support you with the issues that may have presented challenges for you during the pandemic. The purpose of this blog is to help marital couples love each other and maintain ahealthy relationship as we are navigating the new reality of pandemic. We are here to support you especially through these tough times.

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Adjusting to the New Normal

Some of us flourish when life changes come our way, while some of us have difficulty adjusting. Know this one key thing, whether you like or hate change, it is normal either way—it is just “you.” We are all different. Accept that in yourself

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Petaluma Ready for Testing During COVID-19

During the Covid-19 crisis, please be advised that we have adapted our assessment practices. Whenever possible, we provide virtual assessment through telehealth and online questionnaires. We limit...

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Resilience in Children

No matter how hard we try to reduce the stress in our kid’s environment, it will still be a part of their lives but you can help your child develop problem-solving skills and equip them with ways that help them cope and move forward.

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Open Communication in a Blended Family

Effective and open communication is foundational to the success of your blended family. You and your partner have a lot to talk about as you incorporate several different family dynamics into your...

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How Do I Find My Core Values?

You’ve had a tough day at work. You could stay late and dedicate another three or four hours to make sure you start tomorrow with a clean slate; however, your autistic child has had a meltdown and...

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CBD Do’s and Don’ts for Autistic Community

Read this blog as intended as a means to help you make the decision if CBD (cannabidiol) is right for you or your loved one, coming from a therapist who has watched many families add CBD and THC as part of well-rounded mental health care.

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Staff Spotlight: Tania Hormozi

Tania is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist interested in working with couples, individuals and families who struggle with depression, anxiety, dual-diagnosis, substance use, and want to...

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Work-Life Balance

Everyone’s work-life balance looks and feels different, but the reward is feeling relaxed, enjoying your job, and doing what you love each day.

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San Diego Autism Community

Community is a feeling of connectedness as a result of shared beliefs, attitudes, and world views. Everyone needs to find their own place in the community.

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Hope

Let’s dive in further into: Where do you find your hope? How to refocus when feeling hopeless, and giving yourself permission to not always have it figured out.

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New Perspective, New You

Imagine a time when you can look back on the year, appreciate and feel grateful for accomplishing more than one new year’s resolution, for achieving more than one way of thinking, and identifying a new perspective in life.

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New Diagnosis/Testing Center in Petaluma

New Diagnosis/Testing Centers for Autism The Family Guidance and Therapy Center is excited to announce that we are opening our first diagnosis and testing center for autism! We will be offering the...

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Staff Spotlight: Ying-Ying Shiue

I’m a big advocate for meeting clients where they are at. What changes do they want to make in their lives and how can we work together on getting them there?

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Staff Spotlight: Meg Kiperts

My work with clients is only unique because of who I am, the experiences I’ve been through, and the things I have learned. I personally value wisdom, but it is not something easily transferred between people; the receiver has to be in the right place.

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Live Event: Practicing Self-Compassion

Think about the last time you made a mistake. For many, this isn’t a comfortable thing to do. For many, making a mistake is accompanied by self-judgement. A critical voice in our head that calls us...

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Staff Spotlight: Alicia Fong

My work as a therapist challenges me to be a pro in taking care of myself and be authentic by “walking my talk”. At the end of the day, it is very rewarding seeing the lives of my clients and my own grow side by side.

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Love & Autism Events are Happening Now!

Join us for a Talk on Neurodiversity By Jenny Palmiotto We, at the Family Guidance and Therapy Center, love Love & Autism! We love it so much that we want to bring it to you year round! For...

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Staff Spotlight: Arianna Farinelli

Meet Arianna Farinelli! Arianna is a marriage and family therapist associate who has been a part of the Family Guidance and Therapy team for 3 months. She believes one of the most powerful tools for...

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Still the One: My RDI Love Story

February has many of us thinking about love. You know that feeling when you discover you are in love? That intense energy, the preoccupied mind, the need to web your heart’s desire into every...

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Working From A Place of Purpose

I am passionate about my work, because I know I am working from a place of purpose. I am one of those people that loves my job. I am fundamentally fulfilled by my work. But, this was not always the case and I paid for it with physical and mental unhappiness.

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Embracing Imperfection

I’m not sure if the dangers of hiding things away and pretending to be something you’re not are things we inherently know as humans, but somehow gets muddled over time by what our anxiety and fear does to push it away.

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Staff Spotlight: Sydney Tomita

Kindness represents the age old saying of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  It’s about trying to have compassion and understanding for everyone we encounter throughout our day-to-day lives because everyone is struggling with something, even if we are unaware.

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Staff Spotlight: Julie O’Hara

The most rewarding part of my work is when a client proudly shares about an experience that demonstrates their hard work and that they have achieved their therapeutic goal. While this moment may not be traceable back to one particular change in behavior or moment of insight, I can be confident that the hard work they have put into therapy has helped them achieve their goal.

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Adventure as Anxiety Resilience

Cultivating an adventurous spirit reminds the body and soul that we as moms are powerful, can accomplish anything, and don’t need to live in fear and anxiety.

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The New Office in Central Texas!

The Family Guidance and Therapy Center in Central Texas is Ready for Business We have officially moved into our newest office, located in Central Texas! We are currently offering only RDI &...

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Love and Autism

I see a world with a multitude of autistic experiences; love can be experienced in many ways. My friends and I would like to share our experiences with you.

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Staff Spotlight: Kasey Connors

We are such dynamic beings, we change day to day, moment to moment. It is awe inspiring to be able to spend time with someone and get to know who they truly are, find commonalities, and have a real heartfelt connection with another human being.

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Changing & Shaping Dialogue About Autism: Why it Matters!

Using arbitrary and limiting labels of high functioning and low functioning, with the intent to help one get a “better picture of the person with autism”, is not only insulting, but dehumanizing. Pathologizing reinforces a deficits view of autism. These labels serve no one. No human is all one thing. We each have good days and bad. We all have struggles and strengths.

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Staff Spotlight: Katherine Frerich

The most challenging part of this work I do is changing the mindset that RDI is like nothing else you have ever tried. The most rewarding part of this work is seeing a parent of an autistic child have an “ah ha” moment, then they finally get it.

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Therapist Spotlight: Megan Murphy

I firmly believe in the importance of collaborating with my client and am constantly learning and growing from each experience a client shares with me. I ensure that I view each client as an individual and support them to find the right level of challenge necessary to experience growth.

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The Mom Life

You are the most perfect mom for your child. Keep striving towards being your best and breathe through the pain and discomfort that growing and changing can create. Parenting is the business of guiding novice human beings into being kind, compassionate and understanding people. You have to work at it, but you can definitely do it.

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Bread and Jam for Behaviors

Movement Method is misnamed. It’s not a Method – it’s a framework. It’s a lens to view behaviors, motivations and the brain science of what is happening.  It’s a lens to understand our own cultural upbringing and how we got to a place where we are applying techniques that don’t work – in fact, they create suffering.

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Be-You-tiful

Set an intention in your heart to discover what it means to be you. Find a therapist that can help you on your authenticity journey. Stay tuned for our annual gathering, Love & Autism, where this year’s theme is all about authenticity—Be-You-tiful. It’s going to be beautiful.

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Therapist Spotlight: Samantha Alexander

I’ve always felt that as the professional I needed to be in the passenger seat. I believe that parents have to be at the wheel when it comes to intervention. I am available to provide guidance, support, ideas and expertise but I can’t decide where we are going. I start my work with parent empowerment so they feel competent and ready to lead because while I may know autism they know their child.

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