Jayson Blair

In advance, the moral of this story is not that there is nothing that some helping hands and a little Ativan can't cure. Although, its a good combination. The experiences of a client with bipolar disorder responded me of the importance of having people in your life -- peer support -- who understand through firsthand experience what it has been like to walk in your shoes. This -- the notion that having help from someone who understands from their own experience can make a difference -- is a common mantra in the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance of Northern Virginia groups and has become a tool in the vast arsenal at Ashburn Psychological Services . Bipolar disorder usually presents itself in one of three forms: full-blown mania, hypomania and depression. In the depressed and manic states, some experience psychotic symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations. Two less common presentations of bipolar are rapid cycling, where an individual shifts from mania to depression in ...

There has been a surge in recent calls to Ashburn Psychological Services from people looking to figure out what to door with their careers or to make a occupation change. One of the questions I often get during phone consultations is about the difference between career coaches and career counselors. Though the lines between career counseling and career coaching have become blurred, there are some distinctions that can make a big difference in determining your future. Coaching is usually more individualized, results-oriented and guided by the client's agenda. Counseling and psychology often seek to fix what psychologists called pathology, whereas career counseling focuses on identifying career interests, aptitudes and creating a life skills plans that allows clients to accomplish those goals. A career coach can help you, like a career counselor, figure out where you want to be through talking and testing, but a coach usually also helps develop a plan, coach you on the interview pro...

In my own therapy, three years ago, my therapist handed me a passage from a book after I had been struck by a series of losses. I turned to the same passage today after a week that was filled with several punishing and piercing losses for someone close to me that shook the moors of my faith that I truly believe that which is so logical, a notion that I intellectually conceded decades ago, but that my mental and physical reaction this week told me that I truly have not let go of in my heart -- that I cannot protect, even those I love the most, from harm. From Judith Viorst 's Necessary Losses : When we think of loss we think of the loss, through death, of people we love. But loss is a far more encompassing theme in our life. For we lose not only through death, but also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go and moving on. And our losses include not only our separations and departures from those we love, but our conscious and unconscious losses of roman...

Just finished reading "The Gift of Therapy" by the noted psychiatrist and therapist, Irvin Yalom, MD . I had read Dr. Yalom's writings on group psychotherapy and his hilarious and poignant case studies in the book "Love's Executioner." "The Gift of Therapy" is a well-written look at case studies that form an open letter to today's therapists. As soon as I finished the book, I passed it on to a gifted client who is in graduate school, preparing to become a therapist. There is no more interesting writer in the field of psychotherapy than Dr. Yalom. He is a gifted storyteller with a wonderful mind that can easily analyze an individual client and the broader issues in the industry. What strikes me about Dr. Yalom is both how he truly belongs to no school of therapy -- cognitive behavioral or insight-oriented or psychodynamic , for example -- but instead has an amazing ability to pick and choose different elements of each school to create a uniq...

Dr. Susan Hamilton , a noted clinical psychologist, former director of substance abuse treatment programs and the former director of mental health at the American Red Cross, began working with me today to bring the federal Substance Abuse Mental Health Administration's Recovery Month 2009 to Ashburn Psychological Services and Loudoun County in September. Taking, Dr. Hamilton's lead we are looking at distributing tons of SAMSHA literature on substance abuse and mental health in the community, offering in-service training or a lecture that includes clinicians and our substance abuse treatment alums . Looking forward to more planning with Dr. Hamilton and making a difference when it comes to recovery.

Several clients have benefited from two recent books I've tripped across for students with attention deficit disorder who are headed off to or back to college. The first book is " M aki ng the Grade with A+DD: A Student's Guide to Succeeding in College with Attention Defici t D isorder " and " Survival Guide for Colleg e Students with ADHD and ADD. " "Survival" confirms some good tips for selecting colleges, living arrangements and other issues for students with attention deficit disorder, while I would list "Making the Grade" as a must-read - I've already given away five copies in the last two months to client's who are college students, and recommended it to two others - akin to how Kay Redfield Jamison's "An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness" is a must read for anyone with or who knows someone with bipolar disorder and how Brooke Shield's "Down Came the Rain" is a must-read for anyone wh...