Kate Motaung

As a parent, you are always making sure your children are healthy and taken care of. From day one, you have a primary care doctor working with you to ensure your children have all their physical health needs met. You are constantly looking for symptoms and signs that something might be wrong – a fever, a rash, a runny nose, or a cut. But what are parents supposed to look for to help their children with their mental health?

“When you’re lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you’ve just wandered off the path, that you’ll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now . . . Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it’s time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that

It’s that time of year again – school is out for summer, and you’re wondering how to keep your teenager busy so that they do not spend all of their free time glued to their devices. Thankfully, there is an abundance of group activities for teens that they can participate in! 21 Positive Group Activities for Teens Volunteering Learning to invest in the lives and welfare of others, is one of the best uses of time for anyone but

Surviving an affair and recovering from infidelity is a very unique struggle. Those who have been through this traumatic event will tell you there is really nothing quite like it. One of my callings as a counselor is to help people on all sides as they work through both the causes and the effects after the affair -- the pain, separation, confusion, grief, and conflict that can result. Throughout our sessions together, I will emphasize the importance of building

Congratulations! You’re getting married! This is surely one of the most exciting seasons of your life and for good reason. You are about to embark on a journey with your best friend, and the person you envision growing old with. A great adventure is about to begin! However, just like any adventure in life can be better prepared for, rather than just showing up and seeing how it all plays out, so too, can you take steps right now

In the past 50 years, the life expectancy in the United States has risen nearly 10 years, from around 70 years in 1969 (which yes, was already 50 years ago) to Around 79 in 2016 (the most recent year I could find data for). With advances in medicine and many general health practices that have improved in recent years, we are living longer and longer. However, we are not always thriving and this can mean many years of struggling

Samantha is a 27-year-old female. She has a successful career and has worked very hard to get where she is today. Ever since college, she has noticed that she often feels stressed and worried about a variety of things. They might be worries related to work, school (when she was attending), relationships, or things she wants to accomplish. There are seasons that are worse than others, but overall, it has been an ongoing issue in Samantha’s life. Some weeks

If you are raising a teen right now, then you have probably realized that parenting one is much different than parenting a child. All of a sudden (overnight, it might feel like), your sweet, innocent kid has turned sassy, moody, and wanting nothing to do with you. This can be really hard on parents. Even though you have lived through this stage of life, you may have forgotten how confusing and emotional it can be. It is important to

The scope of this article focuses on addiction to substances and rehab for teens. One of the most difficult things to process as a parent is how little control we end up having over the well-being of our children as they get older. If we do our job well, they go from needing us absolutely (as infants) to not needing us at all (as adults). That doesn’t mean we don’t have a relationship with them, it just means in

Depending on what part of the country you live in, there may be a stigma that surrounds eating disorders if you are male. For one thing, any disorder may be seen as a sign of weakness, and you may have been trained to feel shame in the face of weakness. Culturally, you may have more awareness of females with eating disorders, movie and media references to “girls who eat their feelings” and the like. Addictive or compulsive behaviors surrounding

The thoughts that may come up when thinking about what anxiety and anger feel like can often be connected with a sense of losing control. Often times, anxiety and anger are more connected and related to each other than one may imagine. Anxiety comes from the root feeling often related to stress, often due to a feeling of worry about a particular outcome, and can lead to feelings of being unable to cope with or control one’s situation. These

When I work with clients, one of the first things I often show them is a diagram called “The Social Ecology of the Family.” Basically, it consists of a series of concentric circles that have various labels. About halfway towards the middle, I’ll label a circle “you”, then the next out is family, then friends, then city, county, culture. Then I will return to the “you” circle, then go inward with psychology, organs, cells, and finally molecules in the