Author Archives: mcollins_admin

ANT Exterminator

Once you start to pay attention to your thoughts, you will become aware that many of your thoughts are distorted, negative judgments about yourself, other people, or the future. These thoughts are called Automatic Negative Thoughts or ANTS, and most of us get them quite frequently.

Panic Disorder and Postraumatic Stress Disorder

Panic is a normal and natural response to the perception of an immediate threat or danger. This process has evolved over time to help protect us from danger, but unfortunately, the intense reactions often occur as a “false alarm”. In other words, the perceived threat is judged to be far worse that it actually is.

How Marriage Counseling and Post-Divorce Therapy Can Help

Dr. Daniel B. Nicholas January 28, 2013 Marriage and relationship issues can cause great suffering. Many relationships, like individuals, engage in repeating problematic ways of relating, and behaving. Without learning to identify and correct these patterns, couples begin to lose hope that things can get better. Each spouse may feel misunderstood and unappreciated. Maladaptive communication […]

Classifications of Anxiety Disorders

Dr. Daniel B. Nicholas December 9, 2012 An interesting way to consider anxiety disorders was recently suggested to me at a recent Harvard Medical School training course. In essence, anxiety disorders can be divided into 3 different levels of mental arousal. Anxiety disorders characterized by continuous arousal or chronic hyperarousal or worry include generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).In GAD, the content of the worry tends […]

Positive Psychology and Psychotherapy

Dr. Daniel B. Nicholas November 10, 2012 Positive psychology is a new branch of psychology that scientifically studies what we need to do in order to live a fulfilled and happy life. It does not look at concepts like happiness, as just an absence of psychopathology or problems. It is not about one person’s untested theory […]

When Video Games Become a Problem

Dr. Daniel B. Nicholas November 7, 2012 This is an issue that often creates problems between parents and their children. It seems that it primarily involves boys but it can involve girls as well. Here is the typical scenario. Homework may not be getting done, with almost nightly conflict. Frequent meltdowns or temper tantrums occur when the parent tries […]

Why Children and Teenagers Are Coming To Counseling in Tinley Park, Illinois

Many parents bring their child or teenager to counseling because they are experiencing frequent depressed, anxious, and/or angry and irritable moods. Concentration problems, variable school performance or academic underachievement, can be other signs that something is wrong.