Resources - Mental Health Guides & Articles

Estranged From Your Adult Child? When Therapy Can Help, and When It Can’t

Adult child estrangement is when a grown child reduces or ends contact with a parent, often after a long buildup of hurt, conflict, or unmet needs on one or both sides. Therapy can help you cope with the loss, understand your child's perspective, and respond in ways that respect their boundary and leave room for repair. It cannot make your adult child reconcile. If you're one of the many parents of estranged adult children , you may be carrying grief, confusion, guilt, and sometimes anger, often without knowing whether you'll reconnect. That mix is common, and it's one of the most painful experiences a parent can go through. You're far from alone. A 2020 national survey of 1,340 US adults led by Cornell sociologist Karl Pillemer found that 27% were estranged from a family member, and about 10% were estranged from a parent or child. This guide explains why estrangement happens, what therapy can and cannot do, when joint sessions make sense, and how to care for yourself while leaving room for future contact. If you're in crisis, call or text 988 or go to the nearest emergency room. At a glance: Estranged adult children and therapy

Relationship Care

10 min read

ADHD Couples Therapy: When ADHD Affects Your Relationship

ADHD couples therapy is relationship therapy for couples where one or both partners have ADHD. It helps both people see how ADHD symptoms (such as distraction, forgetfulness, time blindness, and emotional dysregulation) shape their dynamic, then build shared systems and communication patterns that reduce conflict, resentment, and the parent-child roles ADHD can create. The goal is to change how you relate to ADHD together, not to fix one person. Therapy supports both partners: the one who carries the reminders, and the one who feels criticized or discouraged because of what they're managing. This strain is a recognized, workable pattern. This page covers the common dynamics ADHD creates in relationships, what couples therapy does about them, how therapy compares to coaching and medication, and how to find a therapist who understands ADHD. At-a-glance: ADHD couples therapy

Mental Health

9 min read

Situational Anxiety vs. Generalized Anxiety: Is What You’re Feeling Temporary or Clinical?

Situational anxiety is a short-term anxiety response to a specific, identifiable stressor, such as a job interview, a move, or a medical test, that usually eases once the situation passes or becomes familiar. It's a common response to uncertainty. The harder question is whether your anxiety is still tied to that event or has become a steady background presence. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a diagnosable anxiety disorder marked by excessive, hard-to-control worry about many areas of life that occurs on most days for six months or longer and interferes with daily functioning. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) estimates that 2.7% of U.S. adults had GAD in the past year, based on diagnostic interviews conducted from 2001 to 2003. Only a licensed clinician can determine whether anxiety meets the criteria for GAD or another anxiety disorder. This page covers how the two differ, what a clinician looks at, and when therapy helps. You don't need a diagnosis to start.

Anxiety

9 min read

Crying for No Reason? When Unexplained Tears Signal Something Deeper

Feeling like you are crying for "no reason" is common, but it usually has a cause that is hard to see in the moment. It can feel like there is "no reason" because the tears can start without an obvious trigger or feel out of proportion to what is happening. The cause is often accumulated stress, anxiety, depression, unprocessed grief, lack of sleep, hormonal change, or occasionally a medical cause that a physician should evaluate. You might get through a demanding workday and then cry in the car on the way home. When that keeps happening, it is natural to wonder whether it means you are depressed. Crying on its own does not automatically mean a diagnosis of depression, but frequent unexplained crying that lasts for weeks, or that comes with hopelessness, is a common sign that warrants a conversation with a professional. This page covers the common causes of unexplained crying, how anxiety-related and depression-related crying tend to differ, the signs it is time to talk to someone, and how therapy helps.

Mental Health

11 min read

Online vs. In-Person vs. Hybrid Therapy: How to Decide

Therapy can be delivered online (virtual sessions by video), in person, or in a hybrid mix of both. Research suggests online therapy is as effective as in-person therapy for many common concerns, so the right format often comes down to your needs, your situation, and your preferences. This page compares all three formats, walks through what research says about effectiveness, and gives you a framework for choosing what fits.

Care Options

6 min read

Blended Family Challenges: When Stepfamily Dynamics Need a Therapist

A blended family , also called a stepfamily , is a family formed when two partners bring children from previous relationships into one household, sometimes alongside children they have together. Blended family therapy is family therapy that helps stepfamilies work through the loyalty conflicts, discipline differences, and adjustment stress of combining two families, so members can build trust and function as one household. According to the Pew Research Center in 2026, approximately 17% of U.S. children live in blended families. Blending two households is one of the harder things a family can take on, and friction in the early years is common, not a sign of failure. This page describes common challenges, signs it may be time to seek professional support, and how family therapy helps build stronger connections over time.