GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
When it comes to addressing a child’s behavior, consistency is key. Consistent and expected rewards and consequences can be a great motivator for behavioral modification. When it comes to encouraging good behavior and discouraging bad behavior, understanding consequences helps a child understand how to behave. Planning rewards and consequences do not need to be complicated. […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Children in therapy can often struggle with expressing how they feel. For a number of reasons, a child can struggle with expressing their feelings and needs, even with their parents and friends. When a child is struggling to talk about how they feel, it can be helpful to think about other means of expression. A […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
During childhood, we learn how to identify and cope with our emotions. It is important to encourage children to understand and embrace their emotions at an early age. That way, they develop a level of emotional intelligence that will help them develop a healthy relationship with themselves and with others. Emotions can be triggered in […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Children often struggle to explain how they are feeling. During childhood, they are actively developing their understanding of their own emotions. Feelings can be confusing for a child, and in that confusion they can struggle to express themselves. Children often do not realize their physical symptoms of feelings like anxiety, anger, fear and sadness are […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Children often do not understand how to handle their anger in a healthy way. They may act out, shut down, or lash out at others. Anger can be a complicated emotion for children, so ensuring that they understand how to cope with the feeling is important. Children often need guidance for how to communicate their […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Children often struggle to talk about how they feel. They struggle to work through their own emotions to feel okay. When a changing family affects a child, they may act out or shut down. It is important to be mindful of these changes, and to help the child work through their feelings, rather than punishing […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
A huge part of encouraging a child to continue to engage in good behavior is to provide positive reinforcement. Reinforcement is a powerful tool because it helps a child learn what behaviors will get a positive reaction from the people around them. It helps them to understand consequences and how to behave in a way […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Just like adults, children can have a hard time controlling their anger. They often do not understand how their anger affects them, and how it affects others. Children can struggle to learn how to process and express negative feelings like anger, so it is important to teach emotional intelligence skills to keep them grounded when […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Mindfulness is an important exercise to practice regularly. Clients must learn how to be mindful of themselves, their needs and their emotional wellness in order to ensure good mental health. Families often need mindfulness exercises to ensure their mental health and relationships as well. Family mindfulness is a great way to bring families closer together. […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Grieving can be a very overwhelming and confusing time for a child. Loss and death is a complex concept, and it can be hard for a child to understand what death and loss means, and how the permanence will affect them. It is not uncommon for a child to feel many different feelings, and not […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Using methods from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a great way to help children understand and take accountability for their feelings and actions. CBT helps kids understand their thoughts, feelings and behaviors, which can be instrumental in building self-esteem. It also helps with modifying problematic behaviors. Helping a child understand their thoughts, feelings and actions […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
It is not uncommon for a person to get stuck on the past, present or future. Each frame of time is important to consider when planning goals or the best way to move forward with life. When a person focus too much on the past they can get stuck because they don’t know how to […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
When dealing with a client who is struggling with self-confidence and low self-esteem, it is important to ensure that they are aware of their protective factors. Knowing your own protective factors is important. Protective factors serve as a source of strength, hope and comfort when dealing with a challenge. Sometimes a client is not aware […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
An important part of teaching a child responsibility, accountability and maturity is to provide structure and routine in the daily schedule. With the help of chores and responsibilities around the house, the child is able to learn how to interact with the world, how to take initiative to be self-sufficient, and how to internalize the […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Anger is an emotion that can overwhelm anyone, especially a young child. When a child is not taught proper emotional regulation skills, they can have trouble with learning how to manage their behaviors in reaction to their feelings. This can result in behavioral issues and troubles with communication. Teaching proper anger management skills helps a […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Reinforcement exercises are a helpful tool when teaching children healthy communication and behavior habits. With positive reinforcement, a child learns what types of behaviors elicit positive reactions from people. Through using positive reinforcement techniques children can learn how to behave well in school, at home, and in counseling. A great technique is incorporating a reward […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
When a child is suffering from the effects of anxiety, trauma, abuse, or behavioral problems, he or she feels helpless and vulnerable. These feelings can prevent the child from taking action in taking care of themselves when it counts. In order to ensure a child develops the skills needed to become mentally and emotionally strong […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
When it comes to certain cases, clients may find it difficult to grasp an understanding of the struggles they are going though. Whether dealing with trauma, anger, anxiety, depression or otherwise, it can be a challenge for many clients to understand how they came to become who they are. Sometimes it is not easy to […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
At some point in a client’s journey, he or she will need to take a step back to evaluate how he or she is managing self-care. It is important for a client to be well-aware of what he or she needs to be able to maintain self-care, and to understand a hierarchy in which the […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
It is not uncommon for a child to struggle with verbalizing his or her fears. It can be a challenge for a child to face his or her fears, but setting up a child in a safe setting to express and explore the fears that he or she struggles with can facilitate growth and development […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
It is important to have a list of goals and objectives for the client and therapist to work toward when beginning a new therapeutic relationship. Setting goals creates a foundation that helps the client and therapist stay on track when helping a client feel better. Setting goals also empowers a client to stay on track […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
When working with kids, especially those who have behavioral problems, it can be a challenge to teach empathy and healthy socialization skills. Being able to express gratitude and appreciation for others helps a child relate to their peers and teaches them how to identify positive qualities within themselves. When a child can express appreciation, they […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Promoting self-love is an important part of therapy, but sometimes can be a challenge for clients. It is a lesson that is dynamic, and should be treated as such. For a client to learn to love himself or herself, he or she must also learn how to love and appreciate those around him or her. […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
When working with clients on how to modify behavior, it is important to teach how to be self-reflective and aware of his or her behavior in reaction to the people places and things around them. When clients learn how to be self-reflective, they are able to learn how to slow down reactions, think situations through, […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Teaching emotional intelligence skills is important when working with young children. Often children have feelings they may not understand, which makes it difficult for them to express how they are feeling and if they are upset. This struggle can prevent caretakers and parents from being able to understand the child’s needs, and can further complicate […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
It is not uncommon to have a client pass through your doors who has low self-esteem and a poor awareness of who he or she is and how he or she fits into the world. This can cause a great deal of unpleasant feelings and anxiety within a person, as he or she struggles to […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Many of the clients that pass through therapy offices struggle a great deal with feeling safe in their own skin. Whether it is due to a history of trauma, personal insecurities, or just a general suspicion or lack of self-awareness, people often develop symptoms of anxiety and panic when confronted with different challenges. Sometimes, this […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
When we are kids, we have a good grasp of what it means to experience those staple emotions: Happy, sad, angry, excited, etc. We learn about emotions slowly, what they mean, and how to manage them. As we develop, our brain expands, and our understanding of emotions and how we feel becomes more complex. For […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
There are many reasons why rewarding systems and operant conditioning strategies can be beneficial for a client. Whether it is to learn new parenting skills, communication skills, or leadership skills, understanding the process of reinforcement and punishment styles can be instrumental in a client’s therapeutic process. While helpful skills to learn, understanding the difference between […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
We all know that sometimes life can get overwhelming. Whether it is stress at work, home, or from an unexpected circumstance that causes us to feel overwhelmed. Whatever the case, it is important to know how to manage the feelings of stress, anxiety, fatigue, and depressed mood that comes with difficult circumstances. We all have […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
In successful therapeutic processes, there will come a point in which a client needs to learn how to maintain a healthy, positive lifestyle that promotes mental health and wellness. Clients learn a great deal while in therapy, and making sure that the skills they learn is important to ensuring the client’s successful completion. It is […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
The way we think is a huge component that contributes to the way we feel, behave and react to situations. People develop habits in thinking. Sometimes those habits are healthy, but often people can develop erroneous patterns of thought that affect the way they perceive the world and their place in it. These thoughts are […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
It can be easy to get wrapped up in the moment of a stressful situation and instantly feel overwhelmed and without direction or hopes of finding resolution. When dealing with stress it is important to keep in mind that it will trigger anxiety, and each person reacts to anxiety in different ways. It is important […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Sometimes it can be tough for our clients to know what words to use to express what they are feeling. Feelings and emotions are complex, and can sometimes be uncomfortable and overwhelming. When our clients struggle to articulate their feelings it can be helpful to provide a guide to help navigate them through the words […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Sometimes clients struggle with learning how to feel happy and fulfilled in their lives. Whether it is due to depression, low self-esteem, or motivation issues, it is not uncommon for clients in therapy to struggle to find traction toward happiness or contentment. These clients will ultimately feel lost and sometimes hopeless in their efforts to […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Sometimes our clients have a hard time expressing how they feel to their therapist and others. There could be several reasons for this, like the client was not brought up to express their emotions, they struggled to relate to how others feel, or they simply struggle to make the connection between feeling and expressing their […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
There are a number or reasons why our clients develop a tendency of stunting their emotional expression. Many grow up in homes where they learn to silence their feelings, some suffer from mood disorders that cause unfamiliar feelings, and some come from traumatic, abusive, or negligent situations that prevent them from being able to understand […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
It is important for children to feel empowered and confident in themselves. Confidence helps a child feel proud, motivates them to learn and engage with others, and helps them build social skills and resilience that will be useful in the real world. Unfortunately, many children find it difficult to identify their positive qualities and what […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Grief is one of the most difficult things in life that we have to go through. It is confusing, upsetting, painful, and sometimes traumatic. A child is especially affected by grief and loss because they do not understand they may not understand what it means to lose someone, and certainly do not understand how to […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Children find it hard to cope with things they do not understand. There are many people, places and things in the world that scare children, and when children are afraid they feel lost, alone and vulnerable. Children who are fearful have a hard time developing the confidence they need to face their fears, but if […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Working with children is as challenging as it is rewarding. As we know, children perceive and interpret their world very differently than adults. As children develop they begin to understand their lives and their influence on it in different ways. While they grow their understanding and expression of their emotions become more complex, which makes […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
When patients suffer from more debilitating emotional issues like depression and severe anxiety it can be difficult for them to keep from falling into bad habits like isolating and cutting off things that bring them joy. Of course this is understandable, as with such mental illnesses it can be difficult for a patient to enjoy […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
When we are confronted with patients who are fixated on the negative it is difficult to break away from the bad and shift focus on the good. Often we will have a patient who does not acknowledge anything besides the negative in his or her life which not only is detrimental to their overall health, […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Sometimes when people suffer from low self-esteem, low confidence, or mood disorders like anxiety and depression it is easy to focus on the negative and forget about the positive that they have in their lives. When patients focus only on the negative it is hard to imagine a happy and positive life that has hope, […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Utilizing gratitude skills with clients in therapy is a great way to help clients learn how to cope with stress and frustration in their lives. With all the responsibilities we have each day, it is all too easy to get wrapped up in the stress of the moment and miss out on the things we […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
In therapy, a client learns a lot about their emotions and issues that create challenges in their lives. Through their own self-exploration, they begin to learn different ways to cope with different challenges. Therapy teaches coping skills that help clients relieve their symptoms in real life situations. They learn valuable life skills in therapy. It […]
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GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Arguably the most popular and useful therapeutic exercise for cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the automatic thought record (ATR). Automatic thought records are useful because they help the client take a look at themselves and reflect on their own reactions to a given situation. This empowers the client to reflect and identify their own errors […]
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