By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, LCAC, Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Licensed Clinical Addiction Counselor at Think Well Live Well Counseling and Telepsychiatry, serving Indianapolis and all of Indiana by secure telehealth. Losing a pet hurts so much because the bond is genuinely a primary attachment, one that is daily, physical, and unconditional, and its loss triggers the same grief response as any close death. It's harder because it's often disenfranchised grief: real pai

AI therapy refers to the use of generative chatbots and mental health apps to provide emotional support, psychoeducation, or coping strategies. These tools simulate therapeutic conversation using predictive language models, but they are not licensed, not regulated as clinical care, and cannot exercise clinical judgment.

By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, LCAC. Founder, Think Well Live Well Counseling and Telepsychiatry | Serving adults across Indiana Revenge bedtime procrastination is the deliberate delay of sleep to reclaim personal time lost to daytime obligations. It is not laziness or poor discipline. Peer-reviewed research since 2014 identifies it as a self-regulation and autonomy response, and it costs the average American roughly 332 hours of sleep annually. It's 11 p.m. You know you should

By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, LCAC | EMDR Certified Therapist | Think Well Live Well Counseling and Telepsychiatry, Indianapolis, Indiana Overreacting to small things is usually a nervous system response, not a character trait. When a survival response gets interrupted, your body stores it and replays it whenever something resembles the original threat. Somatic tracking helps that stored response finish, which reduces the reaction. Someone uses a certain tone and your chest loc

Written by Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, LCAC Founder of Think Well Live Well Counseling and Telepsychiatry, with over 20 years of experience treating trauma, anxiety, and addiction Self medication is what happens when someone turns to a drink, a drug, or a habit like gambling to cope with feelings that are too much to carry on their own. It is not about chasing a high or lacking willpower. It is the nervous system reaching for the fastest relief it can find. The Real Reason Peopl

By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, LCAC, ThinkWellLiveWell There's a version of love that looks perfect from the outside. No drama, no fighting, no one accusing anyone of being "too much." Two calm, capable, independent people who give each other space and never seem to need anything from one another. I've sat across from couples who describe exactly this. What I've learned, over and over, is that this quiet compatibility can be hiding something. When both partners have what's calle

By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, LCAC Have you ever lain awake replaying a text conversation, or felt a jolt of anxiety every time your phone buzzes, or wondered why a calm, steady relationship feels almost too quiet compared to the chaos of a past one? None of that means something is wrong with you. It usually just means your nervous system learned somewhere along the way to associate love with intensity, and intensity isn't the same thing as connection. Let's untangle this toget

By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, LCAC, Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Licensed Clinical Addiction Counselor, Think Well Live Well Counseling and Telepsychiatry, Indianapolis, IN If you've ever put on headphones to "focus" or "relax" and noticed a low, pulsing hum underneath the music, there's a good chance you were listening to binaural beats. They're one of the most talked-about sound-based tools for calming an overactive mind, and for good reason: there's real research behi

By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, LCAC What Is Narcissistic Abuse? Narcissistic abuse is a pattern of emotional manipulation, including love bombing, gaslighting, silent treatment, and smear campaigns, used by a person with pathological narcissistic traits to control a partner, family member, or employee and extract validation, known clinically as narcissistic supply. It typically unfolds in cycles of idealization, devaluation, and discard. If you have spent months or years asking

By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, Think Well Live Well Counseling & Telepsychiatry If you've ever thought, "Do I need a coach or a therapist right now?", you're not alone, and you're asking a smarter question than most people realize. The words get used interchangeably online all the time, but coaching and therapy are actually two different professions, with different training, different goals, and different rules about what each person is allowed to do for you. As a licensed clini

by Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, LCAC What Is Empathy, Really? Empathy is the ability to understand what someone else is feeling without taking that feeling on as your own. It's a skill, not a personality trait, which means it can be built, and it can also break down under the wrong conditions. That second part matters more than people realize. Empathy isn't a fixed gift some people have and others don't. Researchers who study clinical empathy in medical students, using a well-va

By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, LCAC | ThinkWellLiveWell.co Why Polyvagal Theory changes everything about how we understand anxiety, trauma, and emotional overwhelm. You snap at someone you love over something small. An hour later you’re numb, checked out, unreachable even to yourself. The next day you’re fine, laughing, present, wondering what happened. Here’s what happened: your nervous system shifted states. And if anyone has ever told you to “just calm down” or “stop overre

By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW, LCAC | Think Well Live Well Counseling and Telepsychiatry | thinkwelllivewell.co You Are Not Broken. Your Brain Just Got Stuck. EMDR therapy, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is a structured, evidence-based psychotherapy that uses gentle bilateral stimulation to help the brain complete the processing of traumatic memories, reducing their emotional charge and freeing the nervous system from patterns rooted in the past. It is recogni

What Is Teletherapy for Anxiety Treatment? Teletherapy for anxiety treatment is a clinically supervised, technology-mediated psychological intervention that delivers evidence-based therapeutic modalities, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), somatic experiencing, and eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR), through a secure, HIPAA-compliant videoconferencing platform. It eliminates geographic and logistical barriers to mental health care, enabling licensed

The ACT Hexaflex isn't therapy jargon. It's a practical framework for understanding why you're stuck and exactly how to move forward. If you've ever wondered why you keep ending up in the same painful patterns: the same relationships, the same 2 a.m. spirals, the same feeling of being trapped in a version of yourself you don't want to be, the answer probably isn't that you're broken. It's that your nervous system learned to survive in a world that wasn't safe. And it's still

By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW | thinkwelllivewell.co We have a massive problem in Indianapolis. We are surrounded by "vastness," but it’s the wrong kind. It’s the vastness of endless emails, the sprawling weight of professional expectations, and the suffocating noise of a 24/7 digital leash. It makes your world feel tiny. It makes your skin feel like sandpaper. This isn't just "stress." It is a biological shutdown. When you are in this state, your brain's Default Mode Network t

By Becky VanDenburgh, LCSW | thinkwelllivewell.co What is "The Happiness Trap" and how does ACT help? The Happiness Trap is a psychological cycle where the harder we strive for constant positive feelings, the more we suffer. Rooted in evolutionary biology, our brains are wired for survival (scanning for threats) rather than lasting contentment. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) breaks this cycle by developing psychological flexibility. Instead of fighting or suppressin

There is a specific, agonizing exhaustion that comes from living with a nervous system that feels like it’s missing its outer layer of skin. You know the feeling: A minor disagreement feels like a physical blow to the chest. A delayed text message sends you into a four-hour spiral of "what did I do wrong?" You lead teams and manage chaos at work, but the moment you drop your keys at the door, you are at the mercy of a tidal wave of emotion that you can’t "logic" your way out

Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN) is the "invisible" trauma of what didn’t happen. Unlike overt abuse, CEN is defined by a parent’s failure to respond to a child’s emotional needs. Adults with CEN often struggle with extreme hyper-independence, chronic indecisiveness, and an "apology reflex," frequently feeling like their presence is a burden. Healing involves recognizing these survival strategies as "armor" that is no longer needed and learning that your needs are inherently

M E N T A L H E A L T H · G U I D E Why the “Inner Work” Is the Heart of Healing QUICK ANSWER The difference lies in the approach to healing: a psychiatrist is a medical doctor focusing on biological stabilization and medication management, while a therapist focuses on the “inner work,” psychotherapy to heal trauma and change behavioral patterns. At Think Well Live Well Counseling and Telepsychiatry, we offer a collaborative model where both services are available, ens