Dear Ask Alina, My girlfriend hasn’t been herself lately. These days she is either angry or sad. She goes to work, comes home and turns on the television, does not engage in conversations, and complains she is tired and can’t fall asleep. At first, I chalked it up to the fact that her work [...]
Dear Ask Alina, I am devastated and frightened. Earlier this year I was laid off from a company only a year after joining them, and have been job hunting for months with no offers in sight. I was so sure of myself when taking that job. It was great money, good title, lots of [...]
Dear Ask Alina, I need help navigating this year’s holidays. I am recently divorced with a 10-year-old daughter. For many years I had a close community of friendships created through our daughter’s school and neighbors. Holidays have always been joyous with lots of parties, neighborhood gatherings, and our festive house. Although our daughter continues [...]
Grief is not a word people often think of when discussing baby making. But according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention 1 in 8 couples of childbearing age are infertile. So you see, grief is the word that is often used in my psychotherapy practice. Historically girls grow up with a tendency of [...]
Our society has an expected story of us: find love, get married, have children. Many women get in the frenzy of this expectation and lose sight of what is important: self-love. As a therapist, I meet women every week who suffer from a loneliness syndrome; each one of them is married. These women take care [...]
Do we have too many gadgets in our life? I ponder this question as I sit in the living room on a Friday night with my husband. We are both watching TV, playing on our smart phones, and here and there insert a conversation. Are we committed to any of the three items we are [...]
As I flip through the channels on TV, laying in bed, and thinking, I decide to take out my laptop and start writing. I hate how all the movies and sitcoms are about the holidays. You may be reading this and saying, well du-uh Alina, that’s nothing new. Or you maybe reading this and saying, [...]
Holidays bring up lots of emotions and if you are not aware of particularly the sad ones, this can be a difficult time of the year. If you grew up in a house where at least one of your parents was an alcoholic, you may be wondering to yourself “how am I going to survive [...]
