Quarterlife Center - Counseling for Young Adults

Grieving the death of someone close to us  poses unique challenges during young adulthood and the quarter-life period . This group, led by Quarterlife Center therapist,   Joanna Strait, LCSW-C , focuses on providing a safe space for emotional exploration, structured support, and grief education following loss. Each group is 6 weeks in duration, and it is asked that participants attend a minimum of 4 of these sessions. This support group can help you: Receive structured support from an experienced grief counselor. Learn about the grief process. Explore your thoughts and feelings in a safe space. Connect with other quarterlifers who are grieving. Details:  This support group includes 6 sessions. Each session is 1 hour & 15 minutes in length. Location:  5530 Wisconsin Avenue, Chevy Chase, MD 20815 Time/Date:  TBD by availability of participants. If you are interested in learning more about the group, please  contact us .

5-Week Virtual Career & Life Design Group This 5-week Virtual Career & Life Design Group is the perfect 2020 gift for you or a friend who wants to make a change in career or life. This group is best for people who are undecided about their career path and want to explore new possibilities for the future, find new inspiration, and feel supported in a group with others on a similar journey. In this deep dive group, you’ll gain more clarity about where you are, and where you want to go both personally and professionally. Design thinking is about finding new ways to frame problems to generate new solutions. Through experiential exercises and group conversation you will gain new insight about what’s next and leave with a plan to move towards your goals. Clients will need to purchase the “Designing Your Life Workbook” and would be encouraged to read or listen to “Designing Your Life” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, prior to the group. Participants will receive several article...

What is Impostor Syndrome? Impostor syndrome describes the feeling that you are an impostor despite evidence to the contrary. For example, you may believe that you’re inadequate or a fraud, and tend to negatively compare yourself to others whom you perceive to be smarter and more successful. Impostor syndrome can happen in many areas of life, but is especially distressing and prevalent in the workplace. Those who experience impostor syndrome at work report having thoughts such as: “I’m just not as smart or accomplished as everyone else. They were foolish to hire me.” “How long is this going to last before people realize I don’t know what I’m doing?” “Maybe if I just take on more hours, more projects, more training, etc., I will start to feel better.” Many who struggle with impostor syndrome have a tendency to focus on their perceived flaws or limitations instead of assets and accomplishments. They often have perfectionist tendencies (setting very high expectations with little-t...

Grieving the death of someone close to us poses unique challenges during young adulthood and the quarter-life period. This group, led by Quarterlife Center therapist,  Joanna Strait, LCSW-C , focuses on providing a safe space for emotional exploration, structured support, and grief education following loss. Each group is 6 weeks in duration, and it is asked that participants attend a minimum of 4 of these sessions. Location:  5530 Wisconsin Avenue, Chevy Chase, MD 20815 Time/Date:  TBD by availability of participants Cost:  $400 for 6 sessions. First session on January 29th from 5:00-6:15 pm If you are interested in learning more about the group, please  contact us .

After the birth of their babies, at least 1 in 7 women (likely even a larger number than that, because it often goes unrecognized and unreported) experience postpartum depression and/or anxiety. There are many changes that occur during pregnancy and post-partum, physically, mentally, hormonally, and in terms of sense-of-self and identity. To top it all off, new parents experience sleep-deprivation. All of these changes create the perfect formula for feeling depressed, anxious, or both. While you’re adjusting to these changes, some feelings of sadness and worry can be normal, but it’s important to know which signs might indicate that it’s time to seek additional support. Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADs) are a group of emotional and sometimes physical symptoms that can affect pregnant and postpartum parents. Symptoms of PMADs can appear anytime from conception up until 1 year after birth. This group of disorders can affect parents in every financial, cultural, raci...

Are you in your twenties or thirties and grieving the death of a loved one? If you are, you already know that this is a particularly difficult time of life to grieve the loss of someone you love. Grieving a loss as a young adult is challenging for several reasons: 1) Experiencing grief during the quarterlife phase of life is an “off-time” life event, meaning that it is not expected to occur during that phase of life. We do not expect that young adults will have to experience the death of a friend or sibling, so it’s a non-normative event. It is expected, however, that a quarterlifer would experience the death of a grandparent, and this expected event is called an “on-time” or normative event. Off-time events have been found to be harder to cope with because they often feel unjust and unexpected. Because grief during the quarterlife stage of life is non-normative, quarterlifers who are mourning are likely to feel alone because peers don’t share and understand their experience. ...

Grief has many causes and many faces. Losing a loved one, and then feeling alone in your grief can feel devastating. Grieving is never easy, but the grieving process for young adults (quarterlifers) is particularly rough .  With a few exceptions, a young adult doesn’t expect to face the death of a loved one. Because grieving a death is non-normative during this phase of life, a grieving quarterlifer is apt to feel like peers don’t understand. Additionally, it can be challenging to find resources and help for grieving young adults. As a 25 year-old grieving client expressed, “my friends don’t know how to handle my sadness. I feel so alone . . . like everyone is tiptoeing around me.” The following poem captures this feeling and illuminates the most important way in which you can help a young adult who is grieving: “Elephant in the Room” by Terry Kettering “There’s an elephant in the room. It is large and squatting, so it is hard to get around it. Yet we squeeze by with, ...