Quarterlife Center - Counseling for Young Adults

Are you pregnant and feeling more anxious than normal? Do you and your partner find yourselves feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, down, and irritable after the birth of your baby? Is your struggle with infertility taking over your life and your finances? Do you blame yourself? Do you blame your partner? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you are not alone. And we are here to help. Maternal and paternal mental health is important for you, for your relationship, and for your baby. One of the best ways to cope with these feelings is to talk about the ups and downs of trying to get pregnant and giving birth to a baby. QLC provides mental health support for women and families trying to navigate fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum life. Adding a baby to your family is a huge life transition that introduces new challenges and new joys. At QLC, we understand how stressful it can be preparing for the birth of your baby and adjusting to life after your baby is born. Perinat...

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. If you are interested in learning more about the group, please  contact us .

While both premarital counseling and couples counseling help couples connect and communicate, they differ in their structure, style, and goals. During the course of therapy, the two might look identical in a specific moment, but the overall course of each type of counseling looks very different. Premarital Counseling Premarital counseling is ideal for couples who are planning to be married or who have decided to make a lifelong commitment to each other. At QLC, this type of counseling is short-term (4–6 sessions) and focuses primarily on the couple’s future together. We help premarital couples improve communication skills and create good habits. Although premarital counseling is tailored to the specific needs and goals of the couple, it usually includes some structured exercises, like creating a vision statement for your marriage. Importantly, it addresses topics that are common triggers for conflict in long-term relationships. One of our primary goals is for couples ...

Creating a successful romantic relationship requires focus, creativity, and flexibility. Quarterlife couples  often have additional stressors on their relationships typical of young adulthood, such as geographic moves, navigating a long-distance relationship, financial instability, career insecurity, and shifts in social life. With so many transitions, it is common for couples to lose sight of the fact that relationships require nurturing, Here are 3 ways you can improve your relationship. 1. Prioritize self-care. Taking care of yourself emotionally and physically is ultimately your own responsibility. If you find yourself frustrated with your partner for not attending to you and your relationship enough, first check in and make sure that YOU are taking care of yourself enough. When we aren’t adequately nurturing ourselves, we often look to our partner, to fill in those gaps that are ultimately our own responsibility. Before talking to your partner about what he/she...

Introducing Katie DiMuzio, LCSW! Katie is a licensed clinical social worker with a decade of experience successfully helping young adults manage anxiety, career concerns, relationship issues, and trauma. After experiencing challenging personal situations in her mid-20s, Katie found therapy to be immensely valuable in navigating her way toward the next phase of her life. Now, as a therapist, she is passionate about using her expertise to help those who are working through the ups and downs of life in their 20s and 30s. The knowledge gained from therapeutic exploration helps quarterlifers gain clarity and recognize the opportunities to make purposeful, satisfying choices in their lives. Katie’s practice is virtual — you will meet together through secure video appointments, which allows for flexible scheduling. When not helping clients, Katie enjoys spending time with her loved ones and pets, running, solving crossword puzzles, and traveling. Katie is also passionate about edu...

If you’re a millennial in a relationship that is facing new challenges, you are not alone. Making important life decisions as a couple in your 20s and 30s is complicated, whether you’re deciding to move in together, get engaged, have a baby, or simply slow the pace and give each other some time to reflect and grow. Improving communication and effectively working through conflict will help you resolve these challenges.  If you are thinking about starting couples counseling, read this post to learn what it’s like. What is couples counseling? Couples counseling is counseling (also known as therapy) that focuses on the issues that a couple is facing, in contrast to  individual counseling , which focuses on one person’s problems, and in contrast to  family therapy , which focuses on the family unit. In couples counseling, your therapist will help you as a couple to identify your interaction patterns and explore how you each contribute to your dynamic. Through couns...

Meet Emily West, LICSW ! Emily is a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in working with quarterlifers and their families in individual, couples, and family therapy. Often her clients find themselves facing more decisions and questions about who they are and what they want out of their lives and relationships than ever before. This is an important time in life when many people ask themselves: How can I feel like what I do matters? Emily became a therapist because she was asking herself the same questions in her quarterlife, and her experiences through therapy helped her answer them. When she’s not working on what matters in therapy, she is usually spending time with her family, cooking, and hiking in Rock Creek Park with her rescue chocolate lab. Education: MSW, Catholic University BA in Philosophy, Barnard College, Columbia University Advanced Training The Washington School of Psychiatry Alvord, Baker & Associates Licenses Licensed Cli...