Pittsburgh · Altoona · Philadelphia · Statewide Telehealth
Condition Guides from our Therapists
Practical articles on relationships and how to improve your life using modern therapy practices.
CPA Counseling publishes condition guides and therapy articles written by our licensed therapists in Pittsburgh, Altoona, and Philadelphia. Every article is written from clinical experience — not generic wellness content. In-person and telehealth statewide.
Articles to Improve your Understanding
What Actually Changes in Couples Therapy
Most couples arrive at therapy still hopeful — tired of the same argument and wanting it to stop, not deciding whether to leave. With me, a session isn’t two people venting while someone nods: I give feedback and hand over usable skills, using the Gottman Method to find the pattern underneath the conflict. Ashlie Mohney, LPC works with couples in Pittsburgh’s Robinson area and by telehealth across Pennsylvania.
Codependency: When Caring for Someone Costs You Yourself
Codependency is a pattern — not a diagnosis — where your sense of self becomes tied to managing, pleasing, or rescuing someone else, and your own needs get filed under “later” permanently. It’s usually a skill that was learned somewhere and once kept you safe. Because it’s a pattern rather than a disorder, it can change. Kelly Schworn, LPC offers person-centered therapy in English and Spanish in Pittsburgh’s South Hills and across Pennsylvania.
What Therapy Actually Does in Recovery
In recovery, stopping and staying stopped are two different challenges. Detox, rehab, and recovery programs help you stop; therapy helps with what comes after — the reasons the substance was useful in the first place. It builds coping skills, emotional regulation, and self-understanding, and works alongside (never instead of) recovery programs and medical treatment. Nicole Duley, LPC specializes in addiction treatment in Pittsburgh’s South Hills and by telehealth across Pennsylvania.
Tween to Teen: When Your Child Changes & You Can’t Say When
Somewhere between about ten and fourteen, many children pull away, go quiet, or get moodier — often with no event you can point to. Much of this is normal development, but not all of it. The useful thing isn’t to decide between “just a phase” and “something serious” on your own, but to know which changes are ordinary and which are worth a conversation with a professional. Caitie Beatty, LSW works with children and teens in Altoona and by telehealth across Pennsylvania.
Strengths-Based Therapy: A Kinder Approach to Hard Times
Strengths-based therapy focuses on identifying and building on the strengths, resilience, and resources a person already has, rather than concentrating only on what’s broken. It doesn’t ignore real problems — it approaches them from a place of capability and hope. Everyone who has survived hard things already carries strengths worth building on. Haley Childers, LSW uses a warm, strengths-based approach at CPA Counseling in Pittsburgh’s South Hills and by telehealth across Pennsylvania.
Grief Before Goodbye: Hospice & Palliative Care Support
When a loved one is facing a serious illness or entering hospice, families often experience anticipatory grief — mourning while the person is still here — along with caregiver exhaustion, guilt, and complicated emotions. Palliative care focuses on comfort and quality of life at any stage of serious illness; hospice focuses on comfort when curative treatment ends. Therapy supports caregivers and families through the grief, the caregiving, and the goodbye. Haley Childers, LSW helps families across Pittsburgh’s South Hills and by telehealth across Pennsylvania.
READY TO START?
Don’t let fear keep writing your story
Anxiety rarely stays where it is. Left alone it tends to ask for a little more room each year — one more thing declined, one more route avoided, one more part of life quietly made smaller until the smaller version starts to feel like who you are. It doesn’t take a crisis to justify starting. It only takes deciding that this year isn’t going to look like last year. You don’t have to have it figured out first; you only have to make one decision that isn’t fear’s.