You've probably heard of the ACE Study. Back in 1998, researchers found that hard things in childhood, like abuse, neglect, or growing up around addiction or divorce, can affect your health for the rest of your life. The more stressors a person is exposed to, the higher their chances of having significant health issues down the road. This connects to something you may have heard before: the body keeps the score. What happens to us early on doesn't just stay in our memory. It

ML Counseling Blog | What to Expect | Audience: Potential Clients So what's it like? You know, doing this therapy thing? I can't count how many times, right after an intake session ends, I ask my client, so was this as bad as you thought it was going to be? And they say no, it wasn't bad at all. Or, no, I actually feel better just talking about this with you. Or, no, I'm actually looking forward to our next session. You imagined having an awkward conversation about all your t

It's Not You, It's Me ML Counseling Blog | Individual Therapy | Audience: Potential Clients Did you know that if therapy has not worked for you in the past, the problem may not have been therapy itself? It may have been the fit. I say this because the decision to try therapy takes courage. And when that experience falls short it can feel like a personal failure rather than what it actually is, a mismatch. There are countless individuals who have taken that courageous step, sa

Short Story Long ML Counseling Blog | Immigration Evaluations | Audience: Potential Clients There's a story we tell ourselves about immigration in this country, and it's usually a short one. Someone married an American. Someone crossed a border. Case closed, motive assumed. But I've sat with enough people to know the short version rarely holds up once you hear the whole thing. It's a Westernized, American viewpoint. When someone marries a person from another country, the assu

Martine Lamour, LPC, ACS bay terapi ak evalyasyon sikolojik pou imigrasyon nan Kreyòl Ayisyen, nan Georgia ak New Jersey.

There's a moment I still catch myself in, even now. I'll walk into a Walmart, see a family friend from a distance, someone my mother's age, and before I've even thought about it, my body's already moving toward them for the kiss on the cheek. I've since learned to tweak it, cheek to cheek instead of the full lean in, but the instinct itself never left. It's automatic. It's been automatic since I was a kid. Growing up in a Haitian household, greeting someone with a kiss on the

For the Haitian population, douz janvye, January 12th, isn't just a date on a calendar. It's the day the ground opened under an entire country and changed the course of countless families, including mine. Even those of us who weren't standing on that soil felt it happen in real time. It's a day Haiti carries collectively, the way you carry something that touched everyone you know, even if it touched each of them differently. I want to use this collective trauma to depict how

Understanding Fawn: the trauma response that looks like complacency Inherited Strength Series, Post 2 (Fawn) Today I want to focus on one of the more complex trauma responses to understand, because of how it manifests: fawn. It can be hard to recognize because the behavior, to those on the outside, can look like acceptance of the circumstance. Before starting, I want to express that none of the examples presented here can fully capture or encompass everyone's experience with

You ever have a taste for something specific? You can already taste it, already smell it, you get that big smile on your face just thinking about how you're about to tear this meal up. You get yourself all hyped up. Okay, today's the day, I'm making this. You get to the kitchen, start pulling out ingredients, and then, damn. I'm missing this one thing. These days, I'll just Instacart the missing item and keep it moving. But there was a time that would've taken a lot more effo

What happens when the box doesn't fit? Do you suffer through it, give up on the idea altogether, or circle back with more intention? Let's take some time to discuss the power of representation and the critical role it plays in the therapeutic relationship. Consider a young Haitian American man, the son of two immigrant parents, who comes to therapy years after his parents' divorce, a split that had ended his relationship with his father almost entirely. In session, he starts

I want to start by saying that strength in Caribbean culture is not small. It is not quiet. It is not the kind of strength that gets celebrated in a LinkedIn post or acknowledged in a performance review. It is the kind of strength that moves across oceans. I remember the day I moved from New Jersey to Georgia. I was born in this country, raised in this country, and educated in this country. I spoke the language fluently. I had the world at my fingertips with just a flick of a