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Welcome to Upside Counseling P.C.

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Accepting New TeleHealth Clients  

In-Network with BCBS, United, Optum, Cigna

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In-person availability coming soon in the Chicago Edgewater neighborhood

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Counseling now comes to your couch.

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My name is Craig Mead and I'm a clinical social worker and professional counselor. I help people sort out their problems, reduce their stress, improve their relationships, and overcome their current challenges. Good emotional health involves increasing your self-awareness and learning more about your emotions and how to manage them better. Obsessive over-thinking, overanalyzing, habitual self-defeating thinking, self-sabotaging behaviors, and distorted beliefs are common problems that prevent people from feeling healthy and resolving problems to move forward. Sometimes we need to remember and maybe accept that we can't always think our way out of every problem by ourselves and trying twice as hard doesn't always yield twice the results. 

With the massive pandemic stress, many have found their depression or anxiety has returned or gotten worse. Long-term stress, anxiety, uncertainty, and dramatic social changes can naturally result in increased feelings of anxiety and depression. The large shifts in day-to-day life caused many to question their lives, what they value, and what is important to them. Many have found they are unhappy with their current relationships that don't meet their needs or they lack fulfilling, truly happy, healthy, and reciprocal relationships with others including family, friends, or intimate partners.    

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For those of us with adult ADHD, the changes in 2020 may have made symptoms worse or even revealed a much higher degree of severity that was masked by previous more adaptive environments. Home isolation, telework, and activity restrictions made things much more of an uphill battle for many.

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Common problems I help people with are: Obsesive Overthinking & Overanalyzling / Life Transitions / Work Stress / Relationship Problems / Difficulty Adjusting to Changes / Depression / Panic / Anxiety / Social Anxiety / OCD / ADHD / Bipolar / Stress and Anger Management / Family or Parenting Issues / Caregiver Stress / Aging Parents / Grief and Loss