Welcome to Communicate and Connect!

Hello! Welcome to the Communicate & Connect Blog. My name is Liz and this is my first blog. Communicate and Connect has been designed to have educational tips for your life and relationships. 

As I frequently work with military members, veterans, and their families, a lot of the content will apply to military life. At the same time, I am hoping to make the content broad enough that most people will be able to benefit from the posts. 

Posts will include information around military life and relationships. 

About Me

To tell you a little about myself, I am an individual and couple therapist in the Hampton Roads/ Virginia Beach area. I have been providing mental health counseling as a social worker for about 5 years, with 3 of those years being with the Veteran’s Affairs Hospital. While at the VA, I worked with a lot of veterans who had PTSD from combat trauma or military sexual trauma. 

More recently I have worked providing individual therapy for relationship concerns as well as couples therapy. While I am in private practice now, most of my clients are either current or former military. 

I also grew up in a military family and am now a military spouse. I am surrounded by the military! So I wanted to start Communicate & Connect to provide something extra to those who may have worked with me in individual or couple therapy; but also for my family, friends, and acquaintances who might benefit from the educational tips. Of course, I hope that total strangers will benefit from the material covered in this blog as well. :) 

Why relationships?

Outside of military related topics, I wanted to focus this blog on relationships. Relationships (especially couple relationships) have been important to me for a long time, mostly because it seemed I could never get romantic relationships right! I have read tons of books on relationships. It wasn't enough; so now I'm working on a Ph.D. in marriage and family therapy! I have personally made millions of mistakes in romantic relationships and have learned a lot both personally and professionally. I want others to benefit from what I have learned. ​​

Communicate and Connect Content

Some family and relationship topics I plan to address include: 

• Communication skills for relationships
• ​Choosing a romantic partner
• Recovering from break-ups and divorce
• Co-parenting 
• The science behind successful relationships
• How to choose a therapist
• How relationship or family struggles relate to mental health
• How relationships and families get trapped in negative cycles that are difficult to escape
• Ways of handling it when you love more than one person
• ​Sex!

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Some military topics I plan to cover include: 

• How to make new friends after a move
• Surviving deployments
• Staying connected during deployment
• Living your best life while following your partner 
• Accepting all the sh*t that happens! 
• Transitioning into the military
• Transitioning out of the military
• Life after the military

My hope is to have an interactive blog. I’ll be inviting speakers and getting interviews with different professionals, etc. I plan to have a lot of exciting and useful stuff about life and relationships! To make sure you don’t miss out, please sign up for my newsletter (by clicking website home) and like/ follow me on instagram or Facebook. 

Some Fine Print...

My blogs and newsletters are general information for educational purposes only; they are not psychotherapy and not a replacement for therapy. The information provided does not constitute the formation of a therapist-patient relationship. You should consult your doctor or mental health provider regarding advice and support for your health and well being. I cannot answer questions regarding your specific situation. If you are experiencing a medical or mental health emergency, you should call 911, report to your local ER, or call the National Crisis Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. Nothing I post should be considered professional advice. The information in my blog posts and newsletters is not intended to be therapy or psychological advice. The blog posts and newsletters are not a request for a testimonial, rating, or endorsement from clients regarding counseling. If you are a current or former client/ patient, please remember that your comments may jeopardize your confidentiality. I will not “friend” or “follow” current or past clients to honor ethical boundaries and privacy; nor will I respond to comments or messages through social media from current or past clients. Current and past client’s should only contact me through the professional contact information provided on the website. Lastly, this account may be managed by multiple people. Therefore, comments and messages are monitored by staff and are not confidential.