Insight Clinical Services-Michelle Main, LCSW

10/18/2022

04/15/2022

Insight Clinical Services Receives 2022 Best of La Grange Award 🥇!

I am truly Honored and Humbled to have received the 2022 Best of La Grange Award today by the La Grange Award Program. A BIG Thank You to all those who have used my services, referred others, or who have supported my business in anyway. And how lovely it is to receive this on my 10 Year Business Anniversary! (Established: April 2012). Thank You for your support!!!

https://lagrange.advisehonor.com/PressReleaseub.aspx?cc=DMNR-YBSL-JAMM

08/17/2020

An overwhelming amount of people are unable to find the motivation to seek out help for themselves and instead seek to help others. The act of helping someone else can become the motivation to eventually get help yourself. Sia is a great example of how if you keep, keeping on, keep moving forward in hope that change is possible, you may just come full circle. Sia did.

If you are a struggling helper, keep moving forward until you find the motivation to seek out help for yourself. Wonderful things are awaiting you—most importantly living a full life!

08/14/2020

When the latest self-care fads fail, it maybe time to talk to a professional.

Wellness rituals are no replacement for therapy.

07/27/2020

What really causes addiction — to everything from co***ne to smart-phones? And how can we overcome it? Johann Hari has seen our current methods fail firsthan...

07/09/2020

When you start talking about mental illness and class people start to get really uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore it

07/02/2020

The Golden Girls 1988

Though this episode originally aired in 1992, it is unfortunately still relevant to this day. When the Daughters of the Traditional South are set to arrive a...

06/19/2020

✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽✊🏼✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿
The Forth of July celebrates Americans free’ed from British law, yet at the time, many American people were unable to participate in the celebrations. Because not all Americans were actually free, namely Black Americans, most of which who were originatally kidnapped from Africa and brought to America against their will.

Juneteenth celebrations the day in history when the last US state (Texas) officially received the notice of law, enacted two and a half years earlier, that all slaves were free. Or in other words, Juneteenth celebrates the day when Black Americans were Finally deemed full-fledged Americans as slavery was abolished in every corner of our land. Juneteenth is a day to be celebrated by All Americans within the United States, for it is the day that the states were truly united as one people, at the very least, legally. The day we can say We are the United States were all Americans are Free Americans. Juneteenth is an American Holiday. A day to celebrate unity as one and I find that a pretty darn good reason to say, “Happy Juneteenth, America! May we all stop the racism and remember that we are united as one nation under God” ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽✊🏼✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿

Here are some facts you should know about Juneteenth, also called Emancipation Day

06/04/2020

As Racism is brought to the foreground... yet again, it may help to take a moment to stop and look at what people have done when racism was fought strategically. Protests grab people’s attention, but now that the protesters have the attention—what’s the message? And what it is that you want the listening ears to get out of the message? What is the end game goal? In this TED talk, the speaker took a novel approach to address a very old problem. Check it out!

A chance encounter with members of the Ku Klux Klan led black musician Daryl Davis on a quest to determine the source of the hate. His unorthodox, yet simple...

06/04/2020

Even when things appear hopeless, there is hope.

It’s critically important to foster connection during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

05/10/2020

👰🏻👩🏽‍🦱💃🏼👩🏼‍🎨👩🏻‍🦰👩🏻‍🦽👩🏼‍🌾👵🏽👩🏼🤰🏼👩🏾👵🏻🤱🏾
Mother’s!!! In all the ways you do what you do—HaPpY MoThEr’S DaY!

05/08/2020

Text “talk” to 552-020 to get connected to your local Illinois social service / crisis center. You will receive a call back within 24 hours to talk to someone about your mental health needs

Illinois launched call4calm program to provide mental health care for residents on 4/11/2020, check it out!

Calling the coronavirus pandemic a “deeply unprecedented moment,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s administration announced a new program that will allow Illinois residents to talk to a mental health professional, free of charge, during the COVID-19 crisis. The program, called “Call4Calm,.....

04/30/2020

Avoidance is a primitive coping skill. Typically when one avoids what they are attempting to cope with is fear. Unfortunately, what drives fear more than anything else is lack of knowledge and lack of experience.

Using avoidance to cope with fear only increases fears intensity, for avoidance increases the time where lack of new information and lack of experiencing new things enters an endless cycle to the point where one becomes greatly isolated.

In our current Shelter-in-place, social-distancing state of affairs, we are all learning first hand the affects of social isolation on our mental and emotional state, but may not be so sure what to do about it.

Tip #1: Stop the avoidance cycle. Pick up the phone, write an email, send out a text and say what you need to say. And if you don’t know what to say, try this: “I don’t know what’s going on with me, but something isn’t quite right. Can you help me? Or can you help me find help?”

Many people don’t utilize mental health services because of judgment, doubt, pride, fear, and misinformation. Individuals fear judgment, change, the unknown, and what they might discover in therapy...

04/21/2020

The Benefits of Boredom..yeah, seriously! There are benefits. Boredom feels bad, that’s the downside we all know oh so well, but once you accept that reality and stop fighting the feelings that boredom stirs up, you can stop and begin to think, “is there any good that can come out of this?” Those of us old enough to recall our boring technology-free youth and all the things we did when boredom struck, may recall unforgettable memories that would have never happened without the benefits that boredom allowed us time to engage in.

If this Shelter-in-place, social distancing is your first time encountering an inescapable boredom loop, check out this article. This opportunity doesn’t have to be, in reality, as bad as it feels.

(Funny: As I finished writing this, ready to hit “share” I received a notification from an app I use occasionally: “Distract yourself, sign up for...” —HA! Not today, distraction, not today)

By allowing ourselves to be bored, a strange thing happens: over time boredom approaches us less and less. We become more interested in our lives.

04/15/2020

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😳 Crisis 🦠
👮🏼‍♂️👩🏻‍🚒 Leadership 👨🏾‍✈️👩🏼‍💼
🤚🏼👓👂🏻Essentials 🧐🌎👍🏼

If you are in a position of authority or leadership during this COVID19 pandemic crisis—FIRST! Take care of yourself! It’s ESSENTIAL! #1 Rule: Do not lead another until you, yourself are okay and in a position to lead.

But once you are okay you may be confused as to how you are to lead others in this new crisis status, as the current needs of those who follow your direction have changed. Which means that how you lead them must change as well.

Leadership is a position that is only available to take when there is a situation where people that don’t know what to do, need direction and guidance is present. If you are already a leader you know what the situation was, you knew how to guide and direct—now the situation has changed, so the way in which you lead must change. In crisis leadership, here are the tools to lead while in crisis AFTER YOU HAVE TAKEN CARE OF YOURSELF:

1. Acknowledge people’s fears, then encourage.
2. Give people a role and a purpose (good followers in a crisis want to do something, want to help, and NEED to have a purpose, otherwise fear will lead them to questioning if they even matter! They do, show them how by giving them a purposeful job)
3. Emphasize experimentation and learning.
4. Tend to energy and emotion — yours and theirs.

Four lessons from Lincoln, Churchill, MLK, and others.

04/15/2020

Are you a ⛑ first responder or a 🧑🏽‍⚕️health care worker👨🏻‍⚕️in the city of Chicago? Check out these just announced, free, mental health services available to you

Health Care Professionals and First Responders like you are heroes in our fight against COVID-19. The City of Chicago understands emotional reactions to this health crisis are expected and that there is a greater need for mental health resources and services, especially for Health Care Workers....

04/08/2020

In my practice, occasionally discussions of religion and spirituality come up coupled with intense experiences where Christians from their past have inflicted great harm. Next is always some form of this statement / question, “If this person is a symbol of what and who God is, God must not be real” Yet, the question still remains: “Is it possible, that particular Christian is just a bad person themselves and not an accurate representation of who God is?” For those of you that would like to be exposed to a different perspective, here’s a person to check out and explore. As sometimes it’s not just what is said, or even how it’s said, sometimes it really matter who is talking.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, public theologian, talks about harnessing the power of your anxiety from the 2019 at Monarch Beach Resort. Watch more: ht...