Quick Find

The Home Page describes my general outlook and answers the question "What make me different from other psychologists and therapists".  It discusses that I have over 40 years of professional experience helping people from all walks of life with all types of problems and concerns.  It emphasizes that "Help is available when you need it", "There is no traditional waiting room", "Help is provided where you are most comfortable", "There need not be a set time period", "I am available by phone", "I can be available after hours" and at night and on weekends, that "I provide help to individuals, couples, groups and families" and that "All contacts are confidential".  Also provided is information about what you can expect in the first contact and that you can contact me by calling (717) 737 9068, leaving a message at (717) 761 5989, or you can contact me by email using the contact form. 

Who Can I Help describes the typical kinds of clients who contacts me for services.  My clients are of all ages and are from a wide variety of locations, cultures and backgrounds. Also provided on this page is a list of the types of problems I specialize in treating.

How I Can Help explains that as a psychologist, therapist, counselor and life and executive coach, I offer concrete solutions, specific behaviors and techniques, and explicit guidance and support.  I provide services by phone and face-to-face in my office or in your home or office.

Types of Therapy I typically use a combination of therapeutic, counseling and coaching approaches including Reality Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, Behavioral Therapy, Desensitization, Family Therapy, Gestalt and Rational Emotive Therapy, and Traditional Psychotherapy.

Office Location provides directions and a map to my office at 28 Central Blvd., Camp Hill, Pa 17011.

Contact Dr Berger will help you to contact me by phone, email, or the special contact form.  This page also indicates my current fees.

Anger and frustration are discussed as are the various types of treatment.  When you use your frustration and anger to motivate you to change something in our life, anger and frustration end up being good and helpful.  But for many people anger and frustration result in irritability, rage, stress, resentment, loss of confidence, depression and other negative behaviors that are disruptive and destructive.

Anxiety is chronic and exaggerated worry and tension.  All of us feel anxious at times. Normal anxiety serves a purpose and helps to mobilize our resources.  However, you may be one of those individual who feel anxious most of the time. Anxiety disorders are the most common of all the mental health problems. There are a wide variety of treatment approaches that can help you reduce your level of anxiety.

Depression is characterized by varying degrees of sadness, disappointment, loneliness, hopelessness, guilt, self-doubt and lowered confidence and self-esteem.  Daily activities become more difficult and your quality of life is diminished.  Depression affects people of all ages, income, race, and cultures.  Help is available if you suffer from depression.

Fears and Phobias as well as anxiety are defined and discussed, and the treatments for each are detailed.

Grief is how you react to a loss. Losses can range from a valued item, to the loss of employment, loss of a pet, to the loss of a loved one, and even to the loss of a desired goal. Grief is compared to guilt and treatment options for excessive grief and guilt are provided.

Lack of Confidence and low self-esteem affect how you think and act, how you feel about others, and how successful you are in life.  Your degree of confidence is the trust or faith that you have in yourself and your abilities.  Self esteem is different than self-confidence.  Self-esteem is the opinion you have of yourself. It is based on how you value yourself as a person, what you do and how you do it, how you think others see you, what you see as your strengths and weaknesses, and your sense of independence. Treatment options for lack of confidence and for low self-esteem are discussed.

Panic Attacks  are feelings of terror that strike suddenly and repeatedly with no warning. Typically, you are not able to predict when an attack will occur and typically you experience anxiety between episodes, worrying when and where the next attack will happen. The exact cause of panic disorders is unknown but several therapeutic approaches have been found to be effective in reducing or eliminating panic attacks.

Social Phobia involves overwhelming anxiety and excessive self-consciousness in everyday social situations. A social phobia is more than the normal shyness and awkwardness most of us have in certain situations. Like other phobias, it is a persistent and irrational fear that is out of proportion to the actual situation. With the help of a therapist, you can learn specific behaviors to overcome social phobia.

Stress is the mental and physical wear and tear we experience in getting through life. A normal amount of stress can help you to succeed.  However, too much stress can negatively affect your mind, body, and spirit. The best way to cope with stress is to prevent it, but it is impossible to have a completely stress-free life.  Controlling and reducing your stress level is critical.  Stress can cripple you both emotionally and physically.

Co-dependency affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship.  Codependent people tend to enter into relationships with people who are emotionally unavailable or needy. A person who is codependent typically tries to control a relationship without directly identifying or recognizing the controlling aspects of their behavior.  The codependent person thinks and feels that they are acting in another person's best interest and, in so doing, they fail to see the controlling nature of their own behavior. 

Communication Skills consist of both verbal and non-verbal elements.  For most of us, the purpose of communication is to get our message across to others clearly and unambiguously. But many people do not have good verbal skills and, too often as listeners, they lack good listening skills.  Not only can your lack of clarity in sending (talking) and receiving (listening) verbal massages be a problem but often your verbal messages may be inconsistent with the non-verbal messages you do not even know you are sending.

Marriage and relationship problems arise from a variety sources.  Sometimes it is because you never properly learned how to give to others, how to let go of the desire to control, or never learned the components of what true intimacy involves.  You may have lost touch with you own instinctive good sense, have become overly anxious about a relationship to the point where you are no longer able to act naturally, or you may have lost the self-respect and sense of personal worth that is needed to love another in a healthy way.  You may have had relationships in the past that caused you to lack, or lose, the ability to trust or maybe your expectations of yourself and others are unrealistic.  Any of the above, and many other additional factors, can hinder you in personal and intimate relationships.

Separation/Divorce issues will impact on the rest of your life, the life of your spouse and on any children involved. If you try to hide from your feelings and if you allow yourself to become bitter, you may be angry and depressed for years.  You need to carefully explore your emotions and come to the point where you can see the separation or divorce as an opportunity to re-examine your abilities, dreams and goals and learn to make the changes necessary for a meaningful future.

Parenting is one area where you can never have too much information.  I have found that providing parents with an explanation and understanding of the developmental issues the child is going through and putting the child's behavior in prospective is a good place to start.  Then I have helped many parents examine their son's or daughter's behavior and their, the parents', responses and how the parents responses can aggravate or elevate problems.

Adjustment Problems can develop at any time in your life when you face something new or are adapting to situations as they change.  Most of the time adjustment problems, while uncomfortable, are ultimately managed and do not need professional help.  However, sometimes your adjustment problems can cause you such discomfort that contacting a therapist proves invaluable.

Difficulty Sleeping is a very widespread problem.  Almost everyone has a few nights when you can not fall asleep or when your sleep is fitful.  However, in the U.S. sleep deprivation and fatigue are major health issues.  Three types of insomnia, all of which are treatable, include difficulty falling asleep, no problem falling asleep but difficulty staying asleep (many awakenings), and waking up too early. 

Hypochondria, or hypochondriasis, is the irrational fear of being diseased or dying. It includes preoccupation and obsession over your body and bodily symptoms, continual doubt and disbelief in the opinions of trained professionals, and constant self-examination and self-diagnosis.  No one knows exactly what causes a person to develop hypochondria, but we do know that while hypochondria can appear at any age, typically it begins in early adulthood and that men and women appear to suffer equally from hypochondriasis.  We also know that several types of treatment can help you if you are suffering from hypochondria.

Obsessive Compulsive behavior is characterized by repeated, intrusive and unwanted thoughts (obsessions) that cause anxiety and by ritualized behaviors (compulsions) that are designed to try to reduce this anxiety.  The obsessions and compulsions are usually so strong that they cause significant distress in your life.  There is no cure for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, but there are effective treatment strategies.

Performance Anxiety is a disruptive level of anxiety that can develop in any situation where you have to perform some type of activity. Performance anxiety occurs in both public settings (such as sports, acting, musical or other artistic presentations, and public speaking) and private situations (such as test taking and sexual intimacy).  An experienced therapist can help you to overcome performance anxiety.

PDSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is anxiety that develops after an ordeal involving physical harm or the threat of physical harm.  You can develop a post-traumatic stress disorder if you are the one who was threatened or harmed or if you observed an ordeal that happened to someone else.

Drug and Alcohol addiction can be devastating to the addict and to those around the addict.  The criteria in assessing treatment options are your willingness to admit to a problem, your understanding and acceptance that the negative value of  your addiction far outweighs any positive value and your desire to change your way of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Food addiction is more than just eating unhealthy foods and being overweight.  If you have a food addiction you will typically display an obsession with food and eating, a preoccupation with sources of food you associate with pleasure and comfort, a compulsive and circular pattern of eating behavior, and you lack the ability to stop your abuse eating pattern.  I have found that the treatment for eating problems needs to focus on establishing healthy eating patterns, the reestablishment of a healthy body weight, identifying and treating emotional issues, developing effective coping strategies to assist you in dealing with stress and anxiety, and providing support and guidance for maintenance and long-term recovery.

Gambling addiction is not an addiction to money. Most people gamble to escape from stress, a painful past, or to seek arousal. While the specific causes of pathological gambling are not known, there are several common reasons that appear to explain why people become addicted to gambling and several treatment approaches have been successful in helping with a gambling addiction.

Internet addiction and abuse of the internet can disrupt your life the same way other well-documented addictions like pathological gambling, sex or pornography addiction, eating and alcoholism can. Since internet addiction is so new, no specialized treatment has been shown to be especially effective.  In general, therapeutic approaches such as traditional psychotherapy, cognitive therapy, reality therapy, and behavioral therapy are used.

Sex/Pornography addiction will typically consume a great deal of time and energy centered around sexual thoughts, fantasies, and behaviors.  In treating my clients who have a sex addiction or addiction to pornography, I typically help them to develop specific behavior patterns to avoid the addictive stimuli, explore the factors that led them to embrace unhealthy addictive sources of pleasure or relief from pain, and then help to develop health ways to find satisfaction.

Spending/Shopping addiction has grown with the ever increasing access to credit cards.  While exact numbers are not known, it is estimated that there are over 14-15 million shopaholics in the U.S.  This addiction affects people of all education levels, all professions and, contrary to accepted stereotypes, it appears to affect men and women in equal numbers.  Shopping and spending addictive behavior is treatable.

Work addiction is similar in its negative effects to other addictions; however, work addiction, as opposed to all other addictions, is often accepted and even rewarded by society.  If you have not been successful at modifying your behavior and putting more balance back into your life, counseling and therapy may be necessary.  I have found that the types of treatment that are helpful are very similar to those used in the treatment of other addictions.

Emotional Eating involves the consumption of large quantities of food in response to psychological feelings rather than to physical hunger.  It is estimated that approximately 75% of overeating is caused by emotions and not by physical need. Of the several types of eating disorders, binge eating is the most common.  It is estimated that up to 4 million U.S. citizens have a binge eating problem.  If you suffer from emotional eating or binge eating, there are several types of treatment that can help.   

Weight Concerns are so common that is is estimated that every year approximately 50% of U.S. adolescents and adults undertake a plan to diet and lose weight but most meet only temporary success at best.  The problem is not just losing weight but keeping it off. Given the number of people who are overweight, who suffer with obesity, and the serious health risks that come with being overweight, understanding causes and treatment is very important.  

Sexual Concerns (Female) includes hypoactive sexual desire disorder (commonly referred to as low sex drive), difficulty with orgasm (technically labeled female orgasmic disorder), pain during intercourse (called dyspareunia), and sexual performance anxiety.  There are wide variations in female sexual functioning and there is no one standard that women must meet for their sexual functioning to be considered normal.  If you experience a sexual issue that troubles you, then it is a problem for which you should seek help.

Sexual Concerns (Male) include erectile concerns, premature ejaculation, performance anxiety, and hypoactive sexual desire.  Each of these is discussed briefly in this section.  Male sexual problems and concerns can be due to psychological, psychosocial and/or physical factors or any combination of these. 

Fetish/Paraphilia: A fetish exists if you repeatedly become sexually aroused in response to an object that is in not typically related to normal sexual behavior.  Fetishism is one of the many types of behaviors called paraphilias.  Paraphilias are strong reoccurring sexual urges and fantasies typically involving nonhuman objects or involving the suffering or humiliation of yourself or another person. This section also includes information and treatment regarding exhibitionism and frotteurism.

Sexual Orientation is the direction of your sexuality. The term "sexual identity" is sometimes used as a synonym for sexual orientation; however, they are technically different in that sexual identity refers to your view regarding yourself and orientation refers to the object(s) of your sexual fantasies and behavior.  Included in this section is information on gay, lesbian, and bisexual life styles.

Infertility is the inability to naturally conceive a child or the inability to carry a pregnancy to term. The physical, emotional, and interpersonal impact of infertility can be crushing to both the infertile person and to their partner.  High-tech infertility procedures, adoption and psychological counseling are options open to those persons who have not been able to conceive.

Adoption: The four most common reason for adopting are infertility, the absence of a partner of the opposite sex or a lack of desire to use a surrogate or sperm donor, the presence of medical reasons for avoiding a pregnancy, and so a step-parent can take on the role of a parent. Just as there are several reasons for adoption, there are also several kinds of adoptions with the major types being private or agency adoption, open or closed adoption, domestic or international adoption, and intrastate or interstate adoption.

FAQ presents a few of the most frequently asked question that I address with potential clients.

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If you want assistance in changing your life or dealing with your emotions Dr Berger may be able to help you on a personal basis.  His services are available pretty much anytime and any where. Please see our contact form for additional details.