Back to School Anxiety: When Nervous Becomes Something More
Some back-to-school anxiety is normal. Persistent sleep changes, stomach aches, and avoidance signal something more. Learn when to watch, when to act.
Brian Nuckols
Licensed professional counselor in Pittsburgh, PA. I work with children, adolescents, adults, and couples across seven clinical areas: child and teen therapy (DBT-A), infidelity and betrayal trauma, eating disorders and ARFID, gambling addiction, couples therapy, neurodivergence, and depth psychology. The common thread is patterns that do not resolve with standard approaches, where evidence-based treatment needs to meet the deeper question of why the pattern exists.
If you're here because something is wrong, you're in the right place.
Areas of Practice
Child & Teen Therapy
DBT-A for adolescents struggling with intense emotions, self-harm, and crisis behaviors. Parent psychoeducation and family skills training.
Neurodivergence & Neuro Affinity
Masking, burnout, sensory processing, and rejection sensitivity. RO-DBT for overcontrol, process-based therapy for individual pattern mapping, and depth work that takes neurodivergent experience seriously.
Eating Disorders & ARFID
Specialized treatment for avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder. CBT-AR, sensory approaches, and family-based work.
Gambling Addiction
Evidence-based treatment that takes gambling seriously as both a neurological condition and a psychological one. Understanding what gambling provides is the beginning of recovery.
Couples Therapy
EFT and depth-oriented couples work for relationships where the same fight keeps happening or one partner is changing in ways the relationship can't accommodate.
Infidelity & Betrayal Trauma
Affair recovery that goes beyond stabilization. Gottman and EFT protocols for the crisis, plus the deeper work of understanding what the affair revealed.
Recent Writing
Why Dieting Causes Binging: Restraint Theory Explained
In 1985, Janet Polivy and C. Peter Herman published the experimental work at the University of Toronto that demolished the willpower model of binge eating. Restraint theory proposes that cognitive dietary restraint, not hunger or lack of discipline, is the proximal cause of the disinhibited eating that follows a breach of a self-imposed rule. Four decades of subsequent research, including Eric Stice's dual-pathway confirmation, have substantiated the basic mechanism and informed why Christopher Fairburn's CBT-E drops dietary restraint early in treatment.
The Obesity Clinic That Discovered Trauma: Vincent Felitti, the ACE Study, and What Your Binge Is Holding
In the late 1980s, Vincent Felitti ran the obesity clinic at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego. He could not understand why his best-outcomes patients were the ones who quit the program, until he began following them up and discovered what his liquid-diet protocol had been treating without knowing it was treating. The ACE Study grew out of those interviews. What the study found about the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and adult health outcomes, including binge eating and body size, reorganized the epidemiology of trauma in the United States and has not yet reorganized most of the treatment the culture offers.
What 'Evidence-Based' Actually Means and Why It Matters for Your Teen's Treatment
Not all therapy is equal. Learn what evidence-based treatment means, which therapies have the strongest research for teens, and how to ask a therapist the right questions.
Gambling Relapse Prevention: Why Willpower Fails and What Actually Works
Willpower alone can't beat gambling addiction. Learn evidence-based relapse prevention strategies including urge surfing, financial barriers, and cue management.
Free Courses
Psychoeducation courses written for the people living with these conditions and their families. Evidence-based, clinician-written, no cost.
Common reasons people reach out
- "My partner had an affair and I don't know how to trust again"
- "My child won't eat and our pediatrician mentioned ARFID"
- "I've lost more money than I can admit to anyone"
- "We love each other but feel like roommates"
- "My teenager is cutting and I don't know what to do"
Free Self-Assessments
Clinician-designed tools to help you understand what you're dealing with. Free, private, no account required.
Assessment
View all assessments → GEAR Assessment
Screens for gambling-related harm across four domains: financial, emotional, relational, and behavioral. About 5 minutes.
Take the assessment → AssessmentPersonal Reflection Inventory
Maps your psychological patterns, including stress responses, interpersonal style, and how you relate to control. About 15 minutes.
Take the assessment → AssessmentCognitive Style Inventory
48-item assessment of eight cognitive processes based on Dario Nardi's research. Best-fit personality type and archetypal function stack. About 5 minutes.
Take the CSI → Assessment SuiteAutism & Neurodivergence
AQ-10 quick screen (5 min), CAT-Q masking assessment (10 min), and RAADS-R comprehensive (20 min). Designed for adults, especially women and late-identified individuals.
See the assessments → AssessmentC.A.R.E. Assessment
Measures four dimensions of relational health: Calm, Accepted, Resonant, and Energized. About 5 minutes.
Take the assessment →