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News and Research
Science-backed Information for Better Care
ScienceWorks is a modern telepsychology practice offering evidence-based care for: Autism & ADHD, Anxiety & Depression, OCD, Trauma, Insomnia, Kids & Families, and more.
These conditions frequently co-occur, can be difficult to diagnose, and also difficult to treat - often requiring specialist knowledge and direct clinical experience to achieve the best possible outcomes.
That's why research and training are the foundation of our work.
Our goal is sharing our knowledge with our friends, clients, and partners to build a stronger, more informed mental health community.
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Anxiety & Depression
Stay informed about anxiety and depression with the latest news and insights from ScienceWorks Behavioral Healthcare.


Telehealth Therapy in Tennessee: How Specialized Therapy Is Matched to Your Needs
Last reviewed: 04/09/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you are looking for telehealth therapy options in Tennessee, you may already know you want help but still feel unsure about what kind of help actually fits. That is often the real decision point. Video sessions are only the format. What matters more is whether the care is matched to the problem that is actually keeping you stuck, whether that is OCD, trauma, insomnia, or a more layered picture with overlap.[1][8] The g

Kiesa Kelly
6 days ago9 min read


What Measurement-Based Care Looks Like in Therapy and Why It Helps Treatment Work Better
Last reviewed: 04/09/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you have ever left a therapy session wondering, "Is this actually helping?" measurement based care in therapy is meant to answer that question in a practical, human way. Instead of relying only on memory or a vague sense of how things are going, you and your therapist use a few simple markers to notice change, spot stuck points, and make better treatment decisions together.[1][3][4] When we use this approach in our spe

Ryan Burns
6 days ago8 min read


Motivational Interviewing for Substance Use: What It Is, What It Is Not, and Why Ambivalence Matters
Last reviewed: 04/09/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you are looking into motivational interviewing for substance use, there is a good chance you do not want a lecture. You may already know something needs to change, but still feel unsure, defensive, embarrassed, or simply tired of being pushed. That is exactly the kind of situation MI was built for. Motivational interviewing is a collaborative, person-centered counseling style that helps you work through ambivalence ins

Ryan Burns
6 days ago8 min read


CBT for Chronic Pain: What Therapy Helps When the Pain Is Real and Life Keeps Shrinking
Last reviewed: 04/09/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you are looking for CBT for chronic pain , chances are you are not asking whether the pain is real. You are asking what to do when the pain is real, your world is getting smaller, and more of life is getting organized around symptoms and flares. Good therapy does not argue with your pain. It helps you understand the patterns that can grow around pain so you can protect functioning and make daily life more possible agai

Ryan Burns
6 days ago8 min read


What Is Neurocounseling? How Brain-Based Therapy Can Help Anxiety, Depression, and ADHD-Related Overwhelm
Last reviewed: 04/09/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you have been wondering what is neurocounseling , you are probably not looking for a buzzword. You are trying to figure out whether a brain-based therapy approach might make anxiety, depression, or ADHD-related overwhelm feel more understandable and more workable. At its best, that is the point: not to turn therapy into a neuroscience lecture, but to use a clearer brain-and-behavior framework so your treatment feels mo

Ryan Burns
6 days ago8 min read


DBT for Anxiety: When Emotion Regulation Skills Help More Than Reassurance
Last reviewed: 04/09/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly DBT for anxiety can be especially helpful when anxiety does not look like quiet worry alone. For many people, it looks more like getting emotionally flooded, shutting down, snapping during conflict, spiraling after a small trigger, or urgently needing reassurance to feel steady again. Anxiety disorders are common, and while reassurance can bring short-term relief, it does not always build the skills you need to handle int

Kiesa Kelly
6 days ago8 min read


Can You Have Both Autism and Demand Avoidance?
Last reviewed: 04/05/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly When people search autism demand avoidance, they are usually trying to understand whether a pattern that feels intense, confusing, and sometimes embarrassing “counts” as autism, PDA, anxiety, burnout, or something else. The practical answer is yes: you can be autistic and also have strong demand-avoidant patterns. The more useful question is what makes everyday demands start to feel threatening in the first place, because

Kiesa Kelly
Apr 58 min read


What to Do After a Mental Health Screener Like the PROMIS-29: Therapy, Assessment, Coaching, or Medical Follow-Up
Last reviewed: 03/29/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you are trying to decide what to do after a mental health screener, remember what the PROMIS-29 is built to do: it gives you a snapshot of symptoms and daily functioning across several domains, but it does not diagnose you or choose treatment by itself.[1-4][7] The real question is what kind of help fits the part of the profile disrupting life most. In this article, you’ll learn: how to spot the domain that deserves at

Ryan Burns
Mar 297 min read


How to Use a General Health Screener to Track Mental Health Progress Over Time
Last reviewed: 03/29/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you are trying to track mental health progress, one of the hardest parts is knowing whether change is actually happening or whether this week is just louder than the last one. A general health screener like PROMIS-29 can help because it looks across mood, anxiety, sleep, fatigue, pain, daily function, and social participation instead of asking you to rely on memory alone. Used well, it can become a practical way to not

Ryan Burns
Mar 298 min read


Why One Screener Can’t Tell You Whether It’s ADHD, Anxiety, Burnout, or Sleep Problems
Last reviewed: 03/29/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you are trying to sort out ADHD, anxiety, burnout, or sleep-related focus problems, the phrase screener not diagnosis matters. A broad questionnaire can help you notice distress, but it cannot tell you why those symptoms are happening or which explanation best fits your full history, context, and impairment.[1][2] In this article, you’ll learn: why attention problems, overwhelm, and poor sleep overlap so often what a b

Ryan Burns
Mar 297 min read


Social Roles and Daily Functioning: What This PROMIS-29 Domain Is Really Measuring
Last reviewed: 03/29/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you are looking at a social roles and activities score on the PROMIS-29, the key question is not “Am I social enough?” It is “How well can I keep up with the parts of life I need or want to participate in?” This domain measures your perceived ability to carry out usual roles and activities, and because it is a positively scored domain, higher scores reflect better function, not more distress.[1][2][3] In this article,

Ryan Burns
Mar 296 min read


What High Depression Scores on a Mental Health Screener Can Mean
Last reviewed: 03/29/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you are looking for depression screener score meaning after a higher PROMIS-29 result, start here: the score describes symptom burden, not a diagnosis. In PROMIS scoring, higher depression T-scores mean more of the thing being measured, and for depression that means more distress than average.[1][2] A high number can still feel alarming. Usually the better next step is to understand what the depression domain measures,

Ryan Burns
Mar 297 min read


What a High Anxiety Score on the PROMIS-29 Might Mean, and What It Doesn’t
Last reviewed: 03/29/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly Seeing a high PROMIS anxiety score can feel unsettling, especially if you are trying to figure out whether it points to ordinary stress, an anxiety disorder, or something more complicated. This kind of result is best read as a clue about recent symptom burden, not a pass-fail result or a diagnosis by itself.[2][10] In this article, you’ll learn: what the anxiety domain is actually measuring what a higher score may and may

Ryan Burns
Mar 298 min read


PROMIS-29 Scores Explained: How to Read Each Domain Without Getting Lost
Last reviewed: 03/29/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you are looking for PROMIS-29 scores explained in plain English, the first thing to know is that this measure is not graded like a school test. It is a profile of symptoms and functioning across several domains, designed to help you and your provider see patterns in physical health, emotional distress, pain, sleep, and daily participation rather than sort you into a simple pass or fail category.[1-4] In this article, y

Kiesa Kelly
Mar 299 min read


Perimenopause, PMDD, or ADHD Burnout? How Clinicians Sort Out the Overlap
Last reviewed: 03/28/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly Searching for perimenopause pmdd can be a sign that you are trying to name a pattern that feels slippery from the inside. Clinicians sort this out by looking at timing, lifelong history, daily functioning, and the context around sleep, mood, and stress.[1][2][3][5][6][7][8][9] In this article, you’ll learn: why these patterns can feel so similar what perimenopause, PMDD, and ADHD burnout often look like how timing and li

Kiesa Kelly
Mar 287 min read


High-Masking ADHD in Women: Why You Can Look Fine and Still Be Struggling
Last reviewed: 03/28/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If high masking adhd feels like your private reality, you are not imagining the gap between how capable you look and how hard daily life feels. Many women compensate so well that the struggle gets mislabeled as stress, perfectionism, or anxiety, even when ADHD has shaped the pattern for years.[1][2][3] “High-masking” is not a formal DSM diagnosis. It is a practical term for compensating so effectively that other people mi

Kiesa Kelly
Mar 287 min read


ADHD vs Anxiety in Adults: How an Evaluation Tells the Difference
Last reviewed: 03/28/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you have been wondering about adhd vs anxiety , you are not alone. Many adults feel restless, distracted, behind, or constantly overwhelmed and still cannot tell whether the core problem is ADHD, anxiety, or both. A good evaluation does not guess from one symptom. It looks at pattern, timeline, impairment, context, and alternative explanations.[1][2][3] In this article, you’ll learn: why ADHD and anxiety overlap so oft

Kiesa Kelly
Mar 289 min read


ADHD vs Anxiety in Adults: How an Evaluation Tells the Difference
Last reviewed: 03/28/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly When you are trying to sort out ADHD vs anxiety, the hardest part is that both can look like procrastination, overwhelm, restlessness, and poor focus. You may feel scattered, behind, and exhausted, yet still have no clear answer about whether the main driver is executive-function difficulty, chronic worry, or both. A careful adult evaluation is meant to slow that down and look at the pattern over time rather than guessing

Kiesa Kelly
Mar 289 min read


Online Therapy in Tennessee: How to Know if Telehealth Is a Good Fit for You
Last reviewed: 03/25/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you are looking for online therapy Tennessee options, the question is usually not whether telehealth is “real therapy.” It is whether this format will help you get the right care and stay engaged with it. Teletherapy has been shown to have outcomes similar to in-person therapy, and federal telehealth guidance notes that many behavioral health services can be provided virtually in a private space.[1,2] In this article,

Ryan Burns
Mar 257 min read


PHQ 9 Score Interpretation: What a Your Score Means and When Depression Therapy Could Help
Last reviewed: 03/24/2026 Reviewed by: Dr. Kiesa Kelly If you’re looking for phq 9 score interpretation after taking a depression screener, you’re probably not asking for a number alone. You’re asking whether therapy could help and whether you should act now. The PHQ-9 is a useful screening tool, but it works best as a starting point for a fuller conversation about symptoms, functioning, safety, and next steps, not as a final verdict.[1][2][3][4][5] In this article, you’ll le

Ryan Burns
Mar 247 min read
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