Blog
Therapy is a process that helps people work through their problems, and I love writing about its application in the real world.
Below are a series of blog articles that aim to normalize mental health, provide you with tips to enhance the quality of your life, get real about my own experiences and more!
What Voles Taught Me About Radical Acceptance and Anxiety
Time to get real with you all. I am not a fan of rodents. I find them to be vile, disgusting, beady-eyed little creatures. There I said it. Not to mention the fact that they carry diseases that can be harmful to humans and urinate and leave little poop droppings everywhere. See what I mean? Kind of hard not to be absolutely terrified and revolted. It may not be the most enlightened view, but, hey, I’m a therapist, not a saint *shrugs shoulders*.
DBT Assumptions: Fault vs. Responsibility
In Marsha Linehan’s book Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder she writes about assumptions about borderline patients and therapy. However, these could easily be assumptions about people and the task of living. Assumption #4 states that “Patients may not have caused all their problems, but they have to solve them anyway.” What exactly does this mean? This means that not everything that happens to us is our fault.
Six Tips for Better Time Management
24 hours. 1440 minutes. 86,400 seconds. These are the numbers that are universal for every single person on this planet. They represent the amount of time we are given each day. Time, if you think about it, can be considered a great equalizer because, we are all given the same amount of time each day to accomplish the things important to us. No one is given more or less time.
Validation and Black Lives Matter
Validation is a deep and meaningful topic to me that comes up frequently in my work with clients. Far too often I listen to the painful stories told by clients that come to my practice with very real trauma caused by invalidating environments and relationships in their lives. I was recently putting together a handout on validation to give out to clients who suffer from the lasting effects of invalidating environments in their past and present. During my research, I couldn’t help but notice the parallels to the detrimental effects of invalidation to an individual’s emotional and psychological health and the same detrimental effects to people of color from the All Lives Matter movement as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Let’s Talk About Goals
I recently completed my Level 1 training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy. As I finished the quiz, and somewhat nonchalantly, printed my certificate, it struck me that I had actually just reached a professional goal that I set out for myself last year. I had just reached an important goal and I barely took the time to even notice – it just felt like checking another item off my To-Do List.
How Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Helped Me to Appreciate My Challenges
No one is without problems. No matter how much we have, attain, or earn, we will find problems that require solving. No matter where we fit in, how many friends we have, romantic relationship or none; busy social life or quiet, we will encounter interpersonal challenges. No matter the skills we develop or the way our philosophies broaden to include wider concerns…we will still never be able to transcend problems.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
One thing I hear, often, as a therapist is “Therapy didn’t help” or “I/we went to therapy but nothing changed.” Change is a funny thing, because when it comes to behavior, it doesn’t just happen to us without our conscious awareness.