Articles
THAT Moment in Time
SWEET MEMORIES Recall a favorite memory, a moment in time that you wish you could relive again in exactly the same way. Maybe it was the birth of your child, or your first step down the wedding aisle. Perhaps it was hearing your beloved say "I love you," or the last...
The Silent Treatment
Silence. Quiet. Calm. Those words are a distant memory to most busy adults I know, whose days are a blur of work meetings, waiting in the school pick-up lane, chores at home and, if they're lucky, a few precious, uninterrupted moments spent with friends and loved...
(Mis)Adventures in Nature
We couldn't be sure what was twisted in a "figure 8" in the middle of that Carolina dirt road. Was it a torn and rotting piece of rubber? Was it a strip of fabric that had blown into the path of our rental car? Was it . . . A SNAKE?!? My eagle-eyed wife spotted it...
Seeing Through New Eyes: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy
Traumatic events can create debilitating emotions, thoughts and beliefs that can cause a sensation of being "frozen in time." Sometimes, survivors feel they are doomed to emotionally re-live traumatic experiences. Specialized therapies, like Eye Movement...
Gaining and Growing from Group Therapy
Group therapy can be a dynamic, productive adjunct to individual, couples or family therapy modalities. Group therapy can provide clients with the benefits of multiple perspectives, empathic support and the ability to practice relationship and conflict-management...
Walking in the Garden of Grief
Loss is universal to human experience. We cannot live our days without saying "good-bye" to something, whether it be a person, an experience, a stage of life, or a feeling. And loss doesn't necessarily become easier to manage as we move through the lifespan. I've...
Come to the Dark Side, Luke
DARK SHADOWS In the modern era, psychologist Carl Jung popularized the concept that all human beings harbor "shadow selves", parts of ourselves that contain impulses, thoughts, actions and emotions that we label as "bad," destructive, unsavory, even humiliating....
Shelving the “Shoulds”
Part of therapy is setting goals, helping clients clarify where they are heading and how to get there. So often, I hear clients recite a litany of behaviors, choices, attitudes and feelings they think they, or others, "should" be demonstrating or following. "I should...
Reefer Madness
Has marijuana gone mainstream? With the states of Colorado and Washington legalizing the use and sale of marijuana, and 20 other states allowing the use of "medical marijuana" to treat certain illnesses, it may appear that marijuana use is losing its image as a health...
Shrinking Violets — Is It Shyness or Social Anxiety Disorder?
Most of us experience butterflies in our stomachs before giving an important speech. We may feel jittery and anxious prior to a job interview. But for individuals suffering from social anxiety disorder, social situations of almost any kind can invoke terror, intense...