4 reasons why you should open up about difficult topics
For many people, avoiding talking about or even thinking about aspects of their lives that are the source of pain is a strategy they turn to often. While avoiding pain can feel like a tempting strategy to get through life, most people find that eventually what you don’t face finds a way of expressing itself in other ways. Most people find that when they actually do face the difficult aspects of their lives and emotions and find a way to sit with the difficulty rather than avoiding it, they experience much more peace and relief as a result. Many studies show that people who open up in talk therapy see benefits in their life
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How a “Holding Environment” Supports Psychological Growth
How exactly does psychotherapy help you grow, learn, and heal? For some schools of thought, the answer to this question is found in prescriptive tools or techniques, manualized treatments, and medications. In Depth or Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy which I practice, the answer to this question is found much more in the quality of the therapeutic relationship between therapist and client. What some people want when they enter the psychotherapy office is to have a kind of experience in a relationship, a new kind of experience they might have never had before, where they feel heard, understood, encouraged, and supported in a deep embodied way.
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How to practice Active Listening with your partner, co-worker, or friend
In this video I outline some of the basic tenets of active listening including shutting out distractions, giving your partner space to speak, repeating what you heard them say back to them, and more. Active listening can help build the foundations of a healthy communication dynamic in your marriage, friendship, or work relationships.
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Navigating Marital Conflict: Finding Harmony in Long-Term Relationships
Marriage is a wonderful part of life for most people, however what we don’t often hear about in the media or on facebook feeds is how common marital conflict is. Many people experience conflict in their marriages or long term relationships that sometimes doesn’t show up until years or even decades into a relationship. When you are in a relationship with someone for a long time, you and your partner will inevitably change and grow, and your relationship will have to change and grow with you.
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What Object Relations Theory tells us about how our early childhood experiences shape our lives and relationships
Object Relations Theory, a psychoanalytic principle developed in the mid 1900s by various psychoanalysts including Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott, outlines the way that individuals absorb their early childhood experiences and have a mysterious way of repeating, or being affected by these early experiences much later in their life as adults.
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What to do if you're so depressed you cant get out of bed
Depression manifests in various forms and affects individuals differently. Many people with depression experience a loss of interest in previously fun or exciting activities, they feel a sense of hopelessness about the future, and often a sense of guilt or self hatred. What some people don’t realize about depression is that in its more advanced forms, depression can start to affect biological functioning, leading to insomnia, eating difficulties, severe fatigue, or an inability to get out of bed. Experiencing such a severe depressive episode can make you feel trapped and angry with yourself. When depression is really bad, just “snapping out of it” isn’t really an option, and gentler, compassionate approaches are necessary.
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Four Signs You're Engaging in Toxic Positivity Without Knowing It
The concept of toxic positivity refers to a mindset which overemphasizes positivity to the exclusion of the more complex and challenging realities of life. This approach can be harmful as it leaves little room for you to be honest with yourself about the negative emotions you are experiencing. Everyone experiences negative emotions, and success in mental health does not mean eliminating these emotions, but learning to live with and acknowledge negativity when it comes up.
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Preventing Common Marriage Pitfalls: How Premarital Therapy Can Help
Premarital therapy offers a valuable opportunity for you and your future spouse to prepare yourselves and your relationship for the life you are embarking on together. With divorce being a common outcome for many marriages, premarital therapy can help you avoid specific pitfalls that often lead to bitterness, discord, and ultimately, divorce. By addressing potential conflicts early on and exploring various aspects of your relationship that can commonly cause existential conflicts, premarital therapy equips you to navigate challenges collaboratively and build resilience together.
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What is “Relational” Psychotherapy?
Many people come to therapy thinking they will get new insights or tools to help them overcome their suffering, and while these approaches have their place and do occur in therapy, often I find clients are dissatisfied and left feeling a bit empty when therapists simply give them a worksheet or apply distant theoretical frameworks. The hidden dimension of therapy which often determines whether a therapy is successful or not, is the relational dynamics between therapist and client, and the rich tapestry of experiences this dynamic can lead to.
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What is Complex PTSD?
While classic or “simple” PTSD is what we often think of when we think of trauma, developmental or complex ptsd is much more common, and in some ways much more insidious. Someone who has suffered from severe complex ptsd might constantly feel like they are unworthy, they might feel a distinct and severe sense of anxiety in close relationships, they might chronically fawn or people-please in order to appease the perceived needs of others, or there might be other complex expressions of insecurity or anxiety in relationships.
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What are the benefits of Depth Psychotherapy?
Depth psychotherapy is a modality of therapy that is focused on uncovering the underlying forces that are hidden in your unconscious world. Taking a depth approach to psychotherapy means we take our time to explore and navigate the healing process, and I find that this patience is rewarded with more fundamental and lasting change in our lives.
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5 ways to succeed at "Sober October" this year
For many people, drugs and alcohol are a way to medicate deeper emotional wounds. Taking care of those wounds in therapy is a great way to improve your overall mental wellbeing and your relationship with drugs and alcohol.
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Covid-19 and Depression: How the Pandemic Can Affect Your Mental Health
The Covid-19 pandemic has now lasted almost two whole years, and during that time it has had a huge impact on many areas of our lives. Many people have found their existing depression has gotten a lot worse over the pandemic, and other people have developed depression for the first time in their lives during Covid-19. In this article I’ll outline a couple of ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic has affected us all and could contribute to worsening depression symptoms.
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Non-medical treatments for Major Depressive Disorder
Major depressive disorder can be incredibly difficult to live with. If you have experienced depression yourself, then you have probably wondered what you can do to help alleviate it in your life. If you are struggling with major depressive disorder and you want to try to help your mental health without the support of medication, here are some ideas to help you get started.
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Online depression test
If you’re suffering from depression, or you’re not sure whether what you are experiencing is depression or just a temporary low mood, you might be looking for a quick way to assess how you are feeling from an outside objective perspective.
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Five signs you might be depressed
If you are struggling with negative moods, feeling “off”, or having low self esteem, it might be hard to tell sometimes if what you are experiencing is just a temporary low point which is nothing serious, or if you are experiencing a depressive episode in your life. Understanding whether or not you are suffering from depression can be incredibly important in how you treat whatever mood you are in and whether or not you seek help.
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"Its not about the dishes" - How to resolve disagreements
If you are struggling to resolve disagreements in your relationship then you might be wondering how to come to more connection and communication with your partner. If you look past the surface issue to take a look at what is really going on, you stand a better chance to resolve disagreement and come to resolution.
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Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn
Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are four common reactions we see when someone has endured a traumatic experience. In trauma healing, understanding and reconciling the reactions of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn is essential to heal post-traumatic stress.
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