Posts Tagged 'therapy'
Forgive yourself; but not so fast!
Published January 9, 2012 Grief and Loss , Mental Health Issues , Relationships Leave a CommentTags: finding happiness, grief, Grief and Loss, intentional living, making changes, Relationships, therapy
On the contrary, it’s much more helpful – and mature – to dwell long enough to review your behavior and seriously think about how to avoid it in the future. In this time of reflection you may discover underlying issues that helped propel you to regretful conduct, and thereby have a chance to not only avoid similar circumstance, but to heal yourself and reconcile with others in a more meaningful way.
Haunted??? (re-posted from 2009)
Published October 25, 2010 Mental Health Issues Leave a CommentTags: bad memories, haunted by memories, past trauma, psychotherapy, therapy
Are you haunted by the ghosts of a difficult past experience? Or perhaps by the demons of still-current destructive urges? Perhaps the Halloween celebrations can also be celebrations of your freedom from thoughts that go “bump” in the night.
It seems that many people are haunted by experiences that were traumatic and that endure in a way that infuses and even invades their daily life. Sometimes these are childhood experiences and sometimes they come from more recent events. In both cases, they may follow us where ever we go, poking our spirit with unwelcome memories and disturbing images. Sometimes a certain voice echoes in our hearts with hurtful words, and lingers with a chill even on the warmest day. Clients have told me of old voices of former partners who taunted them with “You just don’t want me to have more of him.” or “I could have anyone else in 5 minutes” or “Why should I care? What’s the point?” Other times the memory and voice is from long ago, from family or family friends, distant and hollow yet still powerful and able to pierce deeply and painfully with messages of “this is the last time.”
Difficult or even terrible memories of personal trauma from accidents, crime victimization, the sudden loss of loved ones, and the diagnosis of challenging or terminal medical conditions can also haunt us and cast a somber mood over our every moment.
If you find yourself chased by the ghosts of times and events past or present, and cannot within yourself bring them away into the light, it’s time to seek the help of a qualified therapist to help you re-kindle your imagination in a more positive and hopeful way. It’s time to start on a path of freedom from what haunts you. 
Call today to blow a breath of fresh air into your life, and chase those ghosts, and even those demons, away.
Just as you are; and as you shall be.
Published December 10, 2009 Musings Leave a CommentTags: starting psychotherapy, therapy
Have you wondered what psychotherapy is like? What it might feel like to explore and expose your deepest thoughts and feelings?
The poem that follows, written by George Eliot, was sent to me by a client who utilized therapy to illuminate many issues, and to begin the steps on a new life path. We spent more than a year in weekly, and occasionally twice-weekly sessions as we discovered then discussed her hopes, dreams, fears, achievements, losses and her developing intentions. She became increasingly clear about what direction she wanted her life to go, even as she struggled with old habits and self-defeating internal messages.
She was brave and determined and came to understand her frailties as only one aspect of her true self, and moreover to see herself as capable of making changes that would create new opportunities for even more meaningful change. She began to live an intentional life. And so, she sent this to me in gentle recognition of our time together.
Oh, the comfort –
The inexpressible comfort of feeling
safe with a person,
Having neither to weigh thoughts,
Nor measure words — but pouring them
All right out — just as they are –
Chaff and grain together –
Certain that a faithful hand will
Take and sift them –
Keep what is worth keeping –
and with the breath of kindness
Blow the rest away.
The poem itself, and her sending it, is so tender and thoughtful
that more words that can’t possibly add meaning.
Therapy is not magic.
Published December 7, 2009 Musings Leave a CommentTags: patience in therapy, psychotherapy, taking time to change, the process of change, therapy
It takes hard work and perseverance to change habits of thought, feeling and behavior that have had years to become entrenched.
But the changes you can make in therapy may feel almost magical!
Many clients initially feel frustrated and impatient at not being able to immediately make substantial changes in their life once they begin therapy. Often the emotional ache has been on the surface for some time before a person makes the decision to actually begin psychotherapy. Once having begun, the work of discovering, illuminating and altering deep feelings and beliefs, then changing behaviors accordingly, you may feel some impatience to have your life quickly reflect your commitment to change. Usually however the process of making real and lasting change takes time.
My suggestion is that you accept your natural pace of making changes, and in the beginning focus more on the discovery and illumination aspects of therapy. Rushing into changes without understanding the emotional source of your past choices my feel safely gratifying, but may not result in the sustained changes that will ultimately bring you more of what you want in life. True, it can be challenging to really examine your life and how it came to be what it is. It might result in feeling of remorse or loss or anger. You may find you have to forgive others for their transgressions, and forgive yourself for your conduct towards others. There may even be events and situations that you wish you could “fix” but are unable to do so. You will not be smiling after every therapy session, as the difficult thoughts and feeling you have bubble to the service. What may surprise you however, and leave you feeling emotionally stronger is the recognition that you can do better. Not everything is in your control, but you can be in control of yourself and so build a more intentional life style. You can come to terms with your past behavior and either confirm or change your future choices, so that before too long you have created a new history through new conduct.
Consider beginning psychotherapy, and giving yourself the time to change that you deserve.
As you make changes, as you feel better about your life, and the people around you begin to r
elate to you more positively, you may even begin to feel as though you finally pulled a rabbit out of a hat!
Learn to open your safe- safely.
Published September 21, 2009 Mental Health Issues Leave a CommentTags: making changes, personal change, psychotherapy, small changes in therapy, therapy
“The control of our being is not unlike the combination of a safe. One turn of the knob rarely unlocks the safe. Each advance and retreat is a step toward one’s goal.” Eric Hoffer
Clients sometimes ask me, in the first therapy session, how long it will take. How long until they feel better? How long until others feel better about them? It’s also often the beginning of a client’s realization and acceptance that there are things I don’t know about them or about how therapy will work for them – and therefore the very beginning of our authentic relationship.
What comes next is something akin to, though not as simple or expressive as Eric Hoffer’s quote that opened this post. For any reader who is contemplating beginning therapy, or has just begun, there could be no more succinct nor more accurate statement about the process of psychotherapy. There is no scripted easy road to personal transformation. Finding our way to a personal awakening, a new beginning, to self forgiveness, self direction and intentional living, is not simply a movement from step A to step Z. It requires of us, client and therapist alike, that we formulate goals yet understand that not all goals are reached or reachable, that we accept some frailties as a legitimate component of the human condition, and that we have and practice the patience and courage to set a course complete with destination, yet succumb to wandering.
As you engage psychotherapy as a guide and inspiration for your personal change, remember Mr. Hoffer’s quote. Let yourself become comfortable with alternately knowing and not knowing where it will lead. Wander through your life with curiosity and the confidence that your therapist will serve as a guide.
And remember: All those who wander are not lost.
May you have a safe and enlightening journey.
The Dignity of Daring… one more reason for psychotherapy.
Published April 26, 2009 Musings Leave a CommentTags: friends vs therapists, psychotherapy, therapy, why go to therapy
Engaging in psychotherapy should be both challenging and affirming.
You can learn about yourself in unexpected ways, becoming more aware of the impact you have on others and how your thinking and actions can impact your own future. Some people who have not yet made the commitment to therapy with a professional therapist ask a reasonable question: do I really need a qualified professional psychotherapist to help me see myself more clearly? Why not just ask my good friends for some honest feedback?
Of course it’s a great idea to talk with close friends about difficult feelings and personal challenges. It can help to bring you important perspectives on your thinking and feelings, and on your behavior. It can also help to strengthen the bonds between you and your friends that will sustain your relationship over time and help those relationships to weather periods of strain so that you can come to trust the durability of the friendship.
Still, having a professional therapist, not centrally involved in your life, who will both support you and challenge you, help you search for answers and, more importantly, help you to ask the right questions, is a unique feature of psychotherapy that offers you a chance to achieve a different kind of personal growth. The words of Karl Von Durkheim so nicely state this phenomenon:
“The man, who, being really on the Way, falls upon hard times in the world will not, as a consequence, turn to that friend who offers him refuge and comfort and encourages his old self to survive. Rather, he will seek out someone who will faithfully and inexorably help him to risk himself, so that he may endure the suffering and pass courageously through it. Only to the extent that man exposes himself over and over to annihilation, can that which is indestructible arise within him. In this lies the dignity of daring.”
This then is the element of psychotherapy which is not reliably found among the most well-meaning of friends and family. This intent and capacity to both support and encourage you to risk your emotional comfort so that you might discover new and important things about yourself is central to effective therapy. When your desire for personal growth, or your determination to end your emotional pain, moves you to talk about it, try both kinds of help:
Talk to your friends for support, and make an appointment with a qualified psychotherapist to get the kind of help that will challenge you to change yourself and thereby change your life.
Call today to make an appointment.
Job Stress: Survivor’s Guilt
Published March 9, 2009 Mental Health Issues Leave a CommentTags: downsizing, job loss, layoff, survivor guilt, therapy
Job loss is an obvious source of intense stress, and we increasingly can see the impact all around us. What may be less obvious is the stress on employees who are fortunate enough to keep their jobs while co-workers and friends are layed off.
Sitting and listening to friends who are distraught and scared over the loss of their income and the many other losses associated with job loss can be stressful for the “survivor.” Feeling of guilt over being better-off may make it difficult to be comfortable around former co-workers. You may have fears of losing your own job in the next round of lay-offs, but may not feel comfortable expressing those fears since they are not yet real, as they are for someone already facing unemployment.
It may be that you are one of the managers responsible for giving layoff notices to employees. In this situation, feelings of sadness, guilt and responsibility can sometimes be overwhelming, and yet once again there may not seem to be a good time or place to express them.
In both of these situations, the relief of still having a job, that inner voice that says “I’m glad that’s not me.”, can increase the person’s feelings of survivor’s guild, and create alienation from friends and former co-workers.
If you still have your job but are talking with, or relating to friends who have lost theirs, it could be very helpful to seek therapy so talk about your survivor feelings, and your inner fears that perhaps you too will soon face the devastating challenge of job loss. Don’t wait for problems to develop in your relationships. Pick up the phone today and make an appointment to discuss your feelings and fears with a qualified psychotherapist.
Engaging in psychotherapy, when it’s effective, is a life-changing experience. Usually one thinks of that description as applying to the clients. What may be surprising to some people who have been or are in therapy is that often the therapist’s own experiences in the office can bring us soft sadness or quiet joy, and new perspectives on ourselves and the world we live in. In truth, if we aren’t touched by the stories we hear then we may not really be really listening! Sometimes, as I later reflect on a session, I am reminded of book passages or poetry I’ve read wherein similar circumstance or feelings to those of the client have been put into different words. Sometimes I can find the passage and re-read it, to both check my recollection of it’s meaning and context, and to find another way of understanding the client’s own words by seeing that experience through the words of another.
Not so long ago someone talked to me about a lost love. A loss he didn’t expect, didn’t understand and couldn’t just forget about as if it had never happened. He understood that the relationship was over, and had adjusted reasonably well, yet occasionally the memories of tender moments were awakened by the most innocuous of things: something in a store window, or perhaps just talking to a friend about their lives. I came home and found the poem that reminded me of his experience. Perhaps it will remind you, softly even if sadly, of a lost love and how the experience still resides in a corner of your soul. If so, take heart. You are not alone in remembering, as Amichai so tenderly yet starkly writes.
Once a Great Love by Yehuda Amichai
Once a great love cut my life in two,
The first part goes on twisting
at some other place like a snake cut in two.
The passing years have calmed me
and brought healing to my heart and rest to my eyes,
And I’m like someone standing in
the Judean desert, looking at a sign:
“Sea Level.”
He cannot see the sea, but he knows,
Thus I remember your face everywhere
at your “face level.”
My client could not “see” and did not still “want” his lost love. The memories had dimmed, but they had not diminished in meaning. This is perhaps a good emblem for ”moving on”, for living ones life with memories, some fond and fragile, others damp and dusky. But always facing forward and taking the memories with you rather than standing still, alongside them, in the past.
I listen. And I, too, grow.
The Soul’s Storm-Emily Dickinson
Published February 15, 2009 Mental Health Issues , Musings Leave a CommentTags: emily dickinson, grief, long-term grief, poetry and therapy, therapy
