Tue
18
Mar
2014
I've tried to write about therapy and how it works and what it is like but find it such a difficult concept to nail down. There are so many variables on the part of the client, the therapist, the concerns or issues and the style that the therapist uses. So, I get a bit bogged down in those details. And yet, there is something so universal about the process and about my role. I can't deny that. When I sit with clients, I'm using active listening skills and trying to help them find these important pieces to their puzzle.
Anyway, I don't think I could say it any better than Megan Hale, a therapist, does in this post.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-12657/10-things-i-wish-everyone-knew-about-therapy.html
Check it out.
Sat
01
Feb
2014
This is the second part in a series about taking action to work through problems on your own. In this post, we look at physical activity.
Tue
14
Jan
2014
Tue
07
Jan
2014
A client recently reminded of this video made by Dove. It really demonstrates the way that we are more critical about our own body image and gentle with others. And, that we pick out small blemishes and focus on them. Here is the video:
Thu
02
Jan
2014
Marc Maron has been a stand-up comedian for his whole adult life and more recently started a very popular podcast. He interviews mostly comedians but also actors and musicians about their lives and careers. He starts each episode with a little comedy and casual update on his life. He is honest and self-reflective which appeals to the therapist in me.
Don't be scared off by the title of the show "WTF" (which stands for what you think it stands for) or scared off by his cursing.
Anyway, Marc is very open about his struggles with food which he relates back to his mother's struggles and disordered eating.
Here is a clip of him talking about his ice cream addiction and his very critical voice and dialogue that goes along with his addiction. It starts at about 6 minutes in.
I like this clip because he really breaks down the details of how harsh we can be with ourselves - the types of conversations and dialogue that goes on in our heads. Can you relate to it?
Fri
27
Dec
2013
Sun
08
Dec
2013
Fri
29
Nov
2013
What is the difference between self-esteem and self compassion? I watched this TED talk by Dr. Kristin Neff (Associate Professor in Human Development and Culture at University of Texas at
Austin) and have been thinking about now have these concepts bopping around my head.
I think the most profound part of this is that you need to have self compassion in order to have better self-esteem.
Mon
25
Nov
2013
I have heard this song many times but don't think I actually heard the lyrics before. What a great example of how low self-esteem gets in the way of protecting yourself and your feelings.
Have a listen:
Tue
19
Nov
2013
Imagine a young woman, who looks attractive and stylish and has a youthfulness about her that radiates out of her.
But, for that young woman, she doesn't feel it. When she looks in the mirror, she sees an ugly nose, fat cheeks, hair that doesn't sit right and a body that is too fat. She thinks she looks disgusting and works really hard to feel good enough to leave the comfort of her home and face the day. (We will take a closer look at why this happens for her in the next post).
Whenever something happens to her during the day that will contribute to this belief she has that she is disgusting and unlovable, she latches onto it right away and feels worse about herself which reinforces this belief. But, whenever something happens that doesn't contribute or trigger this belief, she tosses it out and forgets it ever happened.
Want an example?
She runs into a friend while walking along the sidewalk. The friend says, "You look great today!" Because this doesn't fit with her belief about herself, she doesn't believe it. Let me reiterate, she doesn't believe it and therefore it can't be the friend's true feelings. So, she tosses it out right away and doesn't think about it again.
Ok, let's say she runs into this same friend and the friend says, "You look tired today" or it could be something much more subtle - the friend looking at her hair or nose or a part of the young woman's body that she feels sensitive about. She immediately assumes that this friend is looking at her and thinking that her hair looks bad or her nose is ugly. And, this feeling is so strong and fits with her belief so much that she ends up adding it to her core self and feels like her belief must be true because her friend validated the feeling.
So, in summary, any positive coments are thrown away and forgotten and any negative comments are taken in and added to the core beliefs.
This type of thing happens all day long. She is unconsciously allowing herself to maintain this poor level of self-esteem.
In the next post, I will talk about where this comes from.
Mon
23
Sep
2013
I recently got this email from an old friend from Baltimore and I thought I would share the email. I'm sure others can relate to this situation.
Hugs,
Emma
Emma and I were friends before either of us had children. I moved away to Edmonton when she was pregnant with her first daughter. Then, last summer I moved to Victoria with my then 3.5 year-old and 1.5 year-old into a rental house. Recently we bought a house here in Victoria and moved again with two slightly-older young children. So, yes I do have a lot of experience with moving & kids. Here are my thoughts.
So, on the practical side:
On the emotional side:
So, that is more or less what I told Emma.
Fri
26
Jul
2013
I'm excited to announce the start of a new program that I will be running beginning this Fall. It is called Craving Change. It is a structured course for anyone who wants to make changes to their eating habits and behaviours. Clients talk about food-related issues all the time and I am excited to have an new option to offer to people.
Workshop dates and times and further description here.
Mon
03
Jun
2013
So, I had an interesting weekend. I was on the radio! My colleague Jody Watson and I were on The Real Parenting Show with Shirley Broback on Saturday afternoon on CFax. I was very nervous about the public speaking aspect of it. But, I pushed through my nerves and even had some fun.
We got to discuss relationships in the context of parenting. We talked about preventing divorce and strengthening relationships. And we got to put in a word in about our couples workshop too.
You can listen to it here. It is an hour long program. Our segment is 35 minutes in just after the news.
Thank you Shirley and Jody.
Sat
25
May
2013
I've been trying to come up with a way to show people what I do as a therapist. The problem is that the service I offer is private. And, I am obligated by several governing bodies to maintain strict confidentiality.
So, I've had various ideas. I could talk about a famous person. Or, I could get a friend to act as a client while I video tape them. I could present real cases and change identifying information. None of these ideas felt authentic nor professional.
But, today I had a new idea. You Tube. Why didn't I think of it earlier? So, I found a video that feels somewhat realistic. This is an example of the type of dialogue someone might say to me in a therapy session. Let's watch it together. Pretend we are in my office, and this person has come to me for a consultation to assess how I can help her. I'll write down the thoughts that go through my head and what I would say to her.
Wed
15
May
2013
I am very excited to announce the upcoming workshop that my colleague Jody Watson and I are running together:
Mon
29
Apr
2013
Infertility is rarely a simple diagnosis with a clear treatment plan. What follows are some blogs that I have found to be very honest, heart-felt, well-written and funny are these. They are older blogs so you have to go into the archives. None of them blog about infertility much anymore.
Blogs about infertility:
A Little Pregnant. Written by Julie, a woman struggling with infertility. Her and her husband did eventually have one biological child and a second with an egg donor. She writes about all the docotor visits, the ups and downs of pregnancy and miscarriage.They live in New England, US.
So Close Written by Tertia, a South African woman who now has twins and a younger son. She had a long road of infertility and IVF treatments before having her twins and then the surprise of her naturally conceieved child. She also started an egg donor program and runs that.
abc family This is written from a young woman who had difficulty conceiving and wrote about that process. She then went on to have 4 children. She also blogs about parenthood and writes about what she struggles with which I am sure many parents can relate to.
If you have other more current blogs to recommend, please let me know.
Tue
16
Apr
2013
Depression can feel like a battle. The combination of low mood, irritability, lack of energy, sleep problems, appetite problems and poor self-esteem make the process of climbling out of depression a true struggle. It is hard to activate the motivation needed to get out of the depression. Often people suffering from depression don't admit they feel depressed for a while. There is still a stigma with depression and general sense that the person can and should just push through it. Therapy (and at times medication) are important for improving mood.
But, there are many things you can try on your own to decrease depression first. One idea is to kickstart some pleasure back into your body and mind. This list is taken directly from the book, The CBT Toolbox on page 243 by Jeff Riggenbach.
There are countless other activities you can do. Think back to a time before you felt depressed and ask yourself what gave you pleasure back then. Or, ask a friend what they enjoy doing. Think small - it doesn't have to be a big event. Simple pleasures count too. The idea here is to just do them even if they don't initially provide any pleasure. The hope is that this will still induce a bit of happiness in you.
Try one!
Fri
05
Apr
2013
I came across this blog entry and just couldn't not post it here. I think I'll let this excerpt speak for itself. The context is that this is woman who wrote a piece about her sensitivity to her body image after the birth of her kids (a son and a set of twins). In particular, she felt uncomfortable about her new squishy belly. Her son asks her about her belly:
So, in the moment when Ben stood in front of me and the magic happened, I spoke not what I should, not what I wished to believe, but what I deeply felt for once to be true. “Is my belly kind of squishy? Kind of soft?” I ask. “Yes!” he says. “Do you see these red roads on my belly? Are you curious about those?” I ask. “Yes!” he says. “Do you want to know what those feel like?” I ask. “Yes!” he says. Then I take his little finger and trace it along one of my stretch marks and ask, “Do you know what these are?” “No.” he says. “These are the lines of a story. Do you know what the story is about?” “What?” he asks. “These lines tell the story of Isaac and Ben and Elijah. They tell about how you grew inside me and how I stretched to make room for you because I was so glad you would be my boy. Aren’t they beautiful?” “Yes!” he answered.
What a beautiful way to think of your body - as a story about what you have accomplished and been through in your life. The full essay is beautiful and well-written and is located on the blog The Actual Pastor entitled "These are the lines of a story" by Mary Martin Wiens.
Sun
31
Mar
2013
Today I am sharing some eating-disordered-related news pieces that popped into my inbox this week. It is a topic that is in the news a lot. Here are four articles of about 30 that were in my inbox and floating around the online news sources this week. Many adults struggle with eating disordered behavior with the most relentless symptom (in my opinion) being the ongoing obsessing about weight, calorie intake, exercise, rigid food intake and/or guilt. The actual weight of the person is but one small clue as to the complexity of a person's relationship with food and her (or his) body.
Therapy with someone struggling with eating disordered behavior or body image or self-esteem with me involves talking about the behavior and feelings around food a bit and spending the majority of time working with the issues underlying the symptoms. We use the symptoms as a barometer for how the person is feeling and dealing with those underlying isues.
Tue
26
Mar
2013
My colleague Maria Stella is leading this 3-day course on meditation. I highly recommend it.
Mindfulness: Befriending Who You Are
Friday, April 26, 7:00 – 8:30 PM;
Saturday, April 27, 1:00 – 2:30 PM; and
Sunday, April 28, 1:00 – 2:30 PM
SSC Fitness Studio, 814 Royal Oak Ave, Victoria, BC
Suitable for anyone interested in learning to meditate, this course uses a range of approaches―including simple instructions, experiential exercises, movement, and discussions―to help you develop a gentle, appreciative relationship with yourself and discover your inner wisdom and vitality. For more info click here.
Other places, regular practice spaces:
Sun
03
Mar
2013
March 1st was Self-Injury Awareness Day.
More people harm themselves than you might think. It is a form of self-expression as a way of coping with negative internal feelings. There are various levels of self harm. Many daily activities can become forms of self harm. Cutting is the most widely recognized form of self-harm but there are many types of it - burning skin, not letting a wound heal by continually picking off the scab, eating disorders, banging the head against a wall and many many more. Women tend to self harm more then men because women tend to turn anger inward. But also, cutting has become popular in recent years. More teens are testing out cutting the way others might try drugs or smoking cigarettes which means more people are exposed to it.
Self harm and cutting can be extrememly dangerous for many reasons. Physically, infection and cutting "too deep" could be serious problems that require medical attention. Emotionally, it is important to learn to deal with feelings as they arise directly rather than bottling them and then expressing via hurting yourself.
I am not an expert on self-harm but I have worked with and continue to work with people who use this as a coping method. Each person has a unique perspective on why they cut and what it seems to help with. My goal when one presents with self harm as part of their symptoms is to understand their internal world - the messages they tell themselves and the lessons they have learned and the patterns around why they harm themsevles. If the cutting/harm is serious, I strongly encourage medical attention. Otherwise, the focus of the therapy is on the issues underneath the harming.
Here are a couple of extensive websites with loads of information for those that harm themselves.
self-injury.net is run by a 28 y.o. woman that has cut and considers herself "in recovery".
National Self Harm Network a charity service out of the UK that provides information, support, advice and advocacy
Mon
04
Feb
2013
One thing that gets pushed aside in the planning, arranging and settling in a new city is the piece about making friends and feeling a part of your new community. I've often met with clients who complain of lonliness and difficulty of meeting new people whether they are new to a city or not.
I've spent time in Seattle, Bellingham, Baltimore, Edmonton and Victoria. I've lived for two to five years in each of these places and have through the process of moving and starting over formed some ideas about how to have a successful move. What follows are my personal opinions on what to try when moving.
1. Be proactive - Consider it to be a "job" to meet people and to get to know your community.
2. Introduce yourself - Take any opportunity to say hello and introduce yourself especially in your neighbourhood. If you are having a casual conversation with someone, tell them you just moved here and introduce yourself.
3. Shop locally - Go for local. If you are looking for a coffee shop or a dry cleaners or a hair salon, try the one in your community first. Then, introduce yourself and frequent it. If it is a coffee shop, go back. People start to remember you. And remembering you will help with them considering you a part of their community. As the customer, it feels good to have your shops know you.
4. Say yes - When people invite you to something, accept! Don't be picky. This is the time to meet as many people as possible. You may have to push outside of your comfort zone but this is how you meet people.
5. Volunteer - Find something in your new community to help out with.
6. Join a group - Whatever your passion is, find others and join in! If you are a bike rider, join a bike group. If you are a jogger, join a runner's group.
7. Meet friends' friends - If a friend says, "you should meet this friend of mine that also lives in your city," accept the offer and contact that person. Again, be pro-active. Be the one to make the first phone call or send the first email.
8. Be the first to invite others' over - Host! Or, at least be in charge of making invitations for others.
9. Get to know your co-workers - take the time to chat with your co-workers and get to know them a bit. As the new person, you have more at stake then they do. Work is also a mini-community in itself. So, if there are committees, join them. If a group goes for lunch, join in. Again, be the one to make the effort.
10. Prepare yourself for some rejection - Not everyone will want to meet you or care that you have moved to their neighborhood. Some people will give you the cold shoulder. So, you move on and keep finding other people.
11. Give yourself at least one year to start to feel at home - Seriously. It takes a lot of time to feel at home. Until the year is up, keep an open-mind.
12. Stay in your community - This is especially true if you are nearby your old neighborhood and friends. It is easy to just return to what is easy. But try to stay in your new community. Explore, walk the streets, ask others for tips on their favorite spots. Try not to flee back to your old community.
13. Read the local paper, listen to the local news - Again, it is tempting to stay connected to your old community but try to fully immerse yourself in your new city/home.
14. Look at events pages of the news, magazines, flyers on telephone poles and in coffee shops and go to some events.
15. Students - Join study groups, activity groups, find a hobby on campus. Sit by someone that looks interesting in class and talk to them. Introduce yourself to your teachers (this is helpful for many other reasons as well).
Ultimately, you have to find what works best for yourself. Good luck.
Mon
21
Jan
2013
These are some of the psychotherapy-related news/blogs topics that popped into my email box this week that caught my attention:
The new face of eating disorders: Men starving themselves...
A newspaper article on the rise of eating disorders amongst men and the attached stigma making it more difficult for men to ask for help. In general, men are less likely to see help for mental health issues.
CBC news in Calgary at the U of C reports on how more students in Alberta are accessing help for mental health issues citing a range of problems.
www.depressionmarathon.blogspot.ca A personal blog kept for several years about a woman's struggle with depression and sobriety.
Cut for Bieber This is by far the most upsetting event in the news in the past two weeks. The basic story is that the teen star Justin Bieber, who has a wholesome and clean image, was said to have been caught using marijuana. Via twitter, some accounts that appear to mostly be dummy accounts, urged other twitter-Bieber fans to cut themselves in the name of Bieber to encourage him to quit smoking marijuana. This is way of making cutting seem common and cool.
Mon
07
Jan
2013
Why do some people recover from traumatic experiences and others do not? Most people have had some sort of trauma in their lives. And yet, there are some people who get stuck in the trauma. By "stuck" I mean that they continue to suffer from the symptoms of trauma long after the event itself has ended.
I've seen some people continue to have nightmares, they get triggered by memories and can quickly and suddenly fall into a state of complete terror. Others avoid things or places that remind them of the trauma or avoid people that remind them of the traumatic experience. If the trauma was sexual abuse, some avoid intimate relationships by staying to themselves, using drugs to remain distant or don't allow any relationship to become long-term. Another way some people avoid dealing with feelings is by remaining busy with other things in life. They work long hours or avoid being alone with the thoughts in their head. And, others avoid remaining in a state of crisis.
I'll try to explain this idea of crisis a bit more. Some adults with a trauma history just seem to attract crisis, seek crisis, ignore red flags until they become crisis and in effect move from one crisis to the next. Crisis is another way to avoid facing past trauma and feelings. But, the destructive thing about this pattern is that it is unhealthy to stay in a state of crisis. Our bodies go into crisis mode during a crisis and adrenaline pumps through to keep us alert and in survival mode. It becomes damaging to our bodies to stay in this state. Once a person is used to being in this state, they have a hard time dealing with life when there is nothing to be in crisis about and so they find something. Maybe they find a sexual partner that is dangerous. Maybe they go on a drug binge. Maybe they start a fight with a family member. Whatever it is, they work themselves up into a state of crisis so that this now becomes the problem rather than the original trauma.
One way to work with this is by going into talk therapy. My strategy is to figure out what feelings come up for the person in the moments between crisis. And then to stay there and feel those feelings. The goal is to learn to be more comfortable sitting with difficult feelings and to then to explore (at their own pace) the stuff that the person is so carefully avoiding. It takes more energy initially to face the trauma, but in the long run, not having to spend life avoiding something in your head, will save lots of energy and a deeper sense of peace.
Wed
02
Jan
2013
Leftovers...
Despite the photograph of food, I'm not talking about turkey. I am referring to the feelings and events that have occurred over the holidays that now sit inside festering. Leftovers are the thoughts left unsaid to important people - lovers, mothers, old friends. Leftovers are the old feelings that sit quietly inside you until they are triggered by events such as a holiday meal or a lonely holiday and feel fresh, raw and new again. We all have leftovers from the holidays by the mere fact that Christmas and the surrounding holidays evoke memories from the past and remind us of what we do and don't have. Who we are and are not. Where we are in space and age. We think about why we exist, why others are in or out of our lives at this point in time and where to go next.
It is but 2 days into the new year and I've already had a week's worth of conversations about leftovers with clients. I'm happy my clients have a place to process their feelings about what has or hasn't happened over the holidays. It also gives me a chance to reflect with each person and offer a different perspective.
Happy new year, leftovers and all!