Feelings buried alive never die.
Powerful line, no? It’s the title of a book that talks about the impact of unresolved emotions and feelings on our happiness, health, and well-being.
Feelings buried alive never die.
Powerful line, no? It’s the title of a book that talks about the impact of unresolved emotions and feelings on our happiness, health, and well-being.
You know how it goes.
“Whatssamatter with you?” your husband asks you.
“Nothing,” you answer.
He doesn’t let go. “I know you,” he says. “Something is bothering you.”
“How long will therapy take?” a new client asks.
Depending on the symptoms, on the presenting issue, the response varies.
My colleague says, “The more experienced I get, the slower I go.”
Therapy is a long and painful process. Arduous. Gut-wrenching. Therapy takes guts. No matter how short it takes in real time, it will always feel long and painful.
When I was a teacher, I once taught in a very prestigious high school where the menaheles was very chashuv and the students worked themselves to the bone to prove themselves. Prove themselves to whom or to what, I’m not quite sure;
Are you sending your teenage daughter to camp this summer? Beginning to think of it, right? It’s acceptance season and decision season.
People are going to therapy. Yes!
How many people are going to therapy, you want to know?
This is what I tell my friends and family when they ask me. “When you sit at a table at a simchah, just count off every third person. That person has a close family member in therapy, whether or not they know it.” Then I add, “Really, I believe it’s every second person sitting at that table, but I wanted to be conservative in my assessment.”
You know how your writing teacher taught you to begin your opinion essay with a topic sentence? So here’s mine: Screen time for student-age kids is stupid.
I’m sure my teacher would have said something like, “We don’t use the word ‘stupid’ in a topic sentence. It’s an opinion, not a fact; you can’t state an opinion as fact.”
She’s right. So here’s my revised topic sentence: In my opinion, screen time for anybody, especially kids, is a dumb idea.
This is what happened.
When I was a teacher, I mentored a student who followed me out of high school through her seminary and post seminary years. I knew her well. Very well. And then she got engaged and we were thrilled. Both of us. Maybe she was more thrilled, but you know what I mean.
This column is being written in early May, scheduled to be printed after Shavuos but before the camp season begins. As I write this, I have no idea if camps will open this summer, if thousands of our children will be in the mountains in sleepaway camps, or if they will be camp-less, job-less, and bored-full.
You know how some people (not you visiting my website, of course!) think it’s no big deal to be a therapist? Like, you sit in a comfy office a few hours a day, nod sagely, swivel around on your chair, have
Using an 8-step protocol which includes a back-and-forth movement (originally only of the eyes; presently, more varied options), EMDR therapy facilitates the accessing and processing of traumatic memories or adverse experiences. It transforms a client's negative beliefs to positive ones, reduces body activation, and allows new behaviors to replace the old.
Somatic IFS is a branch of IFS which uses the 5 practices of: somatic awareness, breath, resonance, movement, and touch. The intention of this practice is to help parts that express themselves through the body reestablish connection to Self, restoring its leadership; healing the injured and traumatized parts, enabling healthy living.
Clinical hypnosis is a technique in which the therapist helps a client go into a deeply focused and relaxed state called a trance, using verbal cues, repetition, and imagery. In this naturally occurring altered state of hypnotic consciousness, therapeutic interventions to address psychological or physical issues are more effective.
IFS views a person as made up of many parts, much like a family, each with its own feelings, thoughts, and even memories. Parts may manifest in troublesome ways, but IFS believes each one is there to protect and help, and the role of therapy is to heal the wounded and hurting parts, uncovering the core Self who will lead these parts with the 8 Cs of: calm, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity, and connectedness.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy is a body-based, holistic approach to healing that integrates talk therapy, attachment theory, and experiential exercises to address developmental and other trauma that is stored in the body as somatic symptoms. Working with child states and “experiments,” SP therapy accesses material that is often outside of a client’s awareness, facilitating healing and growth.
When the body stores unpleasant sensations as a result of stress, shock, and trauma, SE is a body-based therapy that helps clients to gain awareness of how these cause stuck patterns of flight and fight responses. SE therapy is a gentle method that guides clients to increase their window of tolerance, releasing suppressed trauma and emotions, freeing them of their physical emotional pain.