Dear Members and Visitors to GoodTherapy.org,

Today the GoodTherapy.org Team was pleased to experience the second teleconference in our Spring into Summer Teleconference Series: Wired for Intimacy: Awakening the I-and-Thou Experience in Couples Therapy presented by Hedy Schleifer, MA, LMHC. A big “thank you” to Hedy for taking the time to present her empathic & optimistic approach to enhancing and healing relationships: Tikkun Relational Therapy to GoodTherapy.org members.

To support those of you who attended today’s teleconference and who may have more questions or would enjoy having a forum to discuss Hedy’s methods, we created this blog entry to serve as a forum where you can post your questions, leave comments, and engage in a dialogue about it. Please feel welcome to join us in the discussion.

To view the comments or make your own, simply scroll to the bottom of this particular article and click on the “Comment” link.

For more information about Hedy and her workshop programs, please visit her website:
http://www.hedyyumi.org

Enjoy,

Noah :)

Noah Rubinstein, LMFT
Executive Director
http://www.GoodTherapy.org

© Copyright 2008 by http://www.GoodTherapy.org Therapist Irvine Bureau - All Rights Reserved.

By Marianne Esolen, L.M.S.W.

Click here to contact Marianne and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

As a professional who has worked in one capacity or another with children and teens for nearly twenty years, the topic of grief and loss has been consistently present in all my interactions with young people. Long before I decided to return to graduate school for social work, I found myself encountering youth from all walks of life struggling to cope with issues of loss, from the grief attached to a parent’s divorce to the grief associated with the death of a pet, a friend, a teacher, a parent. I found the topic in hushed tones of colleagues, in open rap groups for teen girls, acted out in games at a shelter for abused women, as quiet conversation among middle school students on a field trip, and as a random question or comment seemingly out of the blue during some recreational event, like a baseball game or Halloween Party. During most times when the topic emerged, there was a tentative and questioning look or brief and uneasy pause where I sensed a combination of hope and caution, curiosity and reservation. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update

Therapists first began the use of virtual reality in the treatment of stress 20 years after the Vietnam War ended. In 1997, researchers in Atlanta created Virtual Vietnam, a program that produced the sights and sounds of war: Huey helicopters with whirring motors, rice paddies, jungle clearings. The idea was to use exposure to the traumatic events to help relieve veterans of the effects of Posttraumatic Stress.

Exposure methods to treat trauma were first used by Edna Foa in the treatment of rape victims. The idea, in using “prolonged exposure”, is to disconnect the patient’s memory from his or her reactions to the memory. Studies have shown that after prolonged exposure, the memory remains but the “cues” that trigger trauma response–sounds of gunshot or a car backfiring, say–are reduced to insignificance. “The trauma thus becomes a discrete event, not a constant, self-replicating, encompassing condition,” reports Sue Halpern, in a recent New Yorker article on Virtual Iraq.
Read the rest of this entry

By Victoria Schlicht, LMFT

Click here to contact Victoria and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

No one wants to be a fool, least of all a fool in love. But what of being a Fool for Love? Is there any difference? Foolishness, folly, fool-hardy. We know it all too well. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. This is true of gambling with our hard earned dollars. Might it also be true of gambling with our hard won hearts? Shouldn’t we be just as careful and cautious about how, when, where, and why we choose to invest our love? And yet, we can be smart, brainy, canny, and wise in the ways of the world. Too smart to be taken in. Too smart to be trusting. Smart enough to value safety and avoidance of pain and brokenheartedness above everything else. Even with the one we love. Too smart to allow the vulnerability that open-hearted love demands. Read the rest of this entry

By Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Click here to contact Jeanette and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Flora was proud of herself. Her stomach felt flatter. Her new diet and exercise regimen was paying off. She ate things she liked and found exercises that fitted in with her energy levels- not the self flagellation she inflicted on herself in the gym the last time she tried to lose weight. She was amazed at how easy it was to follow her program and how much she was enjoying it.

A couple of weeks into the project Flora was part of a decision making team at work. There were disagreements and heated opinions flying around making her feel uneasy. She wanted to let them know what she thought but couldn’t fight her way into the conversation. She didn’t want to be the center of attention by yelling her way into the debate. Nor did she want to be ignored. Suddenly Flora sensed something was missing. She grabbed a pillow and put in on her abdomen. What a relief! At that very stressful moment Flora missed the ‘padding’ that her fat had provided. The cushion smothered her conflict, removing the need for making a choice. Driving home she felt annoyed that no one had invited her to comment or made room for her opinion. Demeaned and diminished Flora’s anger frothed up. She stopped at a store and bought a quart of vanilla ice- cream and a large bag of corn chips. Read the rest of this entry

By Arthur Becker-Weidman, Ph.D.

Click here to contact Arthur and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Temperament is a given and appears to be largely genetically based. Understanding what is temperament and how it may affect your relationship with your child can help you develop a better relationship with your child and avoid many problems later in life.

Temperament is a largely genetically determined set of characteristics that remain unchanged from birth throughout life. Beginning as early as four months of age, a child’s temperament can be determined. These temperamental traits are largely unchanged throughout life. Understanding temperament is important since these personality traits do not change. A parent needs to understand these dimensions so that the parent can adapt to the child.

Temperament refers to enduring traits of a person’s approach to the world. These dimensions are found in all children across cultures. A child’s temperament is a core element of the child’s personality. Since it is unchangeable, understanding temperament is essential to knowing how to approach your child. What may appear to be a problem may actually be a mismatch between your temperament and that of your child. Read the rest of this entry

By Lisa Brookes Kift, MFT

Click here to contact Lisa and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

If there’s one thing that we all seek – it’s happiness. I’ve never met a person who has told me they didn’t want to be happy, have you? When I do individual therapy, I have the opportunity to sit down with people as they present their concerns to me – whatever they may be. They usually seek therapy because they’re experiencing some level of emotional distress – and are fundamentally unhappy. I’ve noticed that a number of things come up over and over for people as reasons why this is so. There are certain things they either have – or don’t have – and with this information I’ve been able to come to an understanding of a question posed by many:

“What makes people happy?”

What do they have that others don’t? What’s their secret?

The following are my 6 secret qualities of happy people, in no particular order: Read the rest of this entry

By Reverend Doctor Silvia R. Behrend

Click here to contact Silvia and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

So many of us understand counseling to be an art, a marriage of knowledge and a certain ability to use that knowledge elegantly, incorporating intuition and spirituality. In my experience as a minister offering counseling and as a chaplain in a hospital, I have found that there is another dimension to the “art” of counseling: the intentional creative process coupled with the understandings of self-psychology provide a transformational template that has love and compassion at its center.

In my work as a minister and as a counselor in private practice, I make no distinction between the words soul and self. I use them interchangeably; either word connotes the “essence” of the human being. The work of the self or soul is to become whole, being born and being human already means that the essential ‘isness’ is compromised simply by being in the world.

I have found that one way to help the soul reach toward wholeness is to engage it on the slant. That is: rather that directly confront the ‘issues’, ‘wounds’ and ‘trauma’ experienced by the soul, the cut-off elements of the soul can be enticed into integration. This is possible through the use of the arts. In my particular experience, I have used the art of stone carving to illustrate that the soul can emerge from hiding in a loving, compassionate and non-pathological manner.

My work in this area has been formed by the understandings of self-psychology and my own experience in creating art as well as facilitating that process for others. I would like to articulate a simplified version of the theory of Self-psychology Then, using my student’s own experience, I will demonstrate how engaging in creating art, in this case, stone carvings, allowed them to see themselves differently and integrate the cut-off parts of themselves with love and compassion. Read the rest of this entry

Dear Members and Visitors to GoodTherapy.org,

Today we were pleased to present the first teleconference in the 2008 GoodTherapy.org Spring into Summer Teleconference Series: Psychological Resources, Personal Experience, and Social Relations presented by Stephen R. Lankton, LCSW, DAHB. A big thanks to Steve for taking the time to present to GoodTherapy.org members his intuitive approach to to identifying and using experiential resources to help people to transform.

To support those of you who attended today’s teleconference and who may have more questions or would enjoy having a forum to discuss Steve’s methods, we created this blog entry to serve as a forum where you can post your questions, leave comments, and engage in a dialogue about it. Please feel welcome to join us in the discussion. Steve has kindly agreed to visit the blog and answer questions about how his approach and methods.

To view the comments or make your own, simply scroll to the bottom of this particular article and click on the “Comment” link.

For more information about Steve and his work, please visit his website: http://www.lankton.com

Enjoy,

Noah :)

Noah Rubinstein, LMFT, LMHC
Executive Director
http://www.GoodTherapy.org

By Delyse Ledgard, MA, RCC

Click here to contact Delyse and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“For each person who volunteers to live the life of a tool, lest he turn out to be a knife, there is another who threatens to become a wound.” ~Sheldon Kopp.

In coming across the above quote recently I was reminded of the pain caused by being caught up in this cycle. Back in my mid twenties I was a walking wound, and to compensate I tried to take care of others and become the tool to their healing. Thankfully I have come a long way over the years even though there are times when I can get drawn into this dynamic. I have found this description a useful way to understand how we are caught up in being dependent on each other’s happiness. Partners will move between these three positions creating relationships based on powerlessness and fusion.

When I began my training I was first acquainted with this system in relationships as having three positions, persecutor, victim and rescuer. It is useful to conceptualize each position as a separate person for description, but more accurately they are aspects within our psyche that are activated in relationships. We express them in reaction to what we perceive and experience in others. However, you may recognize that you gravitate towards one characteristic in particular. Here is a description of each of these positions. Read the rest of this entry