By Jennifer Lehr, MA, MFT

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

How do we change the direction of our lives? Despite our histories, why do some people create fulfilling lives for themselves while others do not? As a therapist, and as a person who has made her life about self-transformation and then later, the transformation of others, this is easy to see. But for many people, especially those who do not know much about “therapy,” and the process it entails, this is more of a mystery.

Have you ever said to yourself, “I will do whatever it takes to reach my full potential in this lifetime – no matter what”? This statement to ourselves, to our god, to the universe, is powerful and can open us up to change. There are several main ingredients in change: a desire to improve one’s sense of well-being, and a willingness to do whatever it takes. These qualities could be put together and called emotional courage. Read the rest of this entry

By Sherry Gaba, LCSW

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

As the holiday season un-folds with busy malls hustling and bustling with couples holding hands and buying special gifts for one another, there are many single people out there feeling left out from the holiday cheer. The season brings out that doom and gloom that there are no future dates on the horizon and New Years Eve will spent again alone watching time square drop the ball with your pet, although that doesn’t sound too bad. For starters, remember those mushy couples you see holding hands, they are the same couple that bicker, scream, and throw candy canes at each other, but it is your perception that is out of whack. With Santa almost down your chimney, you need to have a shift in perspective. Everything you have believed about the holidays can be viewed in a whole new light including your thoughts about dating, attending holiday gatherings, your self image, spiritual beliefs, and even patterns of behavior that might be contributing to your being a singleton. Read the rest of this entry

By Ron Soderquist, PhD

Click here to contact Ron and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile

This is what we hear from people who call our clinic:

“I am exhausted. It takes me hours to fall asleep, and then I wake up and can’t get back to sleep. I can’t shut down my racing mind. I am so groggy the next day, I’m afraid I’ll mess up at work. I am miserable to live with. I am desperate! Then I see those ads for Ambien and Lunesta and I get e-mail coupon offers to take to my doctor. The couple in the ad sleeps 8 hours and wakes up feeling wonderful. I don’t like being dependent on drugs, but what other choice do I have? I can’t go on like this. Besides they assure me it’s safe and there’s a one-week free trial.”

It’s not surprising doctors wrote some 49 million prescriptions for sleep drugs last year. The trend has been for doctors to prescribe more and more drugs for sleeplessness every year.

Are you desperate to get some sleep? What are the three issues drug companies don’t want you to think about?

The first issue drug companies don’t want you to think about is that through their massive spending on advertising, they have programmed you to think that the only way you will solve sleeplessness is by taking drugs. Over a two-year period (2005-2006) Sanofi-Aventis spent $350 million to advertise Ambien and AmbienCR, Sepracor spent more than $500 million to market Lunesta and Takeda (which makes Rozerem) spent $100 million. Is it any wonder so many people and doctors are convinced drugs are the only solution for insomnia? University of Minnesota’s Dr. Mahowald said, “I personally think the extent of advertising [for sleep drugs] has just been unconscionable.” Read the rest of this entry

By Lee Kotsalis-Thulin, MA, RCC

As the holiday season shifts into high gear, here’s a plea for a different kind of moderation: let’s all hear it (softly please) for moderate hosting. Moderate hosting means fighting the urge to measure your success as a host by the amount of food and alcohol and sociability your guests consume. It means not pressing the matter when a guest turns down an alcoholic drink, or a second helping of pie, or a third pass under the mistletoe, and keeping in mind the golden rule of being a great host: always make your guests feel comfortable.

A number of years ago I was facilitating a therapy group for women addressing their addiction to alcohol. As part of the group, participants committed to abstaining from alcohol for the 8-week duration of the program. Although alcohol misuse is not an issue for me, I decided that I would support the women’s commitment by also refraining from alcohol use for the length of the group. That proved to be a lot more challenging than I’d anticipated. I thought having an alcohol-free life for 8 weeks would be pretty straightforward; if I chose not to seek out alcohol, alcohol wouldn’t seek me out. What I found instead was that abstaining from alcohol also required active – and often persistent – turning down of alcoholic offerings made by active, persistent, and no doubt well-intentioned hosts. Read the rest of this entry

By Ronald G. Nathan, Ph.D.

Click here to contact Ronald and/or see hisGoodTherapy.org Profile

Your husband drinks more, laughs less and has lost interest in hobbies and sports. On edge and irritable, he yells at you and the kids. Or maybe your boyfriend constantly checks up on you and his jealousy frightens you. He needs professional help. What can you do?

The Marlboro Man In Therapy?

Your husband or boyfriend may not be the Marlboro man or come from Mars, but he may believe that therapy is for wusses. After all, men are taught to be tough, self-reliant and never ask for help. This may explain why only one of three outpatient visits to therapists are made by men.

So what’s a loving woman to do? There are no easy answers or one liners you can use. But as a psychologist who has limited his practice to men for the last ten years, I have learned how many women succeed and I think I can guess why others fail.

Ultimatums and Other Strategies

Some men call me in response to an ultimatum: “You get six sessions of therapy or I’m getting a divorce.” Other women have made appointments with marriage counselors that their husbands canceled in favor of a lesser evil. Maybe you’ve tried these approaches. Are you starting to feel that you can lead a horse to water, but you’d better be ready to drown him?

There are probably fifty ways to lead your lover into therapy. You know your man best. Think about what has worked most successfully in the past when you wanted him to do something he didn’t want to do. How do you influence him?

Watch Your Language

You may be comfortable with the terms “therapy,” “psychotherapy,” and “personal growth,” but most men aren’t. Going for “a consultation,” “counseling” or “coaching” to “get back on track,” “find a way to control anger” or “learn some new skills” often work well.

Plant the seed and nurture it. This is not a sprint; it’s more like a marathon. Even when physicians refer a man to me, it takes an average of about three months before I get a call. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Jolyn Wells-Moran, PhD, MSW

Hurricane Katrina has left a disturbing percentage of children from the most at-risk and poorest families with mental health, behavioral and physical disorders, according to a white paper entitled, ” The Legacy of Shame: The On-Going Public Health Disaster of Children Struggling in Post-Katrina Louisiana.” The paper was published in November by The Children’s Health Fund and the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. It states that those children have the highest levels of mental and physical health problems of any group of children in the US.

According to the paper, “55% of elementary school age children had a behavior or learning problem. 42% of children three years and older needed developmental or mental health services.” They list other very high percentages of physical health disorders. The white paper was based on 261 medical chart reviews from the Children’s Health Fund (CHF)/ Louisiana State University (LSU) Baton Rouge Children’s Health Project which was under the direction of FEMA to provide services to the largest of the trailer parks set up to house displaced families. The parks were dismantled last May, but the paper points to an estimated 20,000 children still displaced by the hurricanes. Read the rest of this entry

By Jim Hutt, Ph.D., MFT

Click here to contact Jim and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile

Don’t you hate to approach your spouse/partner with questions that can elicit the answer “NO!”? For example: “Honey, is it OK if I …(fill in the blank)?” Or, “Can I …(fill in the blank)?” Some of you guys out there, more than once, have implored your partner/spouse: “Can I go bowling tonight?” And then there’s the all-time favorite guy question—“Sweetie, I can go to the (name of favorite sports bar) and watch the football game tonight, right?”

This isn’t reserved for men only. A wife/partner may ask: “Dear, is it OK if I go shopping?” Or, “Can I go with the girls to Vegas this weekend?” “It’s OK if I go to the movies tonight and leave the kids with you, right?” Permission-seeking opportunities among couples are endless. But are they necessary, and is it healthy to seek permission? Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Jolyn Wells-Moran, PhD, MSW

We’ve become accustomed to reading about campus alcohol and drug use. Yet, the rates of both substance use and non-substance use psychiatric disorders pointed out by a new study sponsored by NIH (National Institutes of Health), are alarming. That only about one-quarter of those with disorders in the study group had received treatment is further cause for concern. Some interesting comparisons were also found between these groups.

This research looked at sociodemographic factors and DSM-IV disorders, substance use and treatment requests among 5,000 college students and young adults who were not in college (Blanco, Okuda, Wright, et al 2008). All participants were between the ages of 19 and 25. The rate of all included disorders didn’t differ between the groups, but researchers found that the non-student group was significantly more likely to; have tried nicotine, be nicotine dependent, have bipolar disorder and have drug abuse disorders than the college group. Alcohol use disorders were higher among college students, but about equal when sociodemographic factors were adjusted for empirical comparison purposes. Read the rest of this entry

By Judith Gusky, MSEd, NCC

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

The Challenges and Hopes of Aging

The population is aging. I am aging. Yet here I am starting a new career as a counselor. One of my interests is in end-of-life issues. I am not the Grim Reaper. I don’t have a morbid fascination with death, even as I find myself on the far side of middle age. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t quite been able to let go of Erik Erikson’s eight-stage model of human development and the hope that it offers.

When I was younger, I often would wonder how it was possible that elderly people weren’t consumed with fear of the inevitable. Erikson seemed to have a “good enough” theory to settle my inner turmoil.

As an undergraduate, back in the early 1970s, I surmised from Erikson’s theory that as we successfully move through each stage of development, our “reward” is our inauguration into the next stage. Each success offers the next opportunity to successfully negotiate life’s challenges and conflicts, until we reach the penultimate—an old age of peaceful integrity, not one of despair and fear of death. Read the rest of this entry

Dear Members and Visitors to GoodTherapy.org,

Today a virtual gathering over 100 GoodTherapy.org Members enjoyed the fifth teleconference in our Fall Teleconference Series: Good Boundaries: Centerpiece of Successful Relationships presented by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed. Big ‘thank yous’ to Cedar for presenting on boundaries and leading us through the exploration of our own boundary styles.

Cedar is a consultant and teacher on ethics issues. She has been designing, developing, and teaching the Right Use of Power, an Attachment based approach to Ethics since 1994. Her background includes 20+ years as a psychotherapist and 15 years as a teacher. She is the author of books and articles on ethics, counseling with elders, women and independence, and psychotherapy and spirituality. Cedar is also a Hakomi Experiential Psychology Trainer, a member of the Naropa University Adjunct Faculty and maintains a private psychotherapy and ethics consulting practice in the Boulder/Denver area, and teaches both Right Use of Power Ethics and Hakomi nationally and internationally.
We encourage all of you to visit Cedar’s website http://www.rightuseofpower.com On Cedar’s website you can find more information about RUOP, view her extensive workshop calendar, take continuing education mini-courses, and purchase her excellent book on Attachment Based Ethics called: Right Use of Power: The Heart of Ethics—A Resource for the Helping Professional.

Thanks to all of you who attended today’s event,
Noah :)

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

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

By Peggy Gold, MS, NCC, LMHC

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

This video was submitted by Craig. See his comment here.

A few months ago, I was confronted with an issue that no parent wants to tackle. My 3-year-old daughter became constipated, was scared to go to the bathroom, and subsequently began soiling her underpants. All this was occurring shortly after I’d given birth to our second child, and life was feeling very overwhelming for both of us.

It was important to me that I preserve my daughter’s sense of self confidence, refrain from doing anything that would damage her future toileting rituals, and also find a quick solution to the problem. I was changing underpants as often as I was changing diapers, and I wanted to get on with taking care of a newborn without experiencing the monotonous whining and crying associated with my daughter’s fears, discomfort, and neediness that went along with her constipated state. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Daniel Brezenoff, LCSW

A University of Utah psychologist whose research has been cited by groups that identify homosexuality as a mental disorder and promote “reparative” therapy is defending her work and criticizing the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality for distorting her findings.

“If NARTH had read the study more carefully they would find that it is not supported by my data at all,” says Lisa Diamond of the University of Utah. “When people are motivated to twist something for political purposes, they’ll find a way to do it.” Diamond’s videotaped comments are available in full on the Internet.

A national group that advocates “treatment” of homosexuality, NARTH was founded by psychologist Joseph Nicolosi (author of “Healing Homosexuality” and “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality”) and is currently run by A. Dean Byrd, an adjunct professor at the University of Utah’s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. Byrd has pointed to Diamond’s research as evidence that gays’ sexual orientation can be straightened out through treatment.

Byrd retorted, “NARTH’s view is that people can adapt any way they want and there is freedom of choice,” Byrd says. “If it says ‘fluidity’ it says ‘fluidity.’ How you interpret it is something else.”

But Diamond accuses NARTH of “cherry-picking” findings that may ostensibly appear to support their position. “You know exactly what you’re doing,” she says in the video. “It’s illegitimate and it’s irresponsible and you should stop doing it.”

NARTH’s past president, psychiatrist Charles Socarides (1922-2005), fought long against the American Psychiatric Association’s removal of homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973.

The American Psychological Association also rejects so-called “reparative therapies” that attempt to convert gay men and women to exclusive heterosexuality. Its position is that, “there has been no scientifically adequate research to show that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation is safe or effective. Furthermore…the promotion of change therapies reinforces stereotypes and contributes to a negative climate for lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons.”

Click here to contact Daniel and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile ©Copyright 2008 by GoodTherapy.org All Rights Reserved. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Daniel and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Jolyn Wells-Moran, PhD, MSW

A tool with good potential for predicting depression, called predictD, is now on-line for use by anyone who has a computer and an Internet connection. Although there are many depression assessments on the Internet, this is the only one based on empirical research of a depression assessment algorithm for predicting the disorder. Participating researchers believe the tool can become a tool for use by medical practitioners. The research study included 5,216 study participants in the UK, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Estonia, and another 1,732 in Chile (King, Walker, Levy, et et al., 2008). Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Daniel Brezenoff, LCSW

A recently completed study at Ohio State University suggests that group psychotherapy and psychoeducation can increase breast cancer survival rates in woman by helping them develop better coping skills.

Barbara Anderson’s research team studied 227 women, about half of whom participated in four months of weekly, 8-10 member group therapy sessions and eight months of monthly meetings with the same people. All subjects were diagnoses with stage 2 or 3 cancer, meaning their illness was fairly advanced. The therapy was provided after breast surgery but before chemotherapy or radiation had begun.

The group sessions offered methods for reducing stress, relaxation techniques, coping skills, diet charts, exercise guidelines, and support for quitting smoking and alcohol.

After 11 years, women who received therapy had reduced their chance of dying by more than half, and their chances of relapse by almost that much. When the infrequent attendees were excluded, the remainder had a 68-percent reduced risk of breast cancer death Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Daniel Brezenoff, LCSW

A new study to be published Friday in the British periodical BMJ offers surprising – though unreplicated and thus tentative – findings about what makes people happy. Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego, found that having neighbors, friends, and even friends of friends of friends, increases the chances of being happy profoundly – more than coming into large sums of money, and, oddly perhaps, even more than having a happy spouse.

The effect was strongly correlated with the geographical distance from the happy person, with happiness increasing more the closer geographically the happy person in one’s life is. So friends who are happy seem to contribute to one’s sense of well-being if they live in the same city; the effect is far less apparent if they are distant.

How this works is unclear, and some researchers not involved in the study warn that correlation must not be confused with cause. Read the rest of this entry

Dear Members and Visitors to GoodTherapy.org,

Today the GoodTherapy.org Team and many GT members enjoyed the fourth event in our Fall Teleconference Series: The Seceret Lives of Men presented by Christopher Blazina, Ph.D. Big thank yous to Chris for presenting on the secret lives of men and his insights into working with men in therapy.

Christopher is a licensed psychologist who has published dozens of scholarly articles about the psychology of men and masculinity and is the author of the academic text The Cultural Myth of Masculinity. He holds a doctorate degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of North Texas and has been a professor at the University of Houston and Tennessee State University.

Christopher’s recently released self-help book, “The secret lives of men: What men want you to know, about love, sex, and relationships” Is a wonderfully intuitive, enjoyable, and insightful read for therapists and nonprofessionals alike. You purchase Chris’s book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other bookstores. This January Chris begins a brand new, nationally syndicated, radio show, The Secret Lives of Men, on the Voice America network which draws over 4 million listeners to his featured time slot. You can get more information about how to tune into Chris’s radio show by going to Chris’s website in January: www.thesecretlivesofmen.com

Thanks to all of you who attended today’s event,
Noah :)

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

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

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

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

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” – Alan Alda

I got on the plane, bags in tow. Convinced that I needed everything I had packed, my attire reflected the “business like” image I had to reflect in my interview the next day. I was flying back to the United Kingdom, for a second interview. Driven a strong desire get back “home” and to pursue a job that seemed made for me; I just knew that it was the right path to take.

As expected, I landed in Wales and immediately felt the sense of familiarity, comfort, and peace that the countryside always offered me. Without my conscious control, my soul seemed to jump up and down with glee at its return to the place of my birth. The business suit I wore to the interview reflecting my desire for the job, and underneath it, nostalgia for the country I left as a child. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Greg Madison, PhD

Click here to contact Greg and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile

To step back into the sphere of human being demands something other than therapeutic technique, objective evidence, and curative power. It requires the inspiration of art. All great art worthy of that description calls us to see the world and ourselves more clearly. The bibliotherapeutic impact of the work of JM Barrie rests in its ability to unnerve the shallows of life and to resuscitate the struggle back to authenticity.

James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937) was for some years the preeminent playwright of the English-speaking world. His new productions would open to certain success in London’s West End and on the main stages of the world’s capitals. He was also in great demand as an after dinner speaker to the great and the good. Now, apart from his most popular play, Peter Pan, Barrie’s name has slipped from the footlights into obscurity and along with him, a precious developmental view of human existence. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Jolyn Wells-Moran, PhD, MSW

What if we were able to identify who is at risk for development of bipolar disorder even before it occurs? What if we were then able to prevent the illness from ever occurring in those lives? What if we could individualize treatment for bipolar disorder according to the precise genes contributing to the person’s disorder? It now appears that with genetic testing, prevention and better treatment may be attainable in the foreseeable future, thanks to a major study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

The group of neuroscientists initially gleaned data from genome-wide association research and other results on the activity of genes in humans and animals. Alexander B. Niculescu III, M.D., Ph.D., Indiana University, said, “The process was similar to a Google approach, the more links there are to a page on the Internet, the more likely it is to come up at the top of your search list.” In other words, they looked at genes that had already been identified as contributing to bipolar disorder, in the existing research literature, and prioritized them on the strength of evidence. The investigators were then able to create a genetic map of the disorder, a landmark development. Read the rest of this entry