A Healthy Mind Could Mean a Healthy Heart
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s obvious that the heart is a very important part of the body to monitor, but many people may not realize there is also a connection between good heart health and good mental health.
While the most commonly noted ways to prevent heart disease, according to the Mayo Clinic website, include exercising consistently, not smoking or using tobacco, eating healthy, and keeping fit, the American Heart Association website states there is a strong connection between heart... Read More
I’m a big fan of analogies and metaphors. When I think about eating disorders and recovery, analogies and metaphors often form in my mind, and I use them to describe and explain the process of the development of and recovery from a disordered relationship with food and the body. I’ve developed quite a supply of them, but I’ve never written them down—until now.
Here are some of the analogies that I’ve created over the years. I hope you find them helpful.
Video Game
Recovery is like playing a video game. In a video game, you start out with little experience or skill, and you eventually... 
While spring conjures up beautiful images of tulips, crocuses, and daffodils, it is also a yearly reminder to clean one's abode. Historically, when people turned to herbs for most of their medicinal needs, spring was associated with rejuvenating the liver by taking the milk thistle for a couple of weeks, or simply adding dandelion greens to a daily salad. Psychologically, it is an opportunity to do an interior sweep of one's cranium. I'm talking about all those repetitive thoughts that create feelings and catalyze behaviors, some desirable, and some not so welcome.
If you feel stagnant from... 
People are often perplexed by numbness or intense emotionality that can occur for years after a traumatic event. Addictions, stress, and anxiety may also follow. If you are experiencing any of these, this is NORMAL. You are not alone.
In the same way that we need to digest physical food, we need to digest emotional happenings. If we don’t take the time needed to allow emotional happenings to digest, we may feel cut off or extremely reactive. This is not wrong; this is human. The question is how one addresses this experience so that it comes to a gentle close.
In working with hundreds of... 
While vacationing in Rincon, a beautiful beach town in Puerto Rico, I fell into a seven-foot hole. There were no streetlights in the tiny village and I was out in the dark night… The fall, the pain, and being stuck in a remote place traumatized me; I was left in a cast for 7 months with a severely shattered heel. Having no choice in the matter, the time I spent recovering left me feeling trapped in my body. But, eventually, I began to listen to what it was saying.
Previously, I wrote about my challenge with cancer and how the experience of a healer aligning my energy helped me transform what... 
This article is the second installment in a two-part series. To read the first article, please click 
All of life, all of learning and growth, all of healing follows a spiral path, returning over and over to visit a place of pain or suffering in order to master the lessons held therein. Each revolution of the spiral brings us more experience and perspective and skill, so that our path is smoothed and we become increasingly resilient and expansive. This sounds good, but in practice it can be quite difficult.
Finding ourselves repeating old patterns we thought we had gotten rid of, dealing with the same difficult people repeatedly, or turning into a teenager again after spending 15 minutes with... 
Earl Scruggs died this week. For those of you not familiar with bluegrass music, he was one of the godfathers of bluegrass, an amazingly talented banjo player and innovator. Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of being interviewed on NPR’s national talk show, “Talk of the Nation.” Surely, you’re wondering: What do these things have in common?
Grief.
Somehow, “Talk of the Nation” read my very first blog post on GoodTherapy.org about my yearlong struggle with grief: I lost my father to lung cancer in early 2011. The producers liked that I was a practicing clinician who also had experienced... 
If you have completed Exercise 1, congratulations to you. Please take a moment to pat yourself on the back. You deserve it, because it must have taken a great deal of courage to write about your family history. Most of my clients shed some tears in our therapy session when they share it with me. Then they feel very relieved.
Most people are not ready to share the letter with their family of origin right away. If you have a therapist available or a sponsor, discuss it with that person. If not, review it with a supportive, nonjudgmental friend. Before sharing this with your family, it is important... 
A man going to court with his family in Texas opens fire outside the courthouse, killing one and wounding three.
On the same day...a man armed with three knives stabs four people in Columbus, Ohio, before being shot by police.
Three days earlier...an American soldier kills 16 civilians in Afghanistan.
Stabbings. Shootings. So much violence. It's sad. Painful. Scary. Most of us point to those who commit the violence and judge them. Sometimes as crazy. Sometimes as bad.
But . . . where does the violence really come from?
Violence comes from our not having had the help to build... 
This past weekend, I attended the 2012 Binge Eating Disorders Association (BEDA) national conference. The theme of this year’s conference was, “ Revolution Ahead: Illuminating the Path to Freedom from BED, Emotional Overeating, & Weight Stigma.” I, along with my friend and colleague Clare Stadlen, LCSW, gave a presentation on “Moving From an Addictions Model to an Integrative Approach to Eating Disorders Recovery.” We were one of many workshops and panels on topics relevant to binge eating disorder (BED).
BED is a latecomer to the table of eating disorders officially recognized... 
Migraines are a type of serious headache disorder that affects women twice as often as men. Migraine headaches are characterized by pain that is typically on one side of the head and accompanied by nausea and/or vomiting, as well as sensitivity to light and sound. In about a third of people, migraines are preceded by an “aura.” An aura is an abnormal sensory experience that can present as flashing lights, numbness or tingling in the face or extremities, a disturbed sense of smell, or having difficulty speaking. Some people with migraines describe having a “funny feeling” that signals their... 
Bad person feelings typically develop early in life. Although it may not be intended, children can get the message that it isn’t simply what they do or think or feel that is bad, but that they themselves are bad. When these feelings are communicated, verbally or nonverbally, children soon learn to avoid them by working very hard to please and not disappoint parents. They may try so hard to be good (i.e., to be the child the parent expects), that they have little room to develop their own unique selves.
The Experience of “I Am a Bad Person”
When parents yell at their children or verbally... 
A perception of artists as eccentric, different, and living on the social periphery seems to precede this group outside of therapy and, likely, within the context of treatment as well. There seems to be an unspoken premise that ingenuity is motivated by pain or pathology, or at least some might argue there is a sort of affiliation. Some might assume that this relationship is causal: that trauma causes creativity and thus most artists are contending with some type of affliction. An alternative possibility may be that art is not necessarily motivated by pain; rather the capacity for creative inspiration... 
