Category: The Non-Pathological Model
The Good Therapy Blog
February 9th, 2012 |
Depression doesn’t go away for everyone. For most people, depression is temporary and passes naturally or passes once the person has expressed the feelings and resolved the thoughts causing the depression. But there are a small percentage of people who can talk about their issues, express their feelings, take very good care of themselves emotionally, even take medication and have a great life and still be depressed throughout their entire lives. They may have periods of feeling good, periods of feeling less bad, and periods of feeling horrible, but the depression never goes away permanently.
Major... Read More
February 1st, 2012 |
Traumatic experiences along with the mending process can expose the shrapnel from what feels like perpetually open wounds. Time lost to history and recovery, missed opportunities, broken relationships, and a delay in building life’s foundation are side effects of these experiences.
Therapists and clients are able to identify, with ease, what may seem like irreversible damage or pain. However, it is simple to overlook the pieces of our clients’ stories that are peppered with traces of hope and with a certain innocence that runs counter to what many of them have survived. This article will... Read More
January 30th, 2012 |
A strong therapeutic bond is imperative in order to achieve a successful outcome in psychotherapy. This bond must begin with the initial intake session. Research indicates that clients who feel disconnected from the clinician due to cultural, ethnic, or even religious differences, are more likely to terminate treatment as early as the first session.
To understand what factors influence this dynamic, Daniel C. Rosen of the Counseling and Health Psychology... Read More
© Copyright 2012 by http://www.GoodTherapy.org Therapist Mountain View Bureau - All Rights Reserved.
January 10th, 2012 |
As a companion piece to the 50 Warning Signs of Questionable Therapy article, it's important to understand there are many signs of good therapy as well. After all, good therapy has been proven to help people from all walks of life, in thousands of different situations and in countless ways.
Good therapy is all about helping the client to feel better, to make healthy decisions and set healthy boundaries, to move from a place of poor emotional health to good emotional health, to make connections with others, and to replace sadness, anxiety, anger, and frustration with happiness, peace, and hopefulness... Read More
December 20th, 2011 |
Story: “Once at the end of a first session, my client asked for some “homework” so I suggested she do some journal writing about a habit she had discovered during the session. When she arrived for the next session, she sat down, looked at me, and immediately began almost screaming that she ‘couldn’t trust me…I was just like all the others…she knew this wasn’t going to work…I had a formula that I applied to all my clients…and I wasn’t going to take a personal interest in her…’. ‘My goodness, you certainly have strong feelings!’, I replied. ‘Yes, I do! I just can’t... Read More
November 25th, 2011 |
The upcoming release of the newly revised DSM-V has spurred much debate in the past several months. A recent article, published an open letter from Dr. Don Locke, president of the American Counseling Association (ACA), to Dr. John Oldham, President of the American Psychiatric Association, which outlines the primary concerns the mental health community has with the proposed revisions to the diagnostic tool that has been relied on by medical professionals... Read More
© Copyright 2011 by http://www.GoodTherapy.org Therapist Albuquerque Bureau - All Rights Reserved.
November 23rd, 2011 |
One of the primary reasons people neglect to seek treatment for their mental health problems is because they are concerned about the external and internal stigmas associated with mental illness. Public stigma is the external belief that one is defective if they receive therapy for their problems, while self-stigma is the perception that an individual has of his or herself as a result of struggling with a mental health issue. In a recent study led by Nathaniel G. Wade of the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University, researchers examined how therapist... Read More
© Copyright 2011 by http://www.GoodTherapy.org Therapist Nashville Bureau - All Rights Reserved.
November 1st, 2011 |
As a Play Therapist, when you hear the word play, what images come to mind? Do you see an active, energetic scene with puppets dancing and jumping? Or is it more along the lines of quiet engagement between therapist and child processing an art creation, or Sandtray? Might you be seeing in your mind’s eye a lively storytelling narrative, or peacefully sharing a collection of worry stones? Chances are, the first image that comes to mind is a representation of your Play Spirit.
Just like our own personalities influence our day to day interactions with the world, our role as Play Therapists is... Read More
October 21st, 2011 |
Perhaps youʼve come across one of the many articles or videos with titles like, “In Love with the Eiffel Tower”, or a recent National Geographic Taboo program called “Forbidden Love?” The topic is Objectum Sexuality (OS), a rare sexual orientation which includes affectionate, romantic, and sometimes erotic attraction and relationships with objects. The beloved objects can range from transport to landmarks, from sporting equipment to fisheye buttons.
Such stories may make us shake our heads and mutter, “How can this be?” Are these people delusional, or worse - dangerous? How seriously... Read More
July 26th, 2011 |
I am half way through the year-long Level 1 of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) training. IFS is a psychotherapeutic modality used for helping people and their therapists understand and solve the problems that bring them to therapy. And IFS helps make sense of the seemingly irrational world of eating disorders. I’d had some exposure to and experience using IFS prior to enrolling in the training, but the training is giving me a broader... Read More
May 26th, 2011 |
When I was a youngster, about eight years old, I played hide and seek with some of the neighborhood kids. As I fervently and keenly scanned for a good hiding place I happened upon a broken down and rusted refrigerator in an old man’s yard. It was the perfect size so I quickly hopped inside and shut the door (which had lost all of it’s suction) behind me and waited out the hunt smiling with eager anticipation. I emerged from that old icebox the victor that day.
As an eight year old, this thing was not just an old refrigerator; it was the perfect hiding spot. To the uptight neighbor across... Read More
May 13th, 2011 |
Oh no! Not another media medical correspondent saying what Catherine Zeta-Jones is dealing with – bipolar two – is not curable, but can only be managed and controlled. Not only did one more medical editor say this about Zeta-Jones, but he said it about mental illness in general: “When it comes to mental illness, you talk about it more as controlled and managed*…“
There are those adults in this world who are aware and understand that true healing is possible…who have not given up, and who have been working to help bring true healing to our world. There are those adults in our world... Read More
May 6th, 2011 |
Is psychotherapy purely a medical treatment warranted only for treating specific mental health disorders? Can psychotherapy also be used to address the multitude of emotional, cognitive, and physiological ways in which people suffer, ways that do not meet the diagnostic criteria for categorically-based syndromes? Additionally, is psychotherapy of any use to those seeking self-growth, wisdom, clarity, compassion, self-esteem, and consciousness?
If you're a psychotherapist trained in the psychodynamic or humanistic schools of thought, the questions above may seem absurd and the answers blatantly... Read More
April 14th, 2011 |
It has been said in AA, "An addict needs to bottom out twice to get better. First from alcohol, and later emotionally."
Most people who struggle with addiction started using drugs "to solve" what appeared to be unsolvable emotions. The word "emotion" comes from the same root as "motion." Originally it meant a stirring within one that propels one to physical or symbolic action - to fight, flee or talk. When that emotional stirring within us whether in the form of anger, sadness or guilt can find no corresponding resolving action in the world, such as incases where a child is grossly misunderstood,... Read More
