Category: Self-Love
The Good Therapy Blog
June 22nd, 2011 |
She hates her thighs, the sight of them drive her mad. The tissue is soft, the weakness mocks her. Yet she is somehow pulled into the ritual of gazing and when not in front of a reflection, imagining the horror of her flesh. She is repulsed by its frailty, yet it eludes her, defies her, mocks her then, paradoxically, defines her. It continues despite her efforts to be rid of it. At first she is awash with hopelessness at this self-reflected failure. Reactively, almost immediately,... Read More
June 20th, 2011 |
Self-esteem is not a thing that’s either high or low that we carry around with us. Nor is it a thing we wear to protect ourselves from pain. Self-esteem is not a thing at all: it’s an action. It’s something we do. We esteem ourselves. What high self-esteem means is that you treat yourself as someone you hold in high esteem; i.e., you act as if you like yourself.
Think about a friend you hold in high esteem. You like that person, don’t you? And because of that, you tend... Read More
June 12th, 2011 |
This month our Paramita, or practice on the path to happiness, is virya, which is translated as exertion, diligence or joyful effort. Many of us, especially if we live full and busy lives, might respond to the very notion with a sigh, a feeling of overwhelm, or the sense that, once again, we have not done, been, or accomplished Enough. Now even the Buddhists are scolding us, “Try harder!”
No. That’s not what it means.
In truth, effort is required for us to do anything, to... Read More
May 25th, 2011 |
So often, people talk about the struggles they experience, and how they’ve grown from the pain in their lives. It’s true, but the sentiment is often that it takes pain to grow. What’s not often discussed is how human beings grow from joy, from being in connection; that is, how we heal and grow stronger from the joyous moments in our lives.
These moments might be in the form of comfort: the savoring of a warm cup of hot chocolate on a cool night, or the texture of flannel sheets, sharing a smile with a stranger on the street. Or, it might be in the form of connection: laughing with friends,... Read More
May 5th, 2011 |
Each of us has our own unique identity made up of a combination of personality traits, personal and family history, and other attributes. But what happens inside when an identity is not celebrated by a person’s community?
In Stigma: Notes on the Management of a Spoiled Identity (1963), author Erving Goffman uses the term “spoiled identity” to refer to an identity that causes a person to experience stigma. For Goffman, “stigma” describes the experience of moving through life with an attribute that is deeply discrediting. This attribute divides people into those-who-are-normal and those-who-are-not,... Read More
April 21st, 2011 |
I decided to dedicate myself to investigating and writing about the experience of body in transgendered people. Though I am by no means “expert” in working with this population, I have learned significantly from clients I have worked with who identified themselves as transgendered. I set out to organize my observations and insights by grounding them in current research, to offer something of use to the reader that was legitimized by work in the field. It struck me that in looking at body appearance satisfaction we could learn a lot from people who experience being born with, and living with,... Read More
April 12th, 2011 |
We, the human species, are a social bunch; which is of course a wonderful, important and vital component to our existence, however our social nature can also occasion hurt and pain. Such hurt and pain can arise when we do not know how to incorporate the fact and impact of traumatic experiences with our social selves. Often times we swing from the extremes of not acknowledging these events to introducing ourselves as being a survivor of the trauma, with neither of these avenues generating enriching social relations. While there is not a right or wrong way, here are a few points to help you decide... Read More
April 1st, 2011 |
I love Lady Gaga for her crusade to educate the masses about the normalcy of homosexuality as well as any personality quirk that might seem to make one person stand apart from the next. Everything in her personal presentation and body of work, including her latest release “Born this Way”, not only preaches but demonstrates the virtue of individuality, acceptance of self and others, and the beauty of expressing one’s true inner self, in whatever form it may take. I see the way she affects the “tweens” with whom I work and I praise her for it. And although the premise of her new song is... Read More
March 22nd, 2011 |
For the longest time, being a woman, to me, meant being:
-seen and not heard;
-expected to help, serve (for instance cook, clean, iron) and please people around me, especially the men;
-fertile, and being expected to bear children.
-expected to look good, smell nice, and happy and positive at all times.
If I were to laugh or speak at all, I was asked to, please, not do so too loudly, in order to not inconvenience those around me. I was not expressly told, but I knew better than to oppose a man – not if I wanted him to love me. To oppose a man is to risk being hit, because as a woman, I... Read More
March 14th, 2011 |
“I’ve tried so many times and so many different ways, what is the point of trying anymore?” “I am too ashamed, what will others think if I admit this?” “Is there really a way to overcome this, it feels like too much?” These are just a few of the statements I repeatedly hear from individuals who struggle with sex addiction and truly believing that there is no hope, or at least it feels that way to them. Have you wondered if sex addiction is really an addiction? Well, consider these statistics:
- The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health conservatively estimates 3% - 5% of... Read More
March 11th, 2011 |
Full permission has been given by the client to tell this story on GoodTherapy.org. All identifying information has been changed.
The client ‘Jimmy’ that I described in the previous blog, who created a video project in art psychotherapy, has completed his video. He decided sometime ago that he wanted to upload it to YouTube. His intention was to come out from hiding his story and to possibly help others who are struggling with their own past experiences. His decision was an opportunity to discuss in therapy the possible... Read More
March 8th, 2011 |
In addition to being a psychotherapist, I am a certified Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy practitioner and a yoga instructor. I’ve long been interested not only in movement but in the role of body-oriented techniques in the process of psychological healing.
This began when I was in my late twenties, long before I ever knew that I would someday become a psychotherapist. I started taking stretch and yoga classes at a fitness center where I took aerobics, and discovered that I was beginning to experience my body from the inside, rather than looking at it (and judging it) from the outside. I was forging... Read More
February 23rd, 2011 |
As a psychotherapist working often with people with eating disorders, I have helped many clients who were suffering from a negative body image. They may or may not have a struggle with food, but they don’t like their bodies, they don’t take pleasure in their bodies, they think their bodies are ugly. These are usually very attractive people. Where does this problem originate? What does it really mean to have a poor body image? What is the negative impact of living with this? How serious is it? What seems to makes it worse? What makes it better? How can we begin to have a deeper understanding... Read More
February 21st, 2011 |
I often hear the following from my new mom clients: “ No one told me how hard motherhood would be. Why didn't someone TELL me?” The tone is often indignant and occasionally angry. “What was I thinking?” might actually better capture many new mothers' (and fathers') sentiments in the days following childbirth. These thoughts are common for any woman who is transitioning to the role of motherhood for the first time.
I remember having those very same thoughts after my first son was born almost ten years ago. I could not believe how bone-achingly exhausting those first few months were with... Read More
