December 9th, 2009 |
One of the unique features of my practice is my ability to assist patients who are comfortable using a range of religious and spiritual practices to achieve closure on unresolved conflicts and trauma. These include individuals who may have spent years uncovering the root causes of their suffering but who still are not at peace with an individual, a situation or an event that has traumatized them, particularly if it involves someone who is deceased.
This was the case with a patient I’ll call Janine. My dual credentials as a Read More
November 19th, 2009 |
I work part time in a Geri-Psychiatric ward where my title is Recreational Therapist. What that means is that when elders are committed to this hospital ward, usually involuntarily, anywhere from 72 hours to one month they are termed “gravely disabled and in dire harm to themselves and/or others”. Along with individuals that are in a psychotic phase of their schizophrenia and those suffering from bipolar episodes, a large percentage of those admitted to our facility have dementia. When the dementia patients are admitted to the facility, they usually arrive in a stupor of confusion. The confusion... Read More
November 10th, 2009 |
Most cultures and religions perform rituals honoring their dead both when the person has just died and in subsequent acts of veneration. It is the latter that I wish to focus on in this article and to connect these rituals to the notion of “legacy”. For our purposes the word legacy is defined as something handed down from an ancestor or from the past.
Rituals honoring the dead post burial/cremation that come to mind include for example:
• Jewish people erecting a headstone at the gravesite approximately one year after the burial, the lighting of a candle on the anniversary of the... Read More
November 1st, 2009 |
The song from which I borrowed my title continues: “The one you shouldn’t hurt at all.” Yet it does indeed seem to be nearly universal that we hurt, and are hurt by, those with whom we believe we are “in love.”
When we are on the receiving end of the hurt we usually try to understand it in one of four ways: (1) My partner doesn’t understand enough about my sensitive spots, and if I can just get him or her to understand where I am vulnerable then he or she will be more careful not to poke me in those spots. (2) My partner is unconsciously angry at me for some reason, perhaps... Read More
March 14th, 2009 |
A GoodTherapy.org News Update
While there is no “typical” psychotherapy patient or lifestyle that automatically suggests a need for psychotherapy, there are certainly some fields of work and walks of life which, being subject to especially high or enduring levels of stress, commonly benefit from a positive counselor relationship. One such profession is that of the clergy. While often seen as a stigma, the ability of clergy members to approach and seek growth... Read More
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August 5th, 2008 |
My dad is an easy going and open minded man. It is funny for me to contemplate that he has a daughter with my temperament. I can see his face looking down at me as a young girl, perplexed by his daughter’s inability to let anything go, even when it clearly didn’t serve me to do so. As a child I could easily be described as intransigent, perfectionistic and stubborn. Unfortunately, many of these qualities followed me into adulthood. Looking back, I can see how my own tenacity caused me many troubles. I just couldn’t seem to get out of my own way.
I now understand why I was so rigid with... Read More
May 19th, 2008 |
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,... Read More
August 23rd, 2007 |
Growing up as a Catholic child and teenager in Germany some sixty years ago I learned about original sin. I was told that I and every other human being inherited the mark of original sin from Adam and Eve because of their disobedience to God’s command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Actually, in German, original sin is called Erbsünde, which means “inherited sin”. (An aside: The word Erbsünde also contains the German word Erbse which means “pea”, and for many years of my childhood I visualized my original sin as a pea-sized growth on my soul.) As... Read More
