In a previous blog I described how we all have membership circles. Our closest, most intimate relationships are at the center with concentric circles moving out from the center where the degree of intimacy lessens. In this blog I’m going to invite you to be to consider what part vulnerability plays in who you have […]

Most of us would agree that our world has changed dramatically in so many ways over the last few years. Here in the fall of 2022 we are diving back into school and work lives after experiencing vacations and more relaxed schedules. Change seems to be everywhere! Many of these changes were imposed on us […]

I was struck many years ago by information Bessel van der Kolk provides in his excellent book The Body Keeps the Score that I’d like to share with you. It has to do with the power and importance of noticing what’s going on within you and around you. Van der Kolk’s book is mostly about […]

One of the ways we protect ourselves when we are having strong, overwhelming, emotional feelings is to go into a state of denial. According to the website Britannica “Denial is the conscious refusal to perceive that painful facts exist.” It is a way for an individual to escape intolerable thoughts, feelings, or events. According to […]

In my last few blogs, I’ve been focusing on the nature of relationships because, as social creatures, virtually all of us are dependent on our relationships for our emotional health and even our survival. I have my Master’s degree in psychoeducational processes. This involves the research about the dynamics of relationships and what influences group […]

In my last few blogs, I’ve been focusing on the nature of relationships because, as social creatures, virtually all of us are dependent on our relationships for our emotional health and even our survival. I believe that the more we understand the nature of relationships and what makes them healthy, the more we can each […]

In my last two blogs, I invited readers to consider how to apply the information from the Gottman Institute on determining how healthy or unhealthy any given relationship might be, especially those that are highly significant to a person. While Gottman specifically studied marital relationships, I took the liberty of assuming some of the same […]

In my last blog I invited readers to learn about John Gottman’s research on relationships, specifically what he calls The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He described the qualities that make a relationship unhealthy: contempt, criticism, defensiveness and stonewalling. If one or more of these are prevalent in a relationship, that relationship usually is unhealthy […]

Relationships are our lifelines. They give us meaning, define us, create and influence our belief systems, provide us with a sense of belonging and in that belonging, healthy relationships allow us to feel both physically and emotionally safe and valuable. When they are hurtful or destructive, they can deeply wound us, rob us of our […]

This is the last blog in my series inviting readers to examine: recognizing when someone might benefit from going into therapy, various types of therapy that are available, appropriate expectations with regard to healthy therapy, and recognizing therapists who are unhealthy, ineffective or even unethical. Today we will look at why, when, and how to […]