Watch this video with Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes to learn a bit more about depression and antidepressants.
Note: If you are feeling suicidal or your depression is severe, contact a health professional immediately or dial 911 to be taken to your nearest emergency room. Online videos are not a substitute for the assessment and advice of a licensed healthcare professional.
Major Depression and Antidepressants
November 7, 2011 by
Understanding Addiction and Outpatient Group Therapy
November 7, 2011 by
Watch this video with Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes to learn a bit more about Addiction.
Note: If you are feeling suicidal or your depression is severe, contact a health professional immediately or dial 911 to be taken to your nearest emergency room. Online videos are not a substitute for the assessment and advice of a licensed healthcare professional.
The Naked Therapy Alternative…
July 29, 2011 by
Awwww…..keep your pants on I am getting to it….
No, really, I mean keep your pants ON!
All seriousness aside, I have heard therapists complain that dress clothes are off-putting to their clients, supposedly creating more of a power dis-equilibrium, but I think getting naked it taking it to a pathological extreme? What is next, fetish dressing?
The naked therapist’s attempt to connect naked therapy with Freud is, at best, misguided. Freud used free association to let your mind go where it needed to, believing that if you talked long enough uncensored, the root of the issues would come out. She is proposing letting your hands wander, and let me tell you, what is coming out is certainly NOT the root of the issue. Considering she is targeting male clients, I wonder if Freud would say she is suffering from penis envy. HMmmmmm.
How exactly does staring at this naked woman really help JohnTom fix his marriage? The naked therapist is not licensed or certified as a counselor. She is not regulated by anybody.
When you look for a counselor, make sure he or she is licensed and in good standing. These people have been trained to identify signs that there may be a bigger problem or you are getting worse. They also take an oath to “above all do no harm.” Make sure you understand, by the end of the assessment, how he or she is going to help you solve your problems. If it does not make sense, question it. There are a lot of people out there (even licensed ones) using practices that are not commonly accepted. This does not mean they are bad, but it is important to make sure you believe it will work for you.
If you can think of a possible reason why it would make sense to pay $150/hour for a naked, unlicensed “therapist” to talk to you, please share. I am at a loss…
AA Alternatives
July 17, 2011 by
While AA is A way to recover, it is not the ONLY way. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the 12-step community is self-governed, and has no central oversight, there are some amazing groups with amazing sponsors, and groups where people are actively using crack in the bathroom or going out for drinks after an NA meeting. Additionally, AA tends to not be totally multiculturally sensitive. The emphasis on bearing your soul, speaker meetings, and the concept of a higher power is very off putting for many people. Therefore, while AA is, and will continue to be a very viable approach to recovery, we need to open our hearts and minds to alternative solutions. Failure to do so is just perpetuating the rigid, addictive mindset—”My way or the highway.”
At Gainesville-NOVA Counseling we take a more inclusive, solution focused and action-oriented approach. Is it spiritual? Sort of. Spirituality is a set of universal principles on which the majority of religions are based. However, spirituality is NOT religion. It is a lifestyle. We encourage you to nurture relationships; however, unlike AA, we believe that healthy family members can learn to be sober social supports (instead of mandating a sponsor). Our program uses the following 8 principles to help you change your negative thoughts, set and achieve realistic goals and stop relying on alcohol, drugs, sex, food or gambling to escape from the stress, anxiety, disappointments and frustrations of life.
1. Honesty: Fairness and straightforwardness of conduct; adherence to the facts. We start by talking about head-heart-and-gut honesty. If it is logically right, doing it or believing it does not make you feel bad and it does not tie your belly up in a knot, you are probably being honest. When one of those areas does not feel right, it usually means you are trying to do something, or convince yourself of something that is just not right. In recovery you need to practice not only being honest with others, but also being honest with yourself. If you grew up in an addicted household, this can be very difficult because you were taught to not trust yourself or anyone else and not feel. Many addicts have no idea what they like, want and feel, because they have never been allowed to figure it out. The first step in recovery is just that. Get honest with yourself. Figure out what is awesome about you. Evaluate all of those negative messages you have in your head, and figure out if they are true or messages/should that you can purge. Then figure out what you want 3 months from now, 6 months and 5 years. This will give you an idea about what path to start taking. It is important to remember that change is very stressful, and many times people change not to reach something, but to run or escape from something. To that end, AAs notion that you should avoid major changes for the first year are spot on.
2. Hope: Desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment; expectation of fulfillment or success; someone or something on which hopes are centered (including yourself and mankind). We have to have hope that if we start changing our thoughts and actions we will start to feel better and our relationships will improve. Hope is the foundation of motivation. In the first step, Honesty, you figured out where you want to go and started figuring out who you are. In order to do the hard work to stay true to yourself, you need to be motivated. Without hope there is no motivation.
3. Faith: Allegiance to duty or a person; loyalty; fidelity to one’s promises; sincerity of intentions; something that is believed especially with strong conviction. You must have faith in the process, faith in yourself that you can do it, and faith in others that they will do the best they can with the tools they have. This means you need to surround yourself with people with good tools (coping skills, social supports, resources and recovery skills). You need to see that you can have fun clean and sober. You need to have faith that if you do the work, good things will come.
4. Courage: Mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. Courage closely follows faith. Changing the way you interpret things, learning to trust people, persevering even when the immediate outcome is not positive and forgoing the short-term, immediate rewards for the greater rewards when you complete your journey. These all require great faith in yourself, faith in the process and courage.
5. Integrity: Firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values; incorruptibility; an unimpaired condition. Once you have gotten honest with yourself and others, have identified a worthy goals (hope), realized that you can achieve those goals if you rely on yourself, the process and other people, and have committed yourself to change (courage) then it is time to talk about integrity. That is, the unwavering commitment to the aforementioned principles. Sometimes we call this grounding. We encourage people to have morning and evening reflection sessions (5 or 10 minutes) in which they assess where they are at/how they feel emotionally, mentally, physically, socially, spiritually, occupationally and environmentally. They also reaffirm their commitment to themselves to achieve their goals by asking themselves “What can I do today or what did I do today that is in line with where I want to go and the person I know I can be?” AND “What could I have done better?” Change is hard and you will not be 100% perfect —well ever. However, knowing what you did right and where you have room for growth is a huge step in maintaining that forward momentum.
6. Willingness: Inclined or favorably disposed in mind; ready; prompt to act or respond. As with all the other “steps,” willingness follows closely on integrity. Get honest about what you want. Cultivate hope that with work things will get better. Have faith that your goals can be achieved. Muster the courage to keep going even when there are easier choices. Maintain a constant focus on your goals, values and commitment to yourself (integrity), and be willing to do the hard work.
7. Humility: Sometimes the hard work required means getting over yourself. Having to admit when you are wrong. Saying I am sorry and remembering that we are all one bad choice away from devastation.
8. Brotherly Love: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Once we have humbled ourselves, and learned to love and accept ourselves, despite our shortcomings, we can move on to having compassion/brotherly love for others. This is one huge stumbling block for many people. The inability to forgive, accept or let go of resentments; and the tendency to get angry over even the smallest things trips up most people’s recovery. This anger festers and negatively colors everything else. Seeing the bright side. Looking for the compassionate explanation. Realizing that what most people do really does not have anything to do with you (that whole getting over yourself thing again). All of these things feel awkward at first, but eventually become second nature.
Who Said: Removing the shoulds (and the stress) from our lives.
July 14, 2011 by
So often we get stuck in the shoulda, coulda, woulda trap without even knowing why. Who said you should have been a lawyer instead of a teacher? Who said you could have been a millionaire, but instead you chose to be a cop. What makes you thing that you would have done anything differently? Shoulda, coulda, woulda, but didn’t. Through listening to our parents, teachers, friends and the media, we develop a litany of “Shoulds” in our head. Most of the time we take these things at face value without even asking ourselves if we believe it is something we should do, or if it is just something others are trying to convince us we should do. When we start to get depressed or stressed out, often it is because of all of the things we are telling ourselves we should be doing, but are not. For example, there used to be a commercial in which a very pretty woman sang about being able to bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan and never let you forget you’re a man. In reality, how many women can work a full time job, do all of the house chores, errands and cooking and handle the bedroom as well without getting stressed out? Very few. Unfortunately, many women in the 70s and 80s grew up believing that they “should” be superwomen, able to be everything to everyone all of the time.
There are times when we are unable to do things and we wish we could have. However, many times these things we “should” have done are simply overly high standards or goals someone else has tried to convince us that we care about. If you are going to beat yourself up over something you “shouda” done, then at least make sure you are the one that believes that and why. Try filling in the following statements: “I believe I should have done this because ______. The fact that I did not do it means that I am _________.” If you can fill in that statement with something that is reasonable and true, then move to the next step. If you cannot complete the exercise with reasonable answers, then you have to ask yourself why you are beating yourself up for something that really does not make that much difference anyway.
There is a basic principle that we do the things that are most rewarding (and least painful). Sometimes there is something that you truly believe you “should” do, like going on a walk instead of eating another piece of chocolate cake. If it is something that you really want (as opposed to something someone else tells you to do), then the challenge becomes figuring out how to make the desired activity(exercise) more rewarding than what you currently are doing (eating cake).
The first step is to do what we call a decisional balance exercise. Identify the pros and cons of eating a second piece of cake and the pros and cons of exercise. It is important to make the pros of exercise and the cons of eating cake strong arguments for exercise. If you need to, add incentives. For example, under the pros of exercise, say that you will get to go buy a new outfit every time you successfully complete 20 miles of walking (over multiple days of course).
So, to sum it all up. Identify what is important in your mind to do and why. Those are the goals you focus on. The rest of it can be delegated, ignored or compromised.
Easing the Back-to-School Transition for Northern Virginia Students
June 15, 2011 by
August is Back to School which means back into a routine, back to struggles with homework and back to being sick every month. Make no mistake, August and September are very challenging months for many families, but there are some ways to make the transition go a bit more smoothly. Remember last month we talked about the basic needs: Food/Sleep/Shelter/Medicine, followed by safety and relationships. The same principles apply here.
First let’s talk about the basics—primarily sleep. Over the summer kids often get out of the school routine, stay up later and play more computer games. When they go back to school not only are they in X-Box withdrawal, but they are also tired. Not convinced? Think about how just the one hour time change affects most people. Couple all of that with the stresses inherent in being a pre-teen or teenager, and it is totally overwhelming. People’s natural response to being overwhelmed is to either get control of it or escape it. Children often try to get control by rebelling. I remember, as a child, thinking that school wouldn’t come as quickly if I just stayed awake. When I slept, time seemed to fly by, so I would do whatever I could to stay up later. On the other hand, some children have just gotten used to a later schedule, so it is hard for them to get to sleep at 8:30 or 9. Believe it or not, our bodies get into a rhythm, and certain environmental cues can help us get sleepy. Think about how we help toddlers develop good sleeping habits. There is a routine—Eat dinner. Take a bath. Read a story. Go to sleep. Once they begin the sequence, the brain says “Oh, I know what comes next.” Some children are more sensitive to changes in routine in others, however, if you start implementing the back to school routine at the end of July, August will go much more smoothly.
Then come the homework struggles. Homework can be very difficult for kids after a long, tiring, stressful day at school. For many children, it takes all they’ve got to behave all day, and they need a little while to wind down, decompress, or just be loud and get out energy. Trying to get them to come home, eat a snack and do their homework is usually a losing battle. Make sure they have a time limit though. For example, they can have free time until 4pm, but from 4 until dinner they must sit at the desk and do their homework. Some children also find it difficult to get back into the routine of being independent, and will lapse into “but it’s too hard,” or “I have too much homework. I’ll never get it done.” This is when we, as parents, have to be coaches. It is far easier just to give them the answer, or do it for them, and, after a long day at work ourselves, that is very tempting. However, when that behavior is rewarded, it is very difficult to stop it. Create the safety for them. Encourage them to try to learn the material. Help them see that they are not stupid, and it is not hopeless.
Third, the sicknesses from the mutant bugga-buggas that all the other kids were exposed to over the summer/break/holiday. Your kids are going to go to school, hug their friends, play on the playground and share not only their memories, but also their germs. Our bodies are pretty adept at dealing with the stuff we encounter on a daily basis, but have you ever noticed how kids always seem to get sick right after a break. And by sick, I mean really ill not just fake throwing up. Well, there are a few things we can do to improve our odds. First, wash your hands often. Secondly, make sure everyone is getting plenty of rest, drinking plenty of water and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. Vitamins A, C and E can help people boost their immune system. Third, and the one that people forget about is have fun. When we are stressed our bodies release all sorts of chemicals to prepare us to fight or flee. Why should we care about that? Look at the presidents before they take office and after they have served 2 terms. Most look as if they have aged 20 years, not eight. Stress takes a huge toll on the body. If you are having fun, you will be less stressed.
That leads me to my final point, all work and no play. . . If families go from all play during the summer to all work during the school year, it is not surprising that children resist going back to school. Set up one day a month that you can do something fun as a family. Movie night with the grandparents? Bowling? Camping? Cook out? Whatever works for your family. Try having each person write down what they like to do on a piece of paper and put it in a jar. Then, before family night, draw from the jar to see what you will do. Finally, find one night per month that you can do something just with your partner. Too often couples start having problems because they are too caught up in the day-to-day stresses of the family, housework and the like. Have at least one night a month that you can go out and actually talk in complete sentences without interruption.
This is not an exhaustive list of things to do, but it gets you started and might spark some of your own ideas. I would love to hear any suggestions you might have that makes back-to-school not-so-cruel.
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